- President Trump appeared to rule out negotiations with Iran, calling for its “unconditional surrender” in a social media post. Mr. Trump has said he wants to be involved in picking Iran’s next leader.
- Russia is providing intelligence on U.S. positions to Iran, three sources, including a senior U.S. official with direct knowledge, confirmed to CBS News on Friday.
- What to know on the seventh day of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran
- Israel heavily bombed Iran’s capital, Tehran, and Lebanon again overnight, announcing a “new phase” in the joint war launched almost a week ago with the U.S.
- President Trump appeared to rule out negotiations with Iran, calling for its “unconditional surrender” in a social media post. Mr. Trump has said he wants to be involved in picking Iran’s next leader.
- Russia is providing intelligence on U.S. positions to Iran, three sources, including a senior U.S. official with direct knowledge, confirmed to CBS News on Friday.
- Airstrikes alone unlikely to result in regime change in Iran, expert warns: “It has never worked
Washington — U.S. and Israeli airstrikes alone are unlikely to result in the ouster of the Iranian government, according to an expert in air campaigns, who said that the risks are growing for a more drawn-out war that could spread beyond the Middle East.
Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who has studied air power for three decades, told CBS News 24/7 that history does not support the idea that bombing alone can unseat a regime and install a more friendly leader.
“The fact of the matter is, for over a century, states have been trying to topple regimes with air power alone and — I’m choosing my words carefully — it has never worked,” Pape told CBS News 24/7 on Friday. “We are heading toward the predictable result of growing risk, growing escalation. And I’m sorry to say this could go on for quite some time.”
Israeli airstrikes at the start of the war killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of other top government officials, but the country’s military and senior clerics still control the levers of power. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has continued to launch retaliatory drone and missile attacks across the region, and a clerical body has been working to select the country’s next supreme leader.
Pape said the initial U.S. and Israeli strikes failed to “produce quick and decisive victory.”
“It’s ultimately a self-defeating policy practice politically. We are injecting nationalism, and the usual result is you get a more hard-line leader. This is why President Trump is saying, ‘I don’t want that one guy,’” he said, referring to Khamenei’s son. “It’s because he would be much worse than what we had before.”
President Trump warned Friday that he will accept nothing less than “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” and has not ruled out the use of ground troops.
The president has called for the Iranian people to seize the opportunity to overthrow the government, but he has also signaled he could accept a new leader in the current power structure if they are more amenable to the U.S. Mr. Trump has frequently cited the example of Venezuela, where American forces captured President Nicolás Maduro and installed an interim leader who is cooperating with the U.S.
Amos Yadlin, the former head of Israeli military intelligence, told CBS News on Friday that no reasonable person in the Israeli government or military believes regime change is feasible at this point.
Pape said that Iran “can do many things to prolong the war and hurt us and never fight a set-piece battle with us.”
“That’s how we lost the Vietnam War. And I’m sorry to say, we’re heading down a road where we don’t have a strategy to win,” he added.
Russia providing intelligence to Iran on U.S. positions, sources say
Russia is providing intelligence to Iran on U.S. positions, three sources confirmed to CBS News on Friday, including a senior U.S. official with direct knowledge.
Earlier Friday, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia’s government is in “dialogue” with representatives of the Iranian leadership. Peskov’s comments came after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Russia and China were assisting Iran politically and “in other ways.”
Germany’s Merz warns against the collapse of the Iranian state after war
Germany’s Merz warns against the collapse of the Iranian state after war
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the ongoing military escalation in the Middle East must not lead to the collapse of the Iranian state and warned it would have far-reaching consequences on migration to Europe.
He said he doesn’t want to see a “Syrian scenario” in Iran, referring to Syria’s long civil war.
“An endless war is not in our interest. The same applies to a collapse of Iranian statehood or proxy conflicts fought on Iranian soil,” he said in a statement.
Merz said that while his government shares the same goals as the U.S. and Israel regarding the Iranian nuclear and missile program, “we want this state to be capable of functioning by itself.”
“The Iranian people have the right to freely decide their own destiny,” Merz said.
He said his appeal in his discussions with the U.S. and Israel is “to create as quickly as possible the preconditions for this country to be stabilized, for it to get a democratically legitimized government and for it to continue to exist as a state.”
“We naturally have a strong interest in this ourselves in order to avoid new waves of refugees from the region,” he said.
Iranian Kurdish faction hopes for U.S. support to capitalize on “great opportunity” presented by war
Iranian Kurdish opposition factions massed along Iraq’s border would love to stage a ground invasion, but for it to be successful, they would benefit hugely from U.S. backup in the skies.
President Trump has said such a Kurdish ground offensive would be “wonderful,” but it’s unclear how much support his administration is willing to offer.
CBS
