Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Sunday that the goal of its military campaign in Iran “is not a regime change.”
“This is for the Iranian people to decide,” Saar said in an interview on CNN. He said the Israeli security Cabinet set the objective as eliminating Iran's nuclear program and minimizing its ballistic missile threat.
“I believe what we are doing, as an ally for the US and for the Western civilization as a whole, is critical for stability in this part of the world,” Saar said, adding: “If we learn something from our history, when somebody says 'I'm going to eliminate the Jews,' take him at his word.”
He said Iran was within six months of being able to build as many as nine nuclear bombs.
Iran's foreign minister was scheduled to also be interviewed on CNN but had to cancel at the last minute, the network said.
