🇺🇸🇮🇱🇮🇷 NYT: How Trump Took the U.S. to War With Iran. Seems like a blame game article to me
Before the Iran war, Benjamin Netanyahu secretly briefed President Trump in the White House Situation Room on February 11.
Trump sat facing the wall screens rather than at the head of the table, with Netanyahu directly across from him. On the screens behind the Israeli Prime Minister were Mossad chief David Barnea and other Israeli military officials, visually framing him as a wartime leader backed by his full team.
In the room were Susie Wiles, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, Gen. Dan Caine, John Ratcliffe, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff. The meeting was kept deliberately small to avoid leaks; other top cabinet officials were unaware it was happening, and JD Vance was absent because he was in Azerbaijan and could not return in time.
Over the next hour, Netanyahu made a hard sell for war, arguing that Iran was vulnerable, meaning retaliation against U.S. interests in the region would likely be limited, and that a joint U.S.-Israeli operation could not only cripple the regime but potentially bring about regime change.
The next day, U.S. intelligence reviewed Netanyahu’s four-part pitch: killing Iran’s supreme leader, crippling Iran’s regional military reach, sparking an uprising, and achieving regime change. Officials said the first two were feasible, but the latter two were not.
CIA Director Ratcliffe called the regime-change plan “farcical,” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “In other words, it’s bullshit.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine was similarly skeptical of the Israeli pitch, telling Trump, “Sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling.”
Trump said regime change would be “their problem" but remained focused on destroying Iran’s missile capabilities and leadership targets.
Vice President JD Vance was the leading internal skeptic, warning a war could be “a huge distraction of resources,” trigger regional chaos, strain U.S. munitions, and hand Iran leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth strongly backed military action in Iran.
As diplomacy stalled, Witkoff and Kushner told Trump that talks with Iran could take months and were unlikely to succeed soon.
When fresh intelligence in late February indicated that Iran’s top leadership, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was about to gather in the ayatollah’s compound in Tehran, it accelerated the whole timeline.
The C.I.A. director told President Trump that regime change was possible depending on how the term was defined. “If we just mean killing the supreme leader, we can probably do that,” he said.
In a final February 26 Situation Room meeting, Vance told Trump, “You know I think this is a bad idea, but if you want to do it, I’ll support you.” Rubio said strikes made sense only if the goal was to destroy Iran’s missile program, not force regime change.
Military leaders outlined the risks, including munitions strain and regional escalation, but stopped short of opposing the plan.
White House counsel David Warrington said the operation was legally permissible, while political advisers warned of possible backlash but ultimately deferred to Trump.
In the end, no one in the room firmly tried to block the decision.
After hearing out each of his advisers, Trump said, “I think we need to do it,” and approved Operation Epic Fury from Air Force One the next day: “No aborts. Good luck.”
🇮🇱🧑⚖️— Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has requested to cancel his court testimony for at least the next two weeks, citing “the security situation,” according to Israeli Channel 12.
➡️ The state is expected to respond to the request by Sunday.
🇺🇸 Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell urgently called in top Wall Street executives this week over concerns that Anthropic’s new AI model, Mythos, could significantly increase cyber risks, Bloomberg reports.
➡️ The short-notice meeting at the Treasury Department focused on making sure major banks were prepared for possible AI-driven cyber threats.
➡️ Mythos, which Anthropic says can identify and exploit vulnerabilities across major operating systems and web browsers, has only been released to a limited group of firms under “Project Glasswing” because of concerns about misuse.
🇮🇱🇵🇰 — Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Asif deleted his post in which he attacked Israel for being "a curse for humanity".
➡️According to reports, Pakistani leadership summoned Asif and were angered by his comments, accusing him of acting against national interests and is currently in military custody.
🇷🇺🇨🇺Russia and Cuba are discussing the resumption of flights - Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov at a press conference at the Russian Embassy in Havana.
Russia is not going to leave the Western Hemisphere, no matter what they say in Washington, he said.
