Alireza Nourizadeh

Alireza Nourizadeh, director of the Iran and Arab Research Center, said: "At the end of the 12-day war, Israel believed it had created all the conditions for overthrowing the Islamic Republic. If Ayatollah Khamenei had been killed at that time, we would not have witnessed the deaths of 40,000 Iranians in December, there would have been a leadership for the transition phase, and there would have been no need for Donald Trump to re-enter the negotiation process." He added: "In my opinion, Trump is somewhat regretful of that decision. What we heard from him in Ankara was not the language of diplomacy; it was the language of anger and power. It appears that the pressures on him have reached a point where he might make a very serious decision at any moment."