Michael Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., disputed reporting Sunday about a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that preceded the war.
“This whole thing about the prime minister coming in and dragging the president into this, it’s all, you know, for publicity purposes,” Leiter said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
The New York Times reported last week that Netanyahu pitched President Trump on bombing Iran in a Feb. 11 visit to the White House, forecasting that a joint effort between Israel and the U.S. could bring an end to the Islamic Republic.Â
According to the report, the Israelis argued at the meeting that the Iranian regime would be so weak it would be unable to stop the flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Leiter said he was in the room for the meeting and refuted that characterization, saying the Israelis “argued the potential that we’ve got to work towards that.”
“Nothing was presented as a fact, that if we do this, this will be the outcome. It’s not science. Politics is not science. Military operations are not science,” he said. “We presented the case that this is what we think should be done. The president makes a decision.”
Asked about the Times’ reporting that the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, believed that there would be protests that would overthrow the regime, Leiter said “the Mossad thought that, as we saw in January, hundreds of thousands and millions of people rise up.”
“The potential for that happening again is even greater now, and we still think it’s very great,” he added. “We still think that could materialize over the next couple of months.”
The Israeli ambassador said Israel and the U.S. have “been in lockstep from the beginning.”
“We’re going to end this thing together as well,” Leiter said. “So we’re completely supportive of the president’s efforts, both diplomatically and militarily.”
