Reuters was unable to determine how Netanyahu\u2019s argument affected Trump as he contemplated issuing orders to strike, but the call amounted to the Israeli leader\u2019s closing argument to his U.S. counterpart. The three sources briefed on the call said they believed it \u2014 along with the intelligence showing a closing window to kill Iran\u2019s leader \u2014 was a catalyst for Trump\u2019s final decision to order the military on February 27 to move ahead with Operation Epic Fury<\/a>. <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n The first bombs struck on Saturday morning, February 28. Trump announced that evening that Khamenei was dead<\/a>. <\/p>\n 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 \u201cdestroy the Iranian regime\u2019s ballistic missile and production capacity, annihilate the Iranian regime\u2019s Navy, end their ability to arm proxies, and guarantee that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon.\u201d <\/p>\n Neither Netanyahu\u2019s office nor Iran\u2019s U.N. representative responded to comment requests. <\/p>\n Netanyahu in a news conference on Thursday dismissed as \u201cfake news\u201d claims that \u201cIsrael 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.\u201d <\/p>\n Trump has said publicly that the decision to strike was his alone. <\/p>\n 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 \u2013 including the opportunity to kill an Iranian leader who allegedly had overseen efforts to kill Trump \u2013 was persuasive to the president. <\/p>\n Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in early March suggested that revenge was at least one motive for the operation, telling reporters, \u201cIran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump ran his campaign in 2024 based on his first administration\u2019s foreign policy of \u201cAmerica First\u201d and said publicly that he wanted to avoid war with Iran, preferring to deal with Tehran diplomatically. <\/p>\n But as discussions over Iran\u2019s nuclear program failed to produce a deal last spring, Trump began contemplating a strike, according to the three people familiar with White House deliberations. <\/p>\n A first attack came in June<\/a>, when Israel bombed Iran\u2019s 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 \u201cobliterated\u201d Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities. <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n The Israelis began to plan their attack on Iran under the assumption they would be acting alone, Defense Minister Israel Katz told Israel\u2019s N12 News on March 5. <\/p>\n But during a December visit to Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Netanyahu told Trump that he was not fully satisfied with the outcome of the joint operation in June, said two people familiar with the relationship between the two leaders, speaking on condition of anonymity. <\/p>\n Trump indicated he was open to another bombing campaign, the people added, but he also wanted to try another round of diplomatic talks. <\/p>\n Two events pushed Trump toward attacking Iran again, according to several U.S. and Israeli officials and diplomats. <\/p>\n The U.S. operation on January 3 to capture Venezuela\u2019s President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas \u2014 which resulted in no American deaths while removing from power a longstanding U.S. foe \u2014 demonstrated the possibility that ambitious military operations could have few collateral consequences for U.S. forces. <\/p>\n Later that same month, massive anti-government protests erupted in Iran, prompting a vicious response by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, killing thousands. Trump vowed to help the protesters but did little immediately that was public. <\/p>\n Privately, however, cooperation intensified between the Israel Defense Forces and the U.S. military\u2019s Middle East command, known as CENTCOM, with joint military planning conducted during secret meetings, according to two Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. <\/p>\n Not long after, during a February visit by Netanyahu to Washington, the Israeli leader briefed Trump on Iran\u2019s growing ballistic missile program, pointing out specific sites of concern. He also laid out the dangers of the ballistic missile program, including the risk that Iran might eventually gain the ability to strike the American homeland, said three people familiar with the private conversations. <\/p>\n The White House did not respond to questions about Trump\u2019s December and February meetings with Netanyahu.<\/p>\n By late February, many U.S. officials and regional diplomats considered a U.S. attack on Iran very likely to proceed, though the details remained uncertain, according to two other U.S. officials, one Israeli official and two additional officials familiar with the matter. <\/p>\n Trump was briefed by Pentagon and intelligence officials on the potential advantages to be gained from a successful attack, including the decimation of Iran\u2019s missile program, according to two people familiar with those briefings. <\/p>\n Before the phone call between Netanyahu and Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a small group of top Congressional leaders on February 24 that Israel was likely to attack Iran, whether or not the U.S. participated, and Iran would then likely retaliate against U.S. targets, according to three people briefed on the meeting. <\/p>\n Behind Rubio\u2019s warning was an assessment by American intelligence officials that such an attack would indeed provoke counterstrikes from Iran against U.S. diplomatic and military outposts and U.S. Gulf allies, said three sources familiar with U.S. intelligence reports. <\/p>\n This prediction proved accurate. The strikes have led to Iranian counterattacks on U.S. military assets, the deaths of more than 2,300 Iranian civilians and at least 13 U.S. service members<\/a>, attacks on U.S. Gulf allies, the closure of one of the world\u2019s most vital shipping routes and a historic spike in oil prices that is already being felt by consumers in the United States and beyond. <\/p>\n Trump had also been briefed that there was a chance, even if small, that the killing of Iran\u2019s top leaders could usher in a government in Tehran that was more willing to negotiate with Washington, said two other people familiar with Rubio\u2019s briefing. <\/p>\n The possibility of regime change was one of Netanyahu\u2019s arguments in the call shortly before Trump gave final orders to attack Iran, said the people briefed on it. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ECVQVXCGXBHKPMGIOXPZZWCUVE.JPG\")
President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu embrace as they walk into Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2025. (Jonathan Ernst\/Reuters)June attack targeted nuclear, missile sites<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/LEWW6EATGRG4PPYTSBUYUTFBSI.JPG\")
President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem in 2025. (Evelyn Hockstein\/Reuters)Trump\u2019s chance at history <\/p>\n