Abbas Araghchi, Iran\u2019s foreign minister, was targeted in an Israeli assassination plot<\/p>\n
Senior U.S. officials feared that Israel intended to assassinate Iran\u2019s top negotiators as the Trump administration pursued a high-stakes deal to end the war there and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, current and former officials familiar with the matter said.<\/p>\n
Washington\u2019s objection to killing Abbas Araghchi, Iran\u2019s foreign minister, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the country\u2019s parliamentary speaker, was so acute that this spring it took the extraordinary step of asking intermediaries to warn Iran about Israel\u2019s assassination aims, the officials said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou kill those folks and you\u2019re killing the pragmatists,\u201d said a U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. outlook on Israel\u2019s targeted killing campaign.<\/p>\n
As far back as March, when the Trump administration began to explore diplomatic options for ending the war, U.S. officials told Israeli counterparts not to continue killing Iran\u2019s political leadership, said a diplomat.<\/p>\n
That U.S. officials felt the need to take an additional step and warn Iran that its top negotiators could be killed demonstrates the strain in the U.S.-Israel relationship<\/a> and the Trump administration\u2019s limited influence over the Israeli government, said analysts.<\/p>\n \u201cIt shows the divergence of war aims between the U.S. and Israel and the fundamental determination on the part of Israel\u2019s prime minister to undermine any negotiation that the U.S. might conclude,\u201d said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official who has advised Republican and Democratic administrations.<\/p>\n The Israeli Embassy in Washington declined to comment.<\/p>\n When asked for comment from the White House,a U.S. official said, \u201cThe president wants the peace process to play out.\u201d<\/p>\n U.S. concerns about Israeli assassinations were reported earlier by the New York Times.<\/p>\n When the United States and Israel started the Iran war on Feb. 28, Israel assassinated scores of Iranian political and military leaders, including Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while the U.S. military focused on degrading Iran\u2019s navy and missile capabilities.<\/p>\n At first, the two allies shared the goal of regime change<\/a> in Iran, but they quickly decoupled as U.S. officials assessed that Tehran\u2019s military and clerical establishment would maintain their grip on power.<\/p>\n More cracks emerged after Israel assassinated Iran\u2019s top national security official, Ali Larijani<\/a>, in mid-March, officials said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe turning point wasn\u2019t the assassination of the supreme leader, it was the assassination of Larijani,\u201d said a Western official. \u201cThe U.S. was looking for an Iranian official to deal with and all of a sudden he was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n In recent months, Araghchi and Ghalibaf have been the key contacts for U.S. officials in securing an initial ceasefire in April and then a framework agreement to end the war<\/a> in June.<\/p>\n