In-Depth Feature: How did Trump "drag" the United States into the Iran War?

From February 11, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quietly entered the White House and delivered a “high-pressure pitch” in the intelligence briefing room, to the final intelligence briefing meeting on February 26, and then to the moment—22 minutes before the deadline—when Trump issued an order aboard Air Force One: “‘Operation Epic Fury’ has been approved. Do not stop. Good luck.” Thus, a far-reaching war decision in American history was set in stone.

In a recent major in-depth report, The New York Times, drawing on extensive anonymous interview material from sources, reconstructed little-known behind-the-scenes details of the decision-making process in the U.S.-Iran conflict. The report was authored by two veteran journalists, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman.

The report reveals not only the birth of a war, but also the internal power structure and decision logic within the Trump administration: a hawkish Defense Secretary, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who held reservations, Vice President Vance—who kept issuing warnings yet ultimately chose silence, and Netanyahu, who stood behind the scenes but was always present—these figures together form the cast of this political drama.

A carefully designed “pitch meeting”

Everything began on February 11 this year.

That morning, just before 11 a.m., a black SUV quietly brought Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into the White House. No media, no ceremony—only a highly classified intelligence briefing meeting waiting for him.

The White House intelligence briefing room is rarely used to provide confidential briefings to foreign leaders, and that alone shows how special this meeting was. The gathering was deliberately arranged to be very small to prevent leaks. Other senior cabinet ministers were kept in the dark, and the vice president was absent.

According to sources, Netanyahu sat on one side of the conference table facing Trump, while behind him a large screen was connected in real time to the head of Mossad, Barnea, and Israeli military officials—so that the overall visual effect of the entire scene looked like a “wartime leader arriving with his delegation.”

Netanyahu then spent a full hour delivering an intense strategic “sales pitch” to Trump and his team.

His core argument was: this is the best window to strike Iran—its ballistic missile program can be destroyed within weeks; after the regime is weakened, it will be unable to block the Strait of Hormuz; street protests will flare up again; and even Iran’s Kurdish armed groups might cross over from Iraq to form a second ground front. The intelligence assessment conclusion from Israel’s Mossad was: regime change, with near certainty of success.

According to reports, Trump’s reaction was a succinct and forceful line: “Sounds good.” For Netanyahu, that sentence was no different from a green light to go to war.

U.S. intelligence assessment: this is nonsense

However, the day after the Israelis left, America’s own intelligence system delivered a sharply different assessment. On February 12, during a closed-door meeting attended only by U.S. officials, senior intelligence officers dissected Netanyahu’s four-point plan point by point.

The conclusion was bluntly straightforward: the first two objectives—eliminating Iran’s top leadership and dismantling its ability to project power abroad—were considered achievable with support from America’s military strength. But for the last two points—spark popular uprisings in Iran and complete regime change—the assessment was described as “out of touch with reality.”

**CIA Director Ratcliffe used one word to describe it: “farcical” (ridiculous).**Secretary of State Rubio immediately added: “In other words, it’s nonsense.”

The remarks by General Kane, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were equally striking. He told the president:

“Sir, based on my experience, this is the Israelis’ standard operating procedure—they always over-sell, and the plans often aren’t well thought out. They know they need us, which is why they push so hard.”

Yet faced with these doubts, Trump’s response was unexpectedly concise—he said that regime change was “their (Israelis’ or Iranians’) own problem,” and that what he truly cared about was whether the first and second points could be achieved.

Why did Trump still choose to go to war?

So, given such clear negative intelligence assessments, why did Trump still decide to move forward?

The article offers a multi-layered answer.

First, Trump’s hardline stance on Iran was not a spur-of-the-moment impulse; it was a consistent approach that ran through both of his terms in office. He saw Iran as a “singularly dangerous adversary,” and he had always been fixated on the Iranian Revolution of 1979—that year, he was 32.

Second, his personal confidence in the capabilities of the U.S. military kept growing during his second term: the raid on Venezuelan leader Maduro in January this year further strengthened his judgment that “the U.S. military can do anything.”

More importantly, Netanyahu’s worldview closely aligned with Trump’s instincts. The article points out that “on the Iran issue, the two men’s hawkish thinking is closer than many in Trump’s team realized.” That high level of alignment in strategic judgment gave Netanyahu’s “sales pitch” fertile ground.

Hawks, wait-and-see voices, and the biggest opponent

In this war decision-making process, the positions of members of Trump’s cabinet were sharply divided.

Vice President Vance was the strongest and most steadfast anti-war voice throughout the entire process.

He told Trump plainly that this war could “trigger regional chaos, causing casualties that are impossible to measure,” and might also “tear apart Trump’s political coalition.”

He also specifically warned about the risks to the Strait of Hormuz—this chokepoint that carries a large share of global oil and natural gas shipments. If it were blocked, U.S. domestic oil prices would surge sharply, and the economic consequences would be unimaginable. Vance even invoked political logic: many voters who voted for Trump came for the promise of “no more new wars.”

However, Vance’s opposition did not change the final outcome. In the final intelligence briefing meeting on February 26, he stated: “You know I think it’s a bad idea, but if you decide to do it, I’ll support you.” To some extent, this sentence symbolizes the collective muting of the entire anti-war camp.

Defense Secretary Hegseth stood at the other end of the spectrum, firmly supporting military action. His logic was simple and blunt: “We’re going to solve the Iran problem sooner or later—so why not do it now?”

Meanwhile, General Kane, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, played a rather nuanced role. He continued to brief the president on military risks, especially the severe depletion of the ammunition stockpile—years of supporting Ukraine and Israel have left the U.S. with an increasingly tight intercept missile reserve. But he consistently insisted on this boundary: “My duty is to provide options and risk assessments, not to tell the president what to do.” In the eyes of some people, this impartial stance is almost equivalent to tacit approval of silence.

The last door of diplomacy

Before going to war, Trump had not left diplomacy with no room at all.

Kushner and Trump’s envoy, Witcoff, even proposed an extremely sincere plan during negotiations with Iranian officials in Geneva: to provide nuclear fuel free of charge for the entire lifecycle of Iran’s nuclear program, in exchange for Iran giving up its uranium enrichment capabilities.

Iran rejected it, calling the move “an affront to dignity.” In a sense, this refusal became the final straw that crushed the diplomatic path.

Afterward, Kushner told Trump that negotiations might still achieve some kind of agreement, but that would require “months of time.” He put it plainly: “If you ask whether we can look you in the eyes and tell you the problem is already solved—that’s far from the case.”

The final decision 22 minutes before

On the afternoon of February 26, at about 5 p.m., the final intelligence briefing meeting began. It lasted about an hour and a half. Everyone’s stance inside the room was already well known—it felt more like a ritualistic “final confirmation.”

At the meeting, Rubio said what may have been the clearest line of the entire discussion: “If our goal is regime change or to incite an uprising, we shouldn’t act. But if our goal is to destroy Iran’s missile program, that is an achievable goal for us.”

Trump immediately announced: “I think we need to do this.” His reason was: it must ensure that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons and cannot continue to fire missiles at Israel and across the entire region.

General Kane told him there was still some time—the final deadline was 4 p.m. the next afternoon.

The next day, aboard Air Force One, with 22 minutes left before that deadline, Trump issued the order to begin hostilities: “‘Operation Epic Fury’ has been approved. Do not stop. Good luck.’”

One decision, multiple impacts

The deepest value of The New York Times’ report may not lie in disclosing how many confidential details, but in revealing a structural decision-making dilemma: when a president’s instincts and will are strong enough—when, one after another, the advisers around him choose “support the president’s judgment” rather than “stick to their own judgment”—in what way does the institutional system of checks and balances quietly fail?

Will Vance’s concerns come true? Will the risk of a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz trigger a global energy crisis? How will the depletion of ammunition stockpiles affect the United States’ ability to respond to conflicts in other regions? At the moment the order to begin hostilities was issued, there were no clear answers to these questions.

As the article shows, General Kane repeatedly asked “So what happens next?”—but Trump apparently only heard the parts of the answers he wanted. This may be the most unsettling detail in the entire decision process, and perhaps the key to how history will ultimately judge this decision.

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