Donald Trump was prepared for an offensive in Iran, but was unsure when to start military actions and under what circumstances. A secret discussion with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was decisive.
The two officials spoke about 48 hours before the start of the war, notes hotnews.ro. Both Trump and Netanyahu, knew from intelligence briefings received earlier that week, that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and his main lieutenants were soon to meet at his complex in Tehran, thus becoming vulnerable to a “decapitation strike”.
Netanyahu, determined to advance the operation, told Trump that there might not be a better opportunity to kill Khamenei and avenge Iran’s previous attempts to assassinate the current American leader, according to Reuters sources. Journalists mention that information about this conversation has not been revealed until now.
Before the decisive phone call between Netanyahu and Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a small group of Congressional leaders on February 24 that Israel was likely to attack Iran, whether the US participated in the war or not. It was assumed that Iran would most likely respond with attacks on American targets in the region.
The possibility of a regime change was one of Netanyahu’s arguments in the conversation that preceded Trump’s final order to attack Iran.
This opinion was not shared by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which had assessed in the previous weeks that, if Khamenei were to be killed, he would most likely be replaced by a hard-line internal leader.