Netanyahu presses Trump to strike Iran right after midterms, Axios cites tough Saturday call between allies

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President Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar a Lago (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Alex Brandon)

Benjamin Netanyahu is pressing Donald Trump to strike Iran immediately after Tuesday's midterm elections, Axios reports, citing one Israeli and one US source who described the Saturday phone call between the two men as 'tough' and 'direct' respectively. The White House and Netanyahu's office both declined to comment. Trump, for his part, says he is 'not in much of a hurry.'

The gap between the two allies is one of sequencing, not substance. Trump wants negotiations with Tehran to run their course first; Netanyahu wants the strikes now. Both tracks are being kept warm simultaneously. Trump told reporters that Iran 'wants a deal as soon as possible' — and, in the same breath, that the US still has to 'take care' of a suspected nuclear facility built into a mountain, one he claims could be destroyed 'in 10 minutes' using a plan that already exists. He followed precisely this dual-track pattern before both earlier strikes on Iran this year and last.

Qatari mediators are carrying proposals between Washington and Tehran while Iranian diplomats held a third straight day of talks with Qatari representatives in Doha on Sunday. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed negotiations are 'moving toward implementation' of a two-day plan — a condensed version of the seven-day plan he unveiled at the UN General Assembly in September — that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and establish a regional ceasefire within 48 hours. Iran has conditioned the strait's reopening on US concessions, chiefly sanctions relief and the release of more than $12 billion in frozen assets. Tehran refuses to negotiate over its nuclear program, which remains Washington's central demand. The strait has carried a fifth of the world's oil; its closure has already pushed American petrol prices to record highs ahead of the vote.

The calendar discipline is unmistakable. Vice President J.D. Vance sent a letter to Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, calling for in-person talks to resume and for the nuclear issue to be taken up immediately — a contact Trump says he approved while describing it as an effort to deliver medical aid. Meanwhile Assistant Secretary of State Donald Blome told the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain that 'the hand of negotiation has been extended' — and that the US is simultaneously 'prepared to go in another direction.' An eight-month war, a stranglehold on Iranian crude exports, and a mountain facility on standby: everything waits on Tuesday night.