The war between Iran and US-Israel forces took a dramatic turn on Thursday when Washington's Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said on Thursday that its objectives in the conflict differed from that of Israel.
Speaking to the House intelligence committee's annual hearing on worldwide threats to the US, Gabbard noted that Washington's objective was to destroy Iran's ballistic missile program and navy, while Tel Aviv was focusing on disabling Iran's leadership.
"We can see through the operations that the Israeli government has been focused on disabling the Iranian leadership. The president has stated that his objectives are to destroy Iran's ballistic missiles launching capability, their ballistic missile production capability, and their navy," she said.
This directly contrasts the US and Israel's earlier statements highlighting their joint collaboration in the Iran operation, which began nearly three weeks ago.
In fact, a BBC report has noted that Israeli officials have often stated that its attacks on Iran were being conducted in close coordination with the US.
"We are very much aligned on most or all of our goals regarding the Islamic regime in Iran ... We want the same thing," Alex Gandler, spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London, told the BBC on Thursday.
Even Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu had spoken of the "unprecedented partnership between Israel and the US" at a March 12 press conference.
Was the South Pars attack a turning point?
Israel's attack on Iran's South Pars—a part of the world's largest natural gas reserve—and Tehran's retaliatory strike on energy facilities in the Ras Laffan Industrial City sparked a reaction from Trump, widely seen as a major turning point in the war.
"NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field," he said in a Truth Social post on Thursday, claiming that the US "knew nothing" about the South Pars attack and that Qatar was not involved.
Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday strongly condemned the Iranian airstrikes on energy facilities owned by Qatar Energy—the country’s largest energy company—in the Ras Laffan Industrial City, which is home to some of the world’s biggest LNG facilities and a Pearl Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) plant.
Trump has also warned that the US would "massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before", if Iran were to attack "innocent" Qatar again.
Israeli media, however, claim the opposite, with centrist paper Yedioth Ahronoth stating that the South Pars attack was "agreed upon between Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and US President Trump", as per the report.
The report also cites right-wing paper Israel Hayom, which claimed "President Trump discussed the upcoming Israeli strike in [Iran's coastal city of] Asaluyeh with leaders of three Persian Gulf states over the weekend".
