Trump Okayed Iran Op After Netanyahu Argued for Joint Killing of Khamenei: Report

Both Trump and Netanyahu knew from intelligence briefings earlier in the week that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his key aides would soon meet at his compound in Tehran, making them vulnerable to a “decapitation attack”; it was an attack on the country’s senior leaders, a method frequently used by Israelis but traditionally less so by the United States.

But new intelligence suggested the meeting was postponed from Saturday night to Saturday morning, according to three people with knowledge of the call.

The call has not been reported before.

Determined to advance an operation he has promoted for decades, Netanyahu may never have had a better chance to kill Khamenei and avenge Iran’s previous assassination efforts against Trump, these people said. These included a murder-for-hire plot allegedly orchestrated by Iran in 2024, when Trump was a candidate.

The Justice Department has accused a Pakistani man of trying to recruit people from the United States as part of a plot that amounted to retaliation for Washington’s killing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s top commander, Qasem Soleimani.

The sources, who discussed sensitive internal negotiations on condition of anonymity, said that at the time of the call, Trump had already approved the idea of ​​a US military operation against Iran, but had not yet decided when and under what conditions the US would intervene.

The U.S. military’s presence in the region for weeks has led many in the administration to conclude that it is simply a matter of when the president decides to move forward. A potential date just a few days earlier had been canceled due to bad weather.

Reuters could not determine how Netanyahu influenced Trump to consider ordering the attack, but the call was meant to be the Israeli leader’s closing argument with his US counterpart. Three sources briefed on the call said they believed it, along with intelligence showing the looming window to kill the Iranian leader, was the catalyst for Trump’s eventual decision to order the military to launch Operation Epic Rage on Feb. 27.

Netanyahu argued that Trump could make history by helping to eliminate Iran’s leadership, which has long been criticized by the West and many Iranians. He said Iranians might even take to the streets to overthrow the theocratic system that has ruled the country since 1979 and has been a leading source of global terrorism and instability ever since.

The first bombs were dropped on the morning of Saturday, February 28. Trump announced Khamenei’s death that evening.

In response to a request for comment, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly did not directly address the call between Trump and Netanyahu, but told Reuters that the military operation was designed to “destroy the Iranian regime’s ballistic missile and production capacity, destroy the Iranian regime’s navy, end their ability to arm proxies, and ensure that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon.”

Neither Netanyahu’s office nor Iran’s representative to the UN responded to requests for comment.

At a press conference on Thursday, Netanyahu dismissed claims that Israel was somehow dragging the United States into conflict with Iran, calling them “fake news.” Does anyone really think anyone can tell President Trump what to do? Come on.”

Trump publicly said the decision to attack was his alone.

Reuters reports that officials and others close to both leaders spoke mostly on condition of anonymity, given the sensitivity of internal deliberations, do not suggest that Netanyahu is pushing Trump to enter the war. But news reports suggest that the Israeli leader was an effective advocate and that his framing of the decision, including the opportunity to kill an Iranian leader who allegedly oversaw efforts to kill Trump, was compelling to the president.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested revenge was at least one motive for the operation in early March, telling reporters: “Iran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump had the last laugh.”

JUNE ATTACK TARGETS NUCLEAR, MISSILE SITES

Trump ran his 2024 campaign based on his first administration’s “America First” foreign policy and has publicly stated that he wants to avoid war with Iran, preferring to deal diplomatically with Tehran.

But Trump began considering an attack as discussions over Iran’s nuclear program failed to reach a deal last spring, according to three people familiar with White House talks.

The first attack took place in June, when Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities and missile sites, killing several Iranian leaders. US forces later joined the attack, and when this joint operation ended 12 days later, Trump clearly reveled in the success, saying the US had “destroyed” Iran’s nuclear facilities.

But months later, talks resumed between the United States and Israel about a second airstrike aimed at hitting additional missile sites and preventing Iran from gaining the ability to build nuclear weapons.

The Israelis also wanted to kill Khamenei, a long-time geopolitical foe who has repeatedly fired missiles at Israel and supported heavily armed proxies surrounding the country. This included the Hamas militant group, which launched the surprise attack from Gaza and Lebanon-based Hezbollah on October 7, 2023.

Defense Minister Israel Katz told Israel’s N12 News on March 5 that the Israelis began planning their attacks on Iran with the assumption that they would act alone.

But during a December visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Netanyahu told Trump he was not fully satisfied with the outcome of the joint operation in June, two people familiar with the relationship between the two leaders said on condition of anonymity.

Sources added that Trump has indicated he is open to another bombing campaign but also wants to try a new round of diplomatic talks.

According to several US and Israeli officials and diplomats, the two events prompted Trump to attack Iran again.

The U.S. operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas on January 3 (which removed the United States’ long-standing enemy from power but resulted in no American deaths) demonstrated the possibility that ambitious military operations could have few collateral consequences for U.S. forces.

Later that month, major anti-government protests broke out in Iran, prompting a violent response from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, killing thousands. Trump has promised to help protesters but has done little publicly.

But cooperation between the Israel Defense Forces and the U.S. military’s Middle East command, known as CENTCOM, intensified with joint military planning conducted during secret meetings, according to two Israeli officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Shortly thereafter, during Netanyahu’s visit to Washington in February, the Israeli leader briefed Trump on Iran’s growing ballistic missile program and pointed out specific areas of concern. He also laid out the dangers of its ballistic missile program, including the risk that Iran could eventually have the capability to strike the American homeland, three people familiar with the private conversations said.

The White House did not respond to questions about Trump’s meetings with Netanyahu in December and February.

TRUMP’S CHANCE IN HISTORY

By late February, many U.S. officials and regional diplomats thought a follow-up U.S. strike on Iran was likely, but details remained unclear, according to two other U.S. officials, an Israeli official and two other officials familiar with the matter.

Trump was briefed by Pentagon and intelligence officials on the potential advantages of a successful strike, including the destruction of Iran’s missile program, according to two people familiar with those briefings.

Before the phone call between Netanyahu and Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a small group of senior Congressional leaders on Feb. 24 that Israel would attack Iran whether the United States participated or not, and Iran would retaliate against U.S. targets, according to three people with knowledge of the meeting.

Rubio’s warning was motivated by American intelligence officials’ assessment that such an attack would trigger Iranian counterattacks against U.S. diplomatic and military outposts and U.S. Gulf allies, three sources familiar with U.S. intelligence reports said.

This prediction turned out to be correct. The attacks led to Iranian counter-attacks on US military assets, the deaths of more than 2,300 Iranian civilians and at least 13 US soldiers, attacks on US Gulf allies, the closure of one of the world’s most vital shipping routes, and a historic increase in oil prices already felt by consumers in the US and beyond.

Two other people familiar with Rubio’s briefing said Trump was also briefed that there was a small chance that the killing of Iran’s top leaders could lead to a government in Tehran more willing to negotiate with Washington.

It was stated that the public was informed about this issue and that one of the arguments put forward by Netanyahu in the meeting just before Trump gave the final order to attack Iran was the possibility of regime change.

This view was not supported by the Central Intelligence Agency, which had assessed in previous weeks that a radical insider would likely be appointed if Khamenei was killed, as Reuters previously reported.

The CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump had repeatedly called for an uprising after Khamenei’s murder. Since the war is in its fourth week and the region is struggling with conflicts, Iranian Revolutionary Guards are still patrolling the streets of the country. Millions of Iranians are sheltered in their homes.

Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, who is considered to be more stridently anti-American than his father, was elected Iran’s new religious leader.