Less than 48 hours before the US-Israeli strike on Iran began, United States President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke over the phone, weighing a rare intelligence window. At the center of the discussion was a fleeting opportunity involving Iran’s top leadership, inclduing Islamic regime’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, one that pushed both leaders toward a high-stakes decision which has now roiled the engery sector and squeezed its supply.
Both Trump and Netanyahu knew from intelligence briefings earlier in the week that Iranian 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, reported news agency Retuers citing sources.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.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.By the time of the call, Trump had already approved the idea of a US military operation against Iran, but had not yet decided when or under what conditions Washington would step in, the sources told the agency. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the discussions.In the weeks leading up to the decision, the US military had steadily increased its presence in the region. Within the administration, the buildup had led many to believe that action was inevitable, with the only question being timing. An earlier potential strike window, just days before, was abandoned due to bad weather.It remains unclear how much Netanyahu’s arguments influenced Trump’s final call. Reuters could not determine the direct impact, but the conversation is seen by the three sources as Netanyahu’s final push. They said the call, along with intelligence pointing to a narrowing window to target Iran’s leadership, helped drive Trump’s decision to approve Operation Epic Fury on February 27.Netanyahu framed the moment as historic. He argued that Trump had an opportunity to help eliminate an Iranian leadership long reviled by the West and by many Iranians. He also suggested such a move could trigger internal unrest, with Iranians potentially taking to the streets to overthrow the theocratic system that has governed the country since 1979 and has been a source of global instability.The operation moved quickly. The first bombs struck early Saturday morning, February 28. By evening, Trump announced that Khamenei was dead.Responding to Reuters, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly did not directly comment on the call between Trump and Netanyahu but said the operation aimed 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.”
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There was no immediate response from Netanyahu’s office or Iran’s UN representative to requests for comment.At a news conference on Thursday, Netanyahu dismissed as “fake news” claims that “Israel somehow dragged the US into a conflict with Iran. Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do? Come on.”Trump, howver, has publicly that the decision to strike was his alone.
