Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the US and Israel will resume military action against Iran if needed during an interview with CNBC on Wednesday.

"I think there’s a tactical game that is being played," he told CNBC's Sara Eisen, adding that he would leave the ball in US President Donald Trump's court if escalation was necessary. 

“Iran surely knows what [Trump] has said, that if necessary, there will be a full-scale return to military action. It’s a president’s decision, Israel is ready, and the US forces are ready.”

Netanyahu added that he and Trump speak every two days.

He then said that he thinks that the Islamic Republic had been "enormously weakened" but did not state if he thought regime change was imminent.

Tel Aviv Scene, Operation Roaring Lion, March 2026 (credit: MDA SPOKESPERSON)
Tel Aviv Scene, Operation Roaring Lion, March 2026 (credit: MDA SPOKESPERSON)

Netanyahu tells CNBC that there are huge cracks in Islamic regime 

“You can’t quite predict when a regime like that goes under,” Netanyahu said. “You didn’t predict it in a number of cases: Not in Romania, and not in the fall of the Berlin Wall, and nobody predicted it, but it happened. Why? Because the cracks were propagating underneath.”

“In fact, you have enormous cracks right now in Iran, and you can’t predict when it’ll happen,” he added. “But I said yesterday in a public forum here ... ‘Look, I believe that ultimately these cracks will propagate and the regime will fall, and we’ll do our best.’”

“I think that we have to help the Iranian people to bring down this regime, and that hasn’t changed, but it’s not going to happen, you know, exactly at the moment of our choosing."