Inside Trump’s Decision to Join Israel in War
Against Iran
In a series of Situation Room meetings,
President Trump weighed his instincts against the deep concerns of his vice
president and a pessimistic intelligence assessment. Here’s the inside story of
how he made the fateful decision.
1.
High-stakes White House meeting
o
Benjamin Netanyahu met Donald Trump on Feb. 11.
o
Closed-door briefing held in the White House
Situation Room.
2.
Israel’s strategic pitch
o
Presented by intelligence chief David Barnea and
military officials.
o
Key claims:
§ Iran’s
missile program could be destroyed quickly.
§ Regime
vulnerable to collapse with external pressure.
3.
Four-part Israeli plan
o
Targeted:
1.
Elimination of Iran’s leadership (incl. Ali
Khamenei)
2.
Crippling military capability
3.
Internal uprising
4.
Regime change
o
Found:
§ Military
objectives (1 & 2) achievable
§ Regime
change (3 & 4) “unrealistic” and “farcical”
5.
Divergence within Trump’s team
o
Supporters:
§ Pete
Hegseth favored military action
o
Skeptics:
§ JD Vance
strongly opposed large-scale war
§ Warned of
cost, casualties, and geopolitical chaos
6.
Trump’s strategic focus
o
Less concerned about regime change feasibility.
o
Focused on:
§ Destroying
Iran’s military capability
§ Preventing
nuclear weapons development
7.
Military concerns raised
o
Dan Caine highlighted:
§ Risk of munition
depletion
§ Difficulty
securing the Strait of Hormuz
§ Uncertain
war trajectory
8.
Political and economic risks
o
Possible:
§ Surge in
global oil prices
§ Domestic
political backlash
§ Strain on
U.S. military resources
9.
Diplomatic efforts failed
o
Talks via intermediaries (e.g., Oman, Switzerland)
did not yield agreement.
o
Iran rejected proposals including nuclear fuel
guarantees.
10.
Final decision dynamics
11.
Key turning point
·
Intelligence on gathering of Iranian leadership
created time-sensitive opportunity.
·
Increased urgency for action.
12.
Final approval
·
On Feb. 26, Trump concluded:
o
“We need to do it.”
·
Operation approved as “Operation Epic Fury.”
13.
Underlying drivers
·
Long-standing U.S.-Israel alignment on Iran.
·
Trump’s belief in:
o
Quick, decisive military success
o
U.S. military superiority
Conclusion
The decision to go to war with Iran was shaped by Israeli
intelligence influence, internal divisions within the U.S. administration, and
President Trump’s risk-taking instincts, with military objectives
prioritized over broader regime change ambitions.
The
black S.U.V. carrying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the White
House just before 11 a.m. on Feb. 11. The Israeli leader, who had been pressing
for months for the United States to agree to a major assault on Iran, was
whisked inside with little ceremony, out of view of reporters, primed for one
of the most high-stakes moments in his long career.
U.S.
and Israeli officials gathered first in the Cabinet Room, adjacent to the Oval
Office. Then Mr. Netanyahu headed downstairs for the main event: a highly
classified presentation on Iran for President Trump and his team in the White
House Situation Room, which was rarely used for in-person meetings with foreign
leaders.
Mr.
Trump sat down, but not in his usual position at the head of the room’s
mahogany conference table. Instead, the president took a seat on one side,
facing the large screens mounted along the wall. Mr. Netanyahu sat on the other
side, directly opposite the president.
Appearing
on the screen behind the prime minister was David Barnea, the director of
Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, as well as Israeli military
officials. Arrayed visually behind Mr. Netanyahu, they created the image of a
wartime leader surrounded by his team.
Susie
Wiles, the White House chief of staff, sat at the far end of the table.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who doubled as the national security adviser,
had taken his regular seat. Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who
generally sat together in such settings, were on one side; joining them was
John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law,
and Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy, who had been negotiating with the
Iranians, rounded out the main group.
The gathering
had been kept deliberately small to guard against leaks. Other top cabinet
secretaries had no idea it was happening. Also absent was the vice president.
JD Vance was in Azerbaijan, and the meeting had been scheduled on such short
notice that he was unable to make it back in time.
The
presentation that Mr. Netanyahu would make over the next hour would be pivotal
in setting the United States and Israel on the path toward a major armed
conflict in the middle of one of the world’s most volatile regions. And it
would lead to a series of discussions inside the White House over the following
days and weeks, the details of which have not been previously reported, in
which Mr. Trump weighed his options and the risks before giving the go-ahead to
join Israel in attacking Iran.
This
account of how Mr. Trump took the United States into war is drawn from
reporting for a forthcoming book, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial
Presidency of Donald Trump.” It reveals how the deliberations inside the
administration highlighted the president’s instincts, his inner circle’s
fractures and the way he runs the White House. It draws on extensive interviews
conducted on the condition of anonymity to recount internal discussions and
sensitive issues.
The
reporting underscores how closely Mr. Trump’s hawkish thinking aligned with Mr.
Netanyahu’s over many months, more so than even some of the president’s key
advisers recognized. Their close association has been an enduring feature
across two administrations, and that dynamic — however fraught at times — has fueled intense criticism and suspicion on both the left and
the right of American politics.
And
it shows how, in the end, even the more skeptical
members of Mr. Trump’s war cabinet — with the stark exception of Mr. Vance, the
figure inside the White House most opposed to a full-scale war — deferred to
the president’s instincts, including his abundant confidence that the war would
be quick and decisive. The White House declined to comment.
In
the Situation Room on Feb. 11, Mr. Netanyahu made a hard sell, suggesting that
Iran was ripe for regime change and expressing the belief that a joint
U.S.-Israeli mission could finally bring an end to the Islamic Republic.
At
one point, the Israelis played for Mr. Trump a brief video that included a
montage of potential new leaders who could take over the country if the
hard-line government fell. Among those featured was Reza Pahlavi, the exiled
son of Iran’s last shah, now a Washington-based dissident who had tried to
position himself as a secular leader who could shepherd Iran toward a
post-theocratic government.
Mr.
Netanyahu and his team outlined conditions they portrayed as pointing to
near-certain victory: Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a
few weeks. The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the
Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S.
interests in neighboring countries was assessed as
minimal.
Besides,
Mossad’s intelligence indicated that street protests inside Iran would begin
again and — with the impetus of the Israeli spy agency helping to foment riots
and rebellion — an intense bombing campaign could foster the conditions for the
Iranian opposition to overthrow the regime. The Israelis also raised the
prospect of Iranian Kurdish fighters crossing the border from Iraq to open a
ground front in the northwest, further stretching the regime’s forces and
accelerating its collapse.
Mr.
Netanyahu delivered his presentation in a confident monotone. It seemed to land
well with the most important person in the room, the American president.
Sounds
good to me, Mr. Trump told the prime minister. To Mr. Netanyahu, this signaled a likely green light for a joint U.S.-Israeli
operation.
Mr.
Netanyahu was not the only one who came away from the meeting with the
impression that Mr. Trump had all but made up his mind. The president’s
advisers could see that he had been deeply impressed by the promise of what Mr.
Netanyahu’s military and intelligence services could do, just as he had been
when the two men spoke before the 12-day war with Iran in June.
Earlier
in his White House visit on Feb. 11, Mr. Netanyahu had tried to focus the minds
of the Americans assembled in the Cabinet Room on the existential threat posed
by Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
When
others in the room asked the prime minister about possible risks in the
operation, Mr. Netanyahu acknowledged these but made one central point: In his
view, the risks of inaction were greater than the risks of action. He argued
that the price of action would only grow if they delayed striking and allowed
Iran more time to accelerate its missile production and create a shield of
immunity around its nuclear program.
Everyone
in the room understood that Iran had the capacity to build up its missile and
drone stockpiles at a far lower cost and much more quickly than the United
States could build and supply the much more expensive interceptors to protect
American interests and allies in the region.
Mr.
Netanyahu’s presentations — and Mr. Trump’s positive response to them — created
an urgent task for the U.S. intelligence community. Overnight, analysts worked
to assess the viability of what the Israeli team had told the president.
‘Farcical’
The
results of the U.S. intelligence analysis were shared the following day, Feb.
12, in another meeting for only American officials in the Situation Room.
Before Mr. Trump arrived, two senior intelligence officials briefed the
president’s inner circle.
The
intelligence officials had deep expertise in U.S. military capabilities, and
they knew the Iranian system and its players inside out. They had broken down
Mr. Netanyahu’s presentation into four parts. First was decapitation — killing
the ayatollah. Second was crippling Iran’s capacity to project power and
threaten its neighbors. Third was a popular uprising
inside Iran. And fourth was regime change, with a secular leader installed to
govern the country.
The
U.S. officials assessed that the first two objectives were achievable with
American intelligence and military power. They assessed that the third and
fourth parts of Mr. Netanyahu’s pitch, which included the possibility of the
Kurds mounting a ground invasion of Iran, were detached from reality.
When
Mr. Trump joined the meeting, Mr. Ratcliffe briefed him on the assessment. The
C.I.A. director used one word to describe the Israeli prime minister’s regime
change scenarios: “farcical.”
At
that point, Mr. Rubio cut in. “In other words, it’s bullshit,” he said.
Mr.
Ratcliffe added that given the unpredictability of events in any conflict,
regime change could happen, but it should not be considered an achievable
objective.
Several
others jumped in, including Mr. Vance, just back from Azerbaijan, who also
expressed strong skepticism about the prospect of
regime change.
The
president then turned to General Caine. “General, what do you think?”
General
Caine replied: “Sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure
for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed.
They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling.”
Mr.
Trump quickly weighed the assessment. Regime change, he said, would be “their
problem.” It was unclear whether he was referring to the Israelis or the
Iranian people. But the bottom line was that his decision on whether to go to
war against Iran would not hinge on whether Parts 3 and 4 of Mr. Netanyahu’s
presentation were achievable.
Mr.
Trump appeared to remain very interested in accomplishing Parts 1 and 2:
killing the ayatollah and Iran’s top leaders and dismantling the Iranian
military.
General
Caine — the man Mr. Trump liked to refer to as “Razin’ Caine” — had impressed
the president years earlier by telling him the Islamic State could be defeated
far more quickly than others had projected. Mr. Trump rewarded that confidence
by elevating the general, who had been an Air Force fighter pilot, to be his
top military adviser. General Caine was not a political loyalist, and he had
serious concerns about a war with Iran. But he was very cautious in the way he
presented his views to the president.
As
the small team of advisers who were looped into the plans deliberated over the
following days, General Caine shared with Mr. Trump and others the alarming
military assessment that a major campaign against Iran would drastically
deplete stockpiles of American weaponry, including missile interceptors, whose
supply had been strained after years of support for Ukraine and Israel. General
Caine saw no clear path to quickly replenishing these stockpiles.
He
also flagged the enormous difficulty of securing the Strait of Hormuz and the
risks of Iran blocking it. Mr. Trump had dismissed that possibility on the
assumption that the regime would capitulate before it came to that. The
president appeared to think it would be a very quick war — an impression that
had been reinforced by the tepid response to the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear
facilities in June.
General
Caine’s role in the lead-up to the war captured a classic tension between
military counsel and presidential decision-making. So persistent was the
chairman in not taking a stand — repeating that it was not his role to tell the
president what to do, but rather to present options along with potential risks
and possible second- and third-order consequences — that he could appear to
some of those listening to be arguing all sides of an issue simultaneously.
He
would constantly ask, “And then what?” But Mr. Trump would often seem to hear
only what he wanted to hear.
General
Caine differed in almost every way from a prior chairman, Gen. Mark A. Milley,
who had argued vociferously with Mr. Trump during his first administration and
who saw his role as stopping the president from taking dangerous or reckless
actions.
One
person familiar with their interactions noted that Mr. Trump had a habit of
confusing tactical advice from General Caine with strategic counsel. In
practice, that meant the general might warn in one breath about the
difficulties of one aspect of the operation, then in the next note that the
United States had an essentially unlimited supply of cheap, precision-guided
bombs and could strike Iran for weeks once it achieved air superiority.
To
the chairman, these were separate observations. But Mr. Trump appeared to think
that the second most likely canceled out the first.
At
no point during the deliberations did the chairman directly tell the president
that war with Iran was a terrible idea — though some of General Caine’s
colleagues believed that was exactly what he thought.
Trump the Hawk
Distrusted
as Mr. Netanyahu was by many of the president’s advisers, the prime minister’s
view of the situation was far closer to Mr. Trump’s opinion than the
anti-interventionists on the Trump team or in the broader “America First”
movement liked to admit. This had been true for many years.
Of
all the foreign policy challenges Mr. Trump had confronted across two
presidencies, Iran stood apart. He regarded it as a uniquely dangerous
adversary and was willing to take great risks to hinder the regime’s ability to
wage war or to acquire a nuclear weapon. Furthermore, Mr. Netanyahu’s pitch had
dovetailed with Mr. Trump’s desire to dismantle the Iranian theocracy, which
had seized power in 1979, when Mr. Trump was 32. It had been a thorn in the
side of the United States ever since.
Now,
he could become the first president since the clerical leadership took over 47
years ago to pull off regime change in Iran. Usually unmentioned but always in
the background was the added motivation that Iran had plotted to kill Mr. Trump
as revenge over the assassination in January 2020 of Gen. Qassim Suleimani, who
was seen in the United States as a driving force behind an Iranian campaign of
international terrorism.
Back
in office for a second term, Mr. Trump’s confidence in the U.S. military’s
abilities had only grown. He was especially emboldened by the spectacular
commando raid to capture the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from his compound
on Jan. 3. No American lives were lost in the operation, yet more evidence to
the president of the unmatched prowess of U.S. forces.
Within
the cabinet, Mr. Hegseth was the biggest proponent of a military campaign
against Iran.
Mr.
Rubio indicated to colleagues that he was much more ambivalent. He did not
believe the Iranians would agree to a negotiated deal, but his preference was
to continue a campaign of maximum pressure rather than start a full-scale war.
Mr. Rubio, however, did not try to talk Mr. Trump out of the operation, and
after the war began he delivered the administration’s justification with full
conviction.
Ms.
Wiles had concerns about what a new conflict overseas could entail, but she did
not tend to weigh in hard on military matters in larger meetings; rather, she
encouraged advisers to share their views and concerns with the president in
those settings. Ms. Wiles would exert influence on many other issues, but in
the room with Mr. Trump and the generals, she sat back. Those close to her said
she did not view it as her role to share her concerns with the president on a
military decision in front of others. And she believed that the expertise of
advisers like General Caine, Mr. Ratcliffe and Mr. Rubio was more significant
for the president to hear.
Still,
Ms. Wiles had told colleagues that she worried about the United States being
dragged into another war in the Middle East. An attack on Iran carried with it
the potential to set off soaring gas prices months before midterm elections
that could help decide whether the final two years of Mr. Trump’s second term
would be years of accomplishment or subpoenas from House Democrats. But in the
end, Ms. Wiles was on board with the operation.
Vance the Skeptic
Nobody
in Mr. Trump’s inner circle was more worried about the prospect of war with
Iran, or did more to try to stop it, than the vice president.
Mr.
Vance had built his political career opposing precisely the kind of military
adventurism that was now under serious consideration. He had described a war
with Iran as “a huge distraction of resources” and “massively expensive.”
He
was not, however, a dove across the board. In January, when Mr. Trump publicly
warned Iran to stop killing protesters and promised that help was on its way,
Mr. Vance had privately encouraged the president to enforce his red line. But
what the vice president pushed for was a limited, punitive strike, something
closer to the model of Mr. Trump’s missile attack against Syria in 2017 over
the use of chemical weapons against civilians.
The
vice president thought a regime-change war with Iran would be a disaster. His
preference was for no strikes at all. But knowing that Mr. Trump was likely to
intervene in some fashion, he tried to steer toward more limited action. Later,
when it seemed certain that the president was set on a large-scale campaign,
Mr. Vance argued that he should do so with overwhelming force, in the hope of
achieving his objectives quickly.
In
front of his colleagues, Mr. Vance warned Mr. Trump that a war against Iran
could cause regional chaos and untold numbers of casualties. It could also
break apart Mr. Trump’s political coalition and would be seen as a betrayal by
many voters who had bought into the promise of no new wars.
Mr.
Vance raised other concerns, too. As vice president, he was aware of the scope
of America’s munitions problem. A war against a regime with enormous will for
survival could leave the United States in a far worse position to fight
conflicts for some years.
The
vice president told associates that no amount of military insight could truly
gauge what Iran would do in retaliation when survival of the regime was at
stake. A war could easily go in unpredictable directions. Moreover, he thought
there seemed to be little chance of building a peaceful Iran in the aftermath.
Beyond
all of this was perhaps the biggest risk of all: Iran held the advantage when
it came to the Strait of Hormuz. If this narrow waterway carrying vast
quantities of oil and natural gas was choked off, the domestic consequences in
the United States would be severe, starting with higher gasoline prices.
Tucker
Carlson, the commentator who had emerged as another prominent skeptic of intervention on the right, had come to the Oval
Office several times over the previous year to warn Mr. Trump that a war with
Iran would destroy his presidency. A couple weeks before the war began, Mr.
Trump, who had known Mr. Carlson for years, tried to reassure him over the
phone. “I know you’re worried about it, but it’s going to be OK,” the president
said. Mr. Carlson asked how he knew. “Because it always is,” Mr. Trump replied.
In
the final days of February, the Americans and the Israelis discussed a piece of
new intelligence that would significantly accelerate their timeline. The
ayatollah would be meeting above ground with other top officials of the regime,
in broad daylight and wide open for an air attack. It was a fleeting chance to
strike at the heart of Iran’s leadership, the kind of target that might not
present itself again.
Mr.
Trump gave Iran another chance to come to a deal that would block its path to
nuclear weapons. The diplomacy also gave the United States extra time to move
military assets to the Middle East.
The
president had effectively made up his mind weeks earlier, several of his
advisers said. But he had not yet decided exactly when. Now, Mr. Netanyahu
urged him to move fast.
That
same week, Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff called from Geneva after the latest
talks with Iranian officials. Over three rounds of negotiations in Oman and
Switzerland, the two had tested Iran’s willingness to make a deal. At one
point, they offered the Iranians free nuclear fuel for the life of their
program — a test of whether Tehran’s insistence on enrichment was truly about
civilian energy or about preserving the ability to build a bomb.
The
Iranians rejected the offer, calling it an assault on their dignity.
Mr.
Kushner and Mr. Witkoff laid out the picture for the president. They could
probably negotiate something, but it would take months, they said. If Mr. Trump
was asking whether they could look him in the eye and tell him they could solve
the problem, it was going to take a lot to get there, Mr. Kushner told him,
because the Iranians were playing games.
‘I
Think We Need to Do It’
On
Thursday, Feb. 26, around 5 p.m., a final Situation Room meeting got underway.
By now, the positions of everyone in the room were clear. Everything had been
discussed in previous meetings; everyone knew everyone else’s stance. The
discussion would last about an hour and a half.
Mr.
Trump was in his usual place at the head of the table. To his right sat the
vice president; next to Mr. Vance was Ms. Wiles, then Mr. Ratcliffe, then the
White House counsel, David Warrington, then Steven Cheung, the White House
communications director. Across from Mr. Cheung was Karoline Leavitt, the White
House press secretary; to her right was General Caine, then Mr. Hegseth and Mr.
Rubio.
The
war-planning group had been kept so tight that the two key officials who would
need to manage the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil
market, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Energy Secretary Chris Wright,
were excluded, as was Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence.
The
president opened the meeting, asking, OK, what have we got?
Mr.
Hegseth and Mr. Caine ran through the sequencing of the attacks. Then Mr. Trump
said he wanted to go around the table and hear everyone’s views.
Mr.
Vance, whose disagreement with the whole premise was well established,
addressed the president: You know I think this is a bad idea, but if you want
to do it, I’ll support you.
Ms.
Wiles told Mr. Trump that if he felt he needed to proceed for America’s
national security, then he should go ahead.
Mr.
Ratcliffe offered no opinion on whether to proceed, but he discussed the
stunning new intelligence that the Iranian leadership was about to gather in
the ayatollah’s compound in Tehran. The C.I.A. director told the president that
regime change was possible depending on how the term was defined. “If we just
mean killing the supreme leader, we can probably do that,” he said.
When
called on, Mr. Warrington, the White House counsel, said it was a legally
permissible option in terms of how the plan had been conceived by U.S.
officials and presented to the president. He did not offer a personal opinion,
but when pressed by the president to provide one, he said that as a Marine
veteran he had known an American service member killed by Iran years earlier.
This issue remained deeply personal. He told the president that if Israel
intended to proceed regardless, the United States should do so as well.
Mr.
Cheung laid out the likely public relations fallout: Mr. Trump had run for
office opposed to further wars. People had not voted for conflict overseas. The
plans ran contrary, too, to everything the administration had said after the
bombing campaign against Iran in June. How would they explain away eight months
of insisting that Iranian nuclear facilities had been totally obliterated? Mr.
Cheung gave neither a yes nor a no, but he said that whatever decision Mr.
Trump made would be the right one.
Ms.
Leavitt told the president that this was his decision and that the press team
would manage it as best they could.
Mr.
Hegseth adopted a narrow position: They would have to take care of the Iranians
eventually, so they might as well do it now. He offered technical assessments:
They could run the campaign in a certain amount of time with a given level of
forces.
General
Caine was sober, laying out the risks and what the campaign would mean for
munitions depletion. He offered no opinion; his position was that if Mr. Trump
ordered the operation, the military would execute. Both of the president’s top
military leaders previewed how the campaign would unfold and the U.S. capacity
to degrade Iran’s military capabilities.
When
it was his turn to speak, Mr. Rubio offered more clarity, telling the
president: If our goal is regime change or an uprising, we shouldn’t do it. But
if the goal is to destroy Iran’s missile program, that’s a goal we can achieve.
Everyone
deferred to the president’s instincts. They had seen him make bold decisions,
take on unfathomable risks and somehow come out on top. No one would impede him
now.
“I
think we need to do it,” the president told the room. He said they had to make
sure Iran could not have a nuclear weapon, and they had to ensure that Iran
could not just shoot missiles at Israel or throughout the region.
General
Caine told Mr. Trump that he had some time; he did not need to give the
go-ahead until 4 p.m. the following day.
Aboard
Air Force One the next afternoon, 22 minutes before General Caine’s deadline,
Mr. Trump sent the following order: “Operation Epic Fury is approved. No
aborts. Good luck.”