Reuters: Trump Approved Iran Strikes After Speaking With Netanyahu

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Mar. 23, 2026

On Monday, President Trump backed out of striking Iran's power plants, seemingly blamed Pete Hegseth for the war, and then Reuters dropped an article pointing the finger at Netanyahu for the war just a few hours later.




From Reuters, "Exclusive: Trump approved Iran operation after Netanyahu argued for joint killing of Khamenei, sources say":
Less than 48 hours before the U.S.-Israeli strike on Iran began, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone to President Donald Trump about the reasons for launching the kind of complex, far-off war the American leader once had campaigned against.

Both Trump and Netanyahu knew from intelligence briefings earlier in the week that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his key lieutenants would soon meet at his compound in Tehran, ​making them vulnerable to a "decapitation strike" – an attack against a country's top leaders often used by Israelis but traditionally less so by the United States.

But new intelligence suggested that the meeting had been moved forward to Saturday morning from Saturday night, according to three people briefed on the call.

The call has not been previously reported.

Netanyahu, ‌determined to move forward with an operation he had urged for decades, argued that there might never be a better chance to kill Khamenei and to avenge previous Iranian efforts to assassinate Trump, these people said. Those included a murder-for-hire plot allegedly orchestrated by Iran in 2024, when Trump was a candidate.

The Justice Department has accused a Pakistani man of trying to recruit people in the United States in the plan, meant as retaliation for Washington's killing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' top commander, Qassem Soleimani.
As Reuters alluded to, the man behind the alleged murder-for-hire plot was a Pakistani, and his connections to Iran are dubious.


Reuters continues:
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 – including the opportunity to kill an Iranian leader who allegedly had overseen efforts to kill Trump – was persuasive to the president.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in early March suggested that revenge was at least one motive for the operation, telling reporters, "Iran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh."

[...] The Israelis began to plan their attack on Iran under the assumption they would be acting alone, Defense Minister Israel Katz told Israel's N12 News on March 5.

But during a December visit to Trump's 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.

Trump indicated he was open to another bombing campaign, the people added, but he also wanted to try another round of diplomatic talks.

Two events pushed Trump toward attacking Iran again, according to several U.S. and Israeli officials and diplomats.

The U.S. operation on January 3 to capture Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas - which resulted in no American deaths while removing from power a longstanding U.S. foe - demonstrated the possibility that ambitious military operations could have few collateral consequences for U.S. forces.

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.

Privately, however, cooperation intensified between the Israel Defense Forces and the U.S. military's Middle East command, ​known as CENTCOM, with joint military planning conducted during secret meetings, according to two Israeli ⁠officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Not long after, during a February visit by Netanyahu to Washington, the Israeli leader briefed Trump on Iran's 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.
Netanyahu has claimed repeatedly that Trump at Mar-a-Lago, before taking office for the second time, brought up the Iran attack with him first.

"The first thing he said to me was, 'Bibi, we've got to make sure that Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons,'" Netanyahu said during a rare press conference last week.

"He said that to me—I didn't say it to him."

The two statements don't necessarily contradict each other, but it's clear from this article Netanyahu had this operation planned well in advance.

By Netanyahu's own account, he's been working to overthrow the Iranian government for over four decades. Trump, on the other hand, seems to be heavily influenced by whoever he last spoke with. By Trump's own account, he was totally caught off guard by Iran attacking its US-allied neighbors.



Though it appears Trump may be looking for an off-ramp from this disastrous war, he said just hours ago he still wants $200 billion to fight it.


The New York Times is also now reporting that Trump is actively weighing whether to use US airborne troops to seize Kharg Island (in what will likely amount to a suicide mission).

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