US President Donald Trump is cautious about attacking Iran because he fears a repeat of the Libya scenario in that country, the New York Post reported, citing its sources.
According to one of them, Trump "doesn't want this to turn into Libya".
"There are two reasons why Trump is talking about Libya. First, the chaos that erupted after what we did with Gaddafi. Second, the intervention in Libya has made it more difficult to negotiate and make deals with countries like North Korea and Iran," said the newspaper's source, who has personally heard Trump compare Iran and Libya.
According to the New York Post, Trump is leaning toward limited strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordow.
“Libya was bombed on a much larger scale, which led to regime change“, one of the newspaper's sources believes.
After the overthrow and killing of the country's leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya ceased to function as a unified state. In recent years, there has been a confrontation between the authorities in Tripoli in the western part of the country and the authorities in the eastern part, which were supported by the Libyan National Army.
In 2021 The UN-backed Libyan Political Dialogue Forum in Geneva has elected a transitional executive until general elections, which have not yet been held.
There are currently two governments in Libya that do not recognize each other.
The first cabinet, supported by the UN and led by Abdel Hamid Dbeiba, is based in Tripoli. The second, led by Osama Hamad, was initially based in Benghazi and later moved to Sirte.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with state-run Kan TV that overthrowing the Iranian government is not the goal of the Jewish state's operation, but could be a result of it.
He also commented on statements by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who acknowledged that "the cessation of existence" of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is one of the targets of the operation.
According to Netanyahu, he had "given instructions that no one in Iran would be immune" from Israeli attacks.