Reports show Netanyahu was persuasive but did not force US action, say sources
\n washington
\nLess than 48 hours before the US-Israeli strike on Iran began, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone to President Donald Trump about the reasons for launching the kind of complex, far-off war the American leader once had campaigned against.
\nBoth Trump and Netanyahu knew from intelligence briefings earlier in the week that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his key lieutenants would soon meet at his compound in Tehran, making them vulnerable to a \u201cdecapitation strike\u201d \u2014 an attack against a country\u2019s top leaders often used by Israelis but traditionally less so by the United States.
\nBut new intelligence suggested that the meeting had been moved from Saturday night to Saturday morning, according to three people briefed on the call.
\nThe call has not been previously reported.
\nNetanyahu, \u200cdetermined to move forward with an operation he had urged for decades, argued that there might never be a better chance to assassinate Khamenei
\nBy the time the call took place, Trump already had approved the idea of the United States carrying out a military operation against Iran but had not yet decided when or under what circumstances the United States would get involved, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.
\nThe US military had for weeks built up a presence in the region, prompting many within the administration to conclude it was just a matter of when the president would decide to move forward. One possible date, just a few days earlier, had been scuttled because of bad weather.
\nReuters was unable to determine how Netanyahu\u2019s argument affected Trump as he contemplated issuing orders to strike, but the call amounted to the Israeli leader\u2019s closing argument to his US counterpart.
\nThe three sources briefed on the call said they believed it \u2014 along with the intelligence showing a closing window to assassinate Iran\u2019s leader \u2014 was a catalyst for Trump\u2019s final decision to order the military on February 27 to move ahead with Operation Epic Fury.
\nThe first bombs struck on Saturday morning, February 28. Trump announced that evening that Khamenei was dead.
\nIn response to a request for comment, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly did not directly address the call between Trump and Netanyahu but told Reuters the military operation was designed to \u201cdestroy the Iranian regime\u2019s ballistic missile and production capacity, annihilate the Iranian regime\u2019s Navy, end their ability to arm proxies, and guarantee that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon.\u201d
\nNeither Netanyahu\u2019s office nor Iran\u2019s UN representative responded to comment requests.
\nNetanyahu in a news conference on Thursday dismissed as \u201cfake news\u201d claims that \u201cIsrael somehow dragged the US into a conflict with Iran. Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do? Come on.\u201d
\nTrump has said publicly that the decision to strike was his alone.
\nReuters reporting, with officials and others close to both leaders speaking mostly on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of internal deliberations, does not suggest that Netanyahu forced Trump to go to war.
\nBut the reporting shows that the Israeli leader was an effective advocate and that his framing of the decision \u2014 including the opportunity to assassinate an Iranian leader \u2014 was persuasive to the president.
\nDefence Secretary Pete Hegseth in early March suggested that revenge was at least one motive for the operation, telling reporters, \u201cIran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh.\u201d
\nJune attack targeted nuclear sites
\nTrump ran his campaign in 2024 based on his first administration\u2019s foreign policy of \u201cAmerica First\u201d and said publicly that he wanted to avoid war with Iran, preferring to deal with Tehran diplomatically.
\nBut as discussions over Iran\u2019s nuclear programme failed to produce a deal last spring, Trump began contemplating a strike, according to the three people familiar with White House deliberations.
\nA first attack came in June, when Israel bombed Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities and missile sites, and killed several Iranian leaders. US forces later joined the attack, and when that joint operation ended after 12 days, Trump publicly reveled in the success, saying the US had \u201cobliterated\u201d Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities.
\nYet months later, talks began again between the US and Israel about a second aerial attack aimed at hitting additional missile facilities and preventing Iran from gaining the ability to build a nuclear weapon.
\nThe Israelis began to plan their attack on Iran under the assumption they would be acting alone, Defence Minister Israel Katz told Israel\u2019s N12 News on March 5.
\nBut during a December visit to Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Netanyahu told Trump that he was not fully satisfied with the outcome of the joint operation in June, said two people familiar with the relationship between the two leaders, speaking on condition of anonymity.
\nTrump indicated he was open to another bombing campaign, the people added, but he also wanted to try another round of diplomatic talks.
\nTwo events pushed Trump toward attacking Iran again, according to several US and Israeli officials and diplomats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reports show Netanyahu was persuasive but did not force US action, say sources washington Less than 48 hours before the US-Israeli strike on Iran began, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone to President Donald Trump about the reasons for launching the kind of complex, far-off war the American leader once had campaigned against. Both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538077,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-538051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n