A detailed inside account by New York Times White House correspondents Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman reveals how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally drove the decision for war in a classified White House Situation Room briefing on February 11—and how Trump’s own intelligence chiefs immediately assessed the central premise as fiction.
Netanyahu made a four-part pitch: Iran’s missiles could be destroyed in weeks; the regime couldn’t close the Strait of Hormuz; street protests would resume and, with Mossad help, could produce regime change; and Kurdish fighters could open a ground front from Iraq. He showed U.S. President Donald Trump a video montage of potential post-theocratic Iranian leaders. Trump’s response: “Sounds good to me.”
The next day, Feb. 12, with Netanyahu gone, CIA Director Ratcliffe briefed Trump’s inner circle on the overnight U.S. intelligence assessment. He described the regime-change scenarios as “farcical.” Secretary of State Rubio cut in: “In other words, it’s bullshit.” General Caine told Trump: “This is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed.” Trump’s response was to set aside the regime-change question entirely and focus on Parts 1 and 2: killing the ayatollah and dismantling the Iranian military.