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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday claimed in words given to a visiting US delegation that Iran is seeking to conquer the broader Middle East which includes plans to topple the regimes of Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

The delegation included US generals and admirals on a visit to Jerusalem. Netanyahu in raising the alarm of the Islamic Republic’s alleged ambitions went so far as to reference an ongoing “seven-front” conflict, of which Tehran is the puppet master. This is Israel is poised to launch a potential offensive against Hezbollah in south Lebanon.

“Their goal is to have a combined ground offensive from various fronts, coupled with a combined missile bombardment. We’ve been given an opportunity to scuttle it,” Netanyahu said. “The first requirement is to cut that hand, Hamas.”

“The people who did this thing to us are not going to be there,” he vowed in reference to the Oct.7 terror attack which kicked off the Gaza war. “We face a long battle — I don’t think it’s that long — but we’ll get rid of them.”

He then emphasized the broader Israeli security goal to “deter the other elements of the Iran terror axis” – which is widely seen as including Baghdad, Damascus, and Hezbollah. But in these new remarks he took it a big step further:

“But we have to deal with the axis,” he said, arguing that the Iran-backed alliance is “on a march to conquer the Middle East… to conquer Saudi Arabia, conquer the Arabian peninsula.”

“It’s just a question of time,” he added. “What’s standing in the way?” he asked. “The ‘small Satans’ — that’s us,” he added, referencing Iran’s disparaging nickname for Israel.

But this assessment seems far from the reality, given that over a year ago Iran entered a Beijing-brokered peace and normalization deal with Saudi Arabia.

Following the March 10, 2023 signing of the deal, ambassadors were exchanged, and Saudi Arabia opened its embassy in Tehran for the first time in seven years.

However, historic tensions remain, given the long history of the Sunni vs. Shia rivalry in the region. While Saudi Arabia is the global center of hardline Sunni wahhabism, Iran is a Shia theocracy. 

The ten-year long Syria war can be seen as part of this broader rivalry, given President Bashar al-Assad is aligned with the ‘Shia axis’ – despite himself being a quasi-secular Baathist leader, and the Sunni Gulf states had partnered with the West in arming jihadists insurgents.

In his Thursday night debate with President Joe Biden, Trump vowed to get tougher on Tehran and accused Biden’s weakness of emboldening the Iranians. “Iran was broke. Anybody that did business with Iran, including China, they couldn’t do business with the United States. They all passed,” Trump said of his time in office and the ‘maximum pressure’ campaign. “Iran was broke. They had no money for Hamas, Hezbollah, for terror. No money whatsoever.”