{"id":188488,"date":"2025-06-16T08:09:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T08:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/188488\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T08:09:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T08:09:08","slug":"how-involved-was-the-u-s-in-israels-attack-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/188488\/","title":{"rendered":"How Involved Was the U.S. in Israel\u2019s Attack on Iran?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. has repeatedly denied involvement in Israel\u2019s initial attack against Iran<\/a>\u2014a position that Iran has disputed as missiles continue to fly between the two countries and the risk of further escalation looms should the world\u2019s biggest military be pulled into the fight, which has already killed hundreds and wounded more than a thousand since Friday in Iran and killed 19 and injured hundreds in Israel, as of Monday morning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A number of reports, however, suggest that the U.S. may have played a greater role than has officially been admitted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unnamed U.S. officials told multiple news outlets on Sunday that President Donald Trump rejected an Israeli plan to assassinate Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave the Iranians killed an American yet? No. Until they do we\u2019re not even talking about going after the political leadership,\u201d one official told Reuters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Israel has denied such a plan, but the reported rejection by Trump would indicate some amount of coordination between the U.S. and Israel.<\/p>\n

The attack on Iran came amid protracted talks between the U.S. and Iran centered around Iran\u2019s nuclear program<\/a>. Trump has emphasized<\/a> finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict, touting his self-professed ability to broker peace, but Iran and Israel have so far shrugged off international calls for deescalation as both sides launched new attacks early Monday.<\/p>\n

Iran has vowed to retaliate against the U.S., too, while Trump has warned<\/a>: \u201cIf we are attacked in any way, shape, or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what to know about U.S. involvement so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing to do with the attack\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel launched its attacks, dubbed \u201cOperation Rising Lion,\u201d early Friday, targeting Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities as well as military leaders and nuclear scientists<\/a> and promising that strikes \u201cwill continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat\u201d of Iran\u2019s nuclear program. Iran launched retaliatory strikes<\/a> at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Friday evening and have continued to fire missiles at the country.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said<\/a> Iran has \u201csolid evidence\u201d that the U.S. provided support for Israel\u2019s attacks. Iran\u2019s Foreign Ministry said in a statement<\/a> that the attacks \u201ccould not have been carried out without coordination with and approval of the United States,\u201d adding that the U.S. will be \u201cheld responsible for the dangerous consequences of Israel\u2019s adventurism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. has denied any involvement in Israel\u2019s strikes, a position that the Trump Administration has repeated multiple times since Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region,\u201d Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement<\/a> released soon after the strikes started, describing the attack as \u201cunilateral action\u201d by Israel. Rubio admitted Israel had informed the Trump Administration of the attack, which both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have also reiterated<\/a>. The U.S. evacuated<\/a> embassy staff from across the region the day before the attack last week.<\/p>\n

In a post on Truth Social urging Iran to \u201cmake a deal,\u201d Trump suggested<\/a> Friday that he was also aware of \u201cthe next already planned attacks,\u201d which would be \u201ceven more brutal.\u201d Later that day, when asked by the Wall Street Journal if he was given a heads-up about the initial attacks by Israel, he suggested that description was an understatement, responding<\/a>: \u201cHeads-up? It wasn\u2019t a heads-up. It was, we know what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

But on Saturday night, following further strikes, Trump again posted<\/a>: \u201cThe U.S. had nothing to do with the attack on Iran, tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cClear U.S. green light\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s attack<\/a> had been months in the making. Reports in May of Israel\u2019s preparations to strike Iran<\/a> suggested that the Trump Administration would not assist Israel in such an operation, especially as Washington was in the midst of negotiating a nuclear agreement with Tehran.<\/p>\n

But news outlet Axios reported<\/a> Friday that Israeli officials said the strikes were in fact coordinated with the U.S., claiming that the Trump Administration publicly pretended to oppose an Israeli attack but gave Israel a \u201cclear U.S. green light\u201d in private.<\/p>\n

According to the latest reports, the U.S. has even intervened to shape the attack. U.S. officials told Reuters, the Associated Press<\/a>, CNN<\/a>, and others that Israel had informed the Trump Administration of a credible plan to assassinate Khamenei and that the White House waved Israel off the plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Netanyahu spokesperson Omer Dostri later denied those reports, calling<\/a> them \u201cfake.\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s so many false reports of conversations that never happened, and I\u2019m not going to get into that,\u201d Netanyahu said when asked about it on Fox News<\/a> on Sunday. \u201cBut I can tell you,\u201d he continued, \u201cwe\u2019ll do what we need to do. And I think the United States knows what is good for the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

The unclear messaging about the extent of U.S. involvement, however, could reflect mixed priorities between the U.S. and Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and an expert on U.S.-Iran relations, told<\/a> NPR that \u201cclearly there had been coordination and some form of a green light\u201d by the Trump Administration for the Israeli strikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump is making a major gamble here, thinking that this actually will soften the Iranian position and make them capitulate,\u201d Parsi added. \u201cIf they don\u2019t, what are his options? And this is where I think the Israelis are hoping that the Iranians will not capitulate and that will force the United States into the war.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. has repeatedly denied involvement in Israel\u2019s initial attack against Iran\u2014a position that Iran has disputed as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[6178,32,28423,77354,49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-188488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-conflict","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-news-desk","11":"tag-overnight","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-us","14":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114692028097617542","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}