Israeli president tells Bild: War with Iran needs ‘end result’, not exact timetable

March 10 (Reuters) – Israel’s President Isaac Herzog on Tuesday did not offer a timetable on when the war with Iran could end, telling Germany’s Bild newspaper: “We need to take a deep breath and get to the end result.”

Herzog said the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran were changing the whole configuration of the Middle East. He defended strikes on Iranian oil sites as a way of taking away money from Tehran’s “war machine”. 

The interview was published as the U.S. and Israel pounded Iran with what the Pentagon and Iranians on the ground said were the most intense airstrikes of the war, despite global markets betting that President Donald Trump will seek to end the conflict soon.

Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, had earlier said his country was not planning for an endless war and was consulting with Washington about when to stop it.

“The Iranians are the ones spreading chaos and terror throughout the region and the world. So I think if we measure everything by a speedometer, we won’t get anywhere. We need to take a deep breath and get to the end result,” Herzog told Bild. 

Eliminating the Iranian threat would “enable the entire system in the region to suddenly breathe again and develop further. That’s fantastic,” he added.

(Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)