Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eil Zamir met with Pentagon officials in Washington this weekend to discuss the situation surrounding Iran, the office of Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced.
“Following a series of meetings that the IDF Chief of Staff recently held in the United States, he and Katz discussed the situation in the region and the IDF's operational readiness for any scenario,“ the statement said.
According to Galei Zahal (GLZ) journalist Doron Kadosh, Zamir recently stated in his assessment that the US could attack Iran within “two weeks to two months“. “Assessments are that no attack is expected in the coming days, at least for now, and it seems that the US is not sharing everything with Israel and is excluding Israel from its decision-making processes“, writes Kadosh.
High-ranking security sources in GLZ believe that the coming weeks will be tense, as Iran marks the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution (Ten Days of Fajr, February 1-11), and mid-February marks the 40th anniversary of the deaths of thousands of protesters during the unrest.
According to Israel, Kadosh writes, disagreements have emerged within the Iranian leadership: Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei maintains a firm and uncompromising position regarding negotiations with the US, while other senior Iranian officials support a conciliatory approach.
According to GLZ, the Israeli side fears that US President Donald Trump may reach an agreement with Iran only on the nuclear program, but the deal will not include ballistic missiles. CNN reported that Tehran has refused to discuss Washington's request to limit the range of its ballistic missiles.
“Trump will be able to say that he reached a better deal than Obama, but it will still be a bad deal for us and for the entire region, because the Iranians will continue to produce missiles in insane quantities and will continue to use their proxies,“ sources told Army Radio.
According to their information, Iran has not yet exceeded the stockpile of ballistic missiles it possessed before the 12-day war with Israel in June 2025, but is getting close to that number.
A week earlier, Zamir met with Brad Cooper, head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), which is responsible for US military operations in the Middle East.
This week, the head of Israeli military intelligence, General Shlomi Binder also traveled to Washington. He met with senior officials from the Pentagon, the CIA and the White House, a Reuters source said. According to Axios, Binder shared intelligence with the US side about possible Iranian targets.
The United States has deployed a “massive armada“, led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, to the Middle East, along with additional air defense assets, to protect its assets and allies in the region in the event of an Iranian retaliatory strike, The Wall Street Journal reported. Trump threatened to strike Iran if Tehran does not agree to the nuclear deal. According to the WSJ, the US president has asked the military to develop an attack option that would not lead to a prolonged war.
Khamenei responded by threatening a regional war. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on January 31 that Tehran would not engage in direct talks on the nuclear deal until Washington stopped making threats. General Mohammad Pakpour, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Tehran "has its finger on the trigger."