PM Netanyahu to present Trump with Iran strike options during upcoming Mar-a-Lago meeting – report

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to present a range of options for possible new strikes in Iran during his upcoming meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, NBC News reported on Saturday.

The report came amid increasing concern in Israel that the Iranian regime is quickly rebuilding its ballistic missile capabilities, which Netanyahu had listed as being equally dangerous as its nuclear weapons program.

After the 12-Day War in June, he said Israel had removed “two existential threats — the threat of destruction via nuclear weapons and the threat of destruction via 20,000 ballistic missiles” that Iran was aiming to build.

Israeli officials have told media outlets that Netanyahu plans to visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Dec. 29.

For the moment, a restoration of the missile program is seen as more concerning in Israel than feeble attempts to rebuild the nuclear sites. Without a quick intervention, Iran could increase its missile production capabilities to 3,000 per year, NBC said, citing sources.

NBC cited a source with “direct knowledge” of Israel’s plans, who said Netanyahu plans to present Trump with a range of options for striking Iran, as Israel did ahead of the strikes in June.

Israeli officials had in June laid out several options on a coffee table in the Oval Office, ranging from a possibility for Israel to attack alone, to limited U.S. support, joint attacks, to a U.S. operation.

In the end, Israel concentrated on destroying Iran’s air defense system and ballistic missile sites, paving the way for “Operation Midnight Hammer” to take out the nuclear facilities.

Trump told the nation on Wednesday that he “destroyed the Iran nuclear threat and ended the war in Gaza, bringing for the first time in 3,000 years, peace to the Middle East.”

Last week, he reiterated his readiness to resume nuclear talks with Iran while warning that it would take the regime “a long time” to restore its missile production.

“But if they do want to come back without a deal, then we’re going to obliterate that one, too,” Trump said. “You know, we can knock out their missiles very quickly, we have great power.”

Two former Israeli officials cautioned that Trump may not be welcoming toward the proposal of new military strikes in Iran amid continuing differences of opinion over Israel’s position in the Gaza ceasefire, according to NBC.

Rebuilding the ballistic missile array would allow Iran to use its reconstituted threat as a shield to rebuild its proxy armies in the region, and ultimately allow it to rebuild the nuclear program while using missiles and proxies as deterrents, as it has done in the past, an informed source and a former U.S. official told NBC.

The Associated Press said in September that recent satellite imagery showed that the regime had begun rebuilding manufacturing sites. However, Israel destroyed the regime’s planetary mixers that are needed to produce solid-fuel missiles, and Iran is believed not to have replaced them yet.

Solid fuel allows for missiles to be stored underground for a long time before quickly being deployed and launched within minutes, while also improving the missiles’ range and accuracy.

In September, an Iranian general threatened that Iran is prepared for war with the United States if Israel launches new strikes on the Islamic Republic.

In November, Iranian officials said missile factories are working around the clock and that, in a future conflict, they “hope to fire 2,000 at once to overwhelm Israeli defenses, not 500 over 12 days (as they did in the June war).”