Netanyahu Says U.S.-Israeli Campaign Created Conditions For Iran Regime’s Fall

by Emmitt Barry, Worthy News Washington D.C. Bureau Chief

(Worthy News) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday night that the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran has created the conditions for the Islamic Republic’s eventual collapse, declaring that Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure, military leadership, missile program, navy, and terror network have been severely degraded.

Speaking at the 2026 JNS International Policy Summit at Jerusalem’s Waldorf Astoria, Netanyahu said Israel, working with the United States, had carried out “the largest airstrike in our history” and prevented Iran from acquiring and potentially using nuclear weapons.

“Had we not acted in Operation Rising Lion and in Operation Roaring Lion, Iran would have had atomic bombs, and they would have used them,” Netanyahu said. “That’s what we prevented.”

According to Netanyahu, the combined operations destroyed major components of Iran’s nuclear program and eliminated 20 senior nuclear scientists, including 12 during Operation Rising Lion and eight more during Operation Roaring Lion.

“When you take out the scientists, it’s very hard to make a nuclear weapon, exceedingly hard,” he said.

Operation Rising Lion, a 12-day Israeli-led air campaign in June 2025, eliminated dozens of senior Iranian military leaders, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, and nuclear scientists in its opening minutes. The operation later received direct U.S. support when seven B-2 bombers struck three Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22, 2025.

Operation Roaring Lion, the larger U.S.-Israeli campaign conducted between Feb. 28 and June 17, 2026, targeted the heart of the Islamic regime’s war machine. Netanyahu said the strikes decimated Iran’s leadership, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, eliminated its remaining ballistic missile capability, sank its navy, and severely damaged its military-industrial base.

The economic damage, Netanyahu said, is measured in “hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars” and could take years to repair.

“They may not recover,” he said. “Once you deal these blows and once the rift between the regime and the people is so deep, you cannot tell when such a regime will fall.”

Netanyahu said Israel and the United States had not merely weakened Iran’s military capabilities, but had opened the door for the Iranian people to reclaim their nation.

“I think we created the conditions for its future fall,” he said. “That is what will be the real triumph, when the Iranian people take their own destiny in their hands, and they knock out this brutal regime that is terrorizing them and terrorizing the rest of the world.”

The prime minister also framed Israel’s campaign against Iran as part of a broader strategic reversal following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel. Since then, Netanyahu said, Israel has moved from defense to decisive action against the terror axis built and funded by Tehran.

“We took out Sinwar. We took out Haniyeh. We took out Deif. We took out tens of thousands of terrorists,” Netanyahu said, referring to senior Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Deif. He also said Israel had brought home every hostage taken during the Oct. 7 assault.

In Lebanon, Netanyahu said Israel had “decimated Hezbollah’s military machine,” destroying more than 90% of the estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles the Iranian-backed terror group had amassed against the Jewish state. He also praised Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and referenced the intelligence operation known as “Operation Grim Beeper,” in which Hezbollah communications devices were reportedly booby-trapped.

Netanyahu said Israeli forces would remain in southern Lebanon for as long as necessary to protect Israeli civilians from Hezbollah attacks.

“No country would be asked to do otherwise,” he said.

Drawing a direct comparison to U.S. national security, Netanyahu asked what America would do if thousands of terrorists across its border bombarded American towns with rockets, missiles, and drones.

“You know damn well what America would do,” he said. “It would cross the border, create a security zone, kill the terrorists and protect its people until the threat is removed. That’s exactly what we are doing.”

Netanyahu also defended Israel’s conduct in Lebanon, saying the Israel Defense Forces had gone to extraordinary lengths to minimize civilian casualties despite Hezbollah’s use of human shields. He said the ratio of terrorists to noncombatants killed had been as low as 5 to 1, calling the figure “unheard of” in modern urban warfare.

“No army goes to such lengths as the Israeli army,” Netanyahu said.

Still, the Israeli premier said the greatest achievement of the campaign was not only military, but psychological. Israel, he said, had shattered the long-standing fear that striking Iran directly was too dangerous.

“We changed Israel’s security doctrine,” Netanyahu said. “We initiate. We attack. We surprise. And we attack those enemies that seek our destruction, that seek to kill us—we attack them before they have a chance to do so.”

Addressing reported tensions with Washington over Iran and Lebanon, Netanyahu said he and President Donald Trump respect one another as leaders of sovereign nations.

“In the United States, they say that President Trump does everything I ask him to do, and in Israel, they say that I do everything that he wants me to do. Well, neither is true,” Netanyahu said. “We’re leaders of independent and proud countries. We stand for our interests; I stand for the interests of Israel, and for its security. Often we see eye to eye; sometimes we don’t.”

The 2026 JNS International Policy Summit is expected to address U.S.-Israel relations, the war with Iran, Israel’s military and legal battles, rising global antisemitism after Oct. 7, and Israel’s relationship with the Christian world.

For Netanyahu, however, the central message was clear: Israel has entered a new era in which it will no longer wait for existential threats to mature before acting.

After decades of Iranian terror, nuclear blackmail, and proxy warfare across the Middle East, Netanyahu said Israel had helped break the power of a regime that has oppressed its own people while threatening the Jewish state and the free world.

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