By Erin Banco, Gram Slattery and Maayan Lubell WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM, March 23 (Reuters) - Less than 48 hours before the U.S.-Israeli strike on Iran began, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by
Trump Approved Iran Strike After Netanyahu Lobbied for Joint Action, Sources Reveal
Behind the Decision: How U.S.-Israeli Deliberations Led to Operation Epic Fury
By Erin Banco, Gram Slattery and Maayan Lubell
The Critical Phone Call: Netanyahu’s Final Push
WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM, March 23 (Reuters) - Less than 48 hours before the U.S.-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 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 “decapitation strike” – an attack against a country's top leaders often used by Israelis but traditionally less so by the United States.
But new intelligence suggested that the meeting had been moved forward to Saturday morning from Saturday night, according to three people briefed on the call.
The call has not been previously reported.
Netanyahu’s Arguments and Intelligence Briefings
Netanyahu, determined to move forward with an operation he had urged for decades, argued that there might never be a better chance to kill Khamenei and to avenge previous Iranian efforts to assassinate Trump, these people said. Those 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 in the United States in the plan, meant as retaliation for Washington's killing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' top commander, Qassem Soleimani.
Trump’s Position and Military Preparations
By 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.
The U.S. 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.
The Catalyst for Action: Decision and Aftermath
Reuters was unable to determine how Netanyahu’s argument affected Trump as he contemplated issuing orders to strike, but the call amounted to the Israeli leader’s closing argument to his U.S. counterpart. The three sources briefed on the call said they believed it - along with the intelligence showing a closing window to kill Iran's leader - was a catalyst for Trump’s final decision to order the military on February 27 to move ahead with Operation Epic Fury.
Strategic and Political Motivations
Trump could make history by helping eliminate an Iranian leadership long reviled by the West and by many Iranians, Netanyahu argued. Iranians might even take to the streets, he said, overthrowing a theocratic system that had governed the country since 1979 and been a leading source of global terrorism and instability ever since.
The first bombs struck on Saturday morning, February 28. Trump announced that evening that Khamenei was dead.
Official Responses and Public Statements
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 the military operation was designed to "destroy the Iranian regime's ballistic missile and production capacity, annihilate the Iranian regime's Navy, end their ability to arm proxies, and guarantee that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon."
Neither Netanyahu's office nor Iran's U.N. representative responded to comment requests.
Netanyahu in a news conference on Thursday dismissed as “fake news” claims that “Israel somehow dragged the U.S. into a conflict with Iran. Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do? Come on.”
Trump has said publicly that the decision to strike was his alone.
Analysis: Influence and Motivation
Reuters 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. But the reporting shows 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 had overseen efforts to kill Trump – was persuasive to the president.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in early March suggested that revenge was at least one motive for the operation, telling reporters, "Iran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh."
June Attack Targeted Nuclear, Missile Sites
JUNE ATTACK TARGETED NUCLEAR, MISSILE SITES
Background: Trump’s “America First” Policy
Trump ran his campaign in 2024 based on his first administration’s foreign policy of "America First" and said publicly that he wanted to avoid war with Iran, preferring to deal with Tehran diplomatically.
But as discussions over Iran's nuclear program failed to produce a deal last spring, Trump began contemplating a strike, according to the three people familiar with White House deliberations.
The First Strike: June Operations
A first attack came in June, when Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities and missile sites, and killed several Iranian leaders. U.S. forces later joined the attack, and when that joint operation ended after 12 days, Trump publicly reveled in the success, saying the U.S. had "obliterated" Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Renewed Talks and the Push for a Second Strike
Yet months later, talks began again between the U.S. 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.
The Israeli Perspective: Targeting Khamenei and Proxy Forces
The Israelis also wanted to kill Khamenei, a longtime, bitter geopolitical foe who had repeatedly fired missiles into Israel and supported heavily armed proxy forces encircling the nation. That included the Hamas militant group that launched the surprise attack on October 7, 2023, from Gaza, and Hezbollah, based in Lebanon.
The Israelis began to
