Will the US get involved in the Israel-Iran conflict? Here’s what we know
From CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Kristen Holmes, Betsy Klein, Kylie Atwood and Alayna Treene
Rescue forces at a building that was hit by ballistic missiles in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Monday.
Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg/Getty Images
As Israel and Iran trade waves of strikes, US President Donald Trump has said publicly and privately that he wants to keep the US out of the fray.
Trump
opposed an Israeli plan to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to two sources. This weekend, a senior US official told CNN the Israelis had an opportunity to kill the supreme leader. The US communicated to Israel that Trump opposed the plan, the official said, and the plan was not executed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied reports of such a plan.
The US has offered defensive support to Israel, intercepting an onslaught of Iranian reprisal strikes. But Trump has stopped well short of joining Israel’s military in its attempts to
dismantle Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Sources said Israel had spoken with the US about possibly increasing its level of involvement, though one Israeli official cautioned that those conversations have not yet included “practical” discussions of the finer details.
And Trump has acknowledged that US involvement in the conflict is a possibility.
“We’re not involved in it. It’s possible we could get involved. But we are not at this moment involved,” Trump told ABC News on Sunday.
The competing interests have created a complicated dynamic for a president eager to make good on his pledge to bring peace to the world’s troubled regions.