Inside Trump’s decision to attack Iran: ‘A window of opportunity’ | Trump administration

Donald Trump launched attacks on Iran alongside Israel on Saturday after the latter developed intelligence that they could simultaneously target the country’s leaders and the mullahs at a compound in Tehran, according to two people familiar with the deliberations.

The Israelis monitored the movements of Iran’s top leaders and were determined to, in conjunction with the United States, that there was a window of opportunity to kill them and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during their meeting, the people said.

The idea behind the beheading of the Iranian regime was the belief that although Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were deeply loyal to Khamenei, in the event of his death they would not support any of his successors to the same extent, the people said.

The two spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details of an ongoing operation. Another person briefed on Israeli military preparations for the operation added that “there were several gatherings that morning, and they targeted them all.”

On Saturday afternoon, a U.S. official confirmed that the United States believed Khamenei and five to 10 senior Iranian leaders had been killed in an Israeli strike on a compound in Tehran. Trump first posted on Truth Social that Khamenei had been killed, which was later confirmed by Iranian state media.

Trump did not give a reason why the United States launched attacks when he announced the start of what could last several days in a video Saturday, but the possibility of targeting Khamenei accelerated the timetable for strikes, the sources said.

These attacks were decried by Oman’s foreign minister, who had helped negotiate. “I am dismayed. Active and serious negotiations have once again been compromised. This serves neither the interests of the United States nor the cause of world peace,” Badr Albusaidi said in a message on X.

The strikes followed a week of rapid developments and depended in part on whether Trump’s special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, had concluded that Iran was at a standstill when they met for talks at the Oman ambassador’s residence in Geneva, as first reported by the Guardian.

In talks that lasted all day Thursday, Witkoff and Kushner pushed Iran to agree to destroy its three main nuclear enrichment sites at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz, which were the targets of Trump’s bombing campaign last year, and to deliver its remaining stockpiles to the United States.

They also insisted that any deal must be final, without sunset provisions that phased out restrictions in the 2015 deal negotiated with the Obama administration. Trump withdrew from that agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, during his first term.

But Witkoff and Kushner ended the day disappointed. Later, Trump was briefed on his military options by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, who was more optimistic about the success of the strikes.

The CIA had also developed information that Khamenei would be at his compound on Saturday morning, which the Israelis combined with their own information that top Iranian commanders would also be present at the meetings. Overall, the administration concluded there was a high probability it could kill them in a single round of strikes, the sources said.

The information turned out to be accurate. Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, confirmed the deaths of two of the country’s top commanders: the head of the military council, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, and General Mohammad Pakpour, the commander-in-chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

The White House has not commented on Trump’s thinking regarding the strikes.

Senior U.S. officials said Saturday that Trump weighed a number of factors to justify his strikes. One official said the main reason was Iran’s arsenal of conventional missiles, which they said posed an “intolerable threat” to the United States and which Iran was refusing to respond.

“They refused, every time, and have always refused to go after ballistic missiles,” the official said. “They won’t even talk about it. They won’t talk about it with us. They won’t talk about it with our regional partners. They won’t talk about it at all.”

Another official said the United States was wary of Iran’s claims that its nuclear enrichment was for peaceful purposes. The United States offered free nuclear fuel “forever,” but this proposal was rejected by Iran. The official said it was a “big eye-opener” for negotiators.

The United States also developed intelligence that Iran was rebuilding its enrichment sites that were destroyed during Trump’s Operation Midnight Hammer last year, the official said. The United States believed Iran was stockpiling partially enriched uranium and ultimately wanted no deal.

“The president, frankly, had no choice. We cannot continue to live in a world where these people not only have missiles but also the capacity to make 100 a month in perpetuity,” the official said. “We’re not going to be held hostage by them, and we’re not going to let them hit us first. »

Trump visited his Mar-a-Lago club on Friday and was seen emerging from Air Force One already wearing what appeared to be the same white “USA” baseball cap he wore in his recorded speech announcing the start of the Iran operation.