WASHINGTON — A last chance to avoid war with Iran was on display Thursday in Geneva, where Trump administration officials told their Iranian counterparts they must not take certain steps necessary to build a nuclear bomb.
It didn’t go well.
When the US delegation conveyed its position that Iran could not enrich uranium for the next 10 years, Iran refused, said a senior Trump administration official who described the meeting on condition of anonymity.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told the Americans that Iran has an “inalienable right” to enrich uranium. And Steve Wittkoff, a member of the US delegation, has an “inalienable right” to stop you.
After hearing the US demands, Araghchi began yelling at Wittkoff, who was also present at the meeting, including President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the senior official said.
“If you want, I can leave,” said Witkoff.
Araghi’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Later, the American delegation reported to Trump what happened. Trump was “nonplussed,” the senior official said.
By Saturday morning, the US was at war.
Trump said in a video released on his social media site at 2:30 a.m. ET that “major combat operations” against Iran had begun.
The phrase was coined by then-President George W. It was a distant echo of the statement Bush made when he boarded the aircraft carrier and announced in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner that “major combat operations” with Iraq had ended. Twenty-three years later, the president is different, the enemy is different, but the Middle East remains a hot zone for the US.
Trump’s decision to strike Iran and kill its leadership left him frustrated after lengthy negotiations between the two sides, and convinced that a diplomatic off-ramp was not within his reach. Nor was he particularly eager to fight. One reason for his caution was that he did not believe the advisers had provided a clear enough picture of Iran’s postwar future, a national security official said in an interview.
Why did they finally decide to attack? NBC News asked him in a brief telephone interview Sunday.
“They are not willing to stop their nuclear research,” Trump said. “They’re not willing to say they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon. Very simple.”
Trump built his political career on a promise to avoid the foreign wars pursued by his predecessors, which he said produced no appreciable benefit for Americans. In 2011, he predicted that then-President Barack Obama would start a war with Iran “to get elected” and that “they don’t have the ability to negotiate.”
“I was elected to get out of these ridiculous, endless wars where our great military serves as a policing operation for the benefit of people who don’t like the USA,” he wrote on social media in 2019 during his first term.
Yet he vowed to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, a point he reiterated in his State of the Union address last week. He told Congress that Iran would “soon” have missiles that could reach the US. Another senior official told reporters over the weekend that an additional concern is that Iran could launch its own preemptive strike on American forces in the region if the Trump administration steps down.
“As president, I will make peace where I can, but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever we must,” Trump said in his State of the Union address.
As talks stalled after Thursday’s meeting, Trump began his own war of choice. How it ends could reshape the Middle East for the foreseeable future. A generation ago, Bush decided to sink blood and treasure into one part of the world, resulting in the deaths of nearly 4,500 US service members and reducing him to an expendable force in American politics. Now, it’s Trump’s turn to see if he can use the dreaded US military to bludgeon Iran in its pursuit of a botched peace.
One difference he draws with previous presidents is that he fought protracted conflicts. He preferred quick, decisive strikes. He told the Daily Mail on Sunday that the war could end in four weeks or less.
In his video announcing the strikes, Trump said the Iranian people wanted to rise up and overthrow the regime, although there was no guarantee that successors would rule differently.
Before the US and Israel launched their airstrikes, the CIA concluded that if Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were killed, he could be replaced by equally hardline officials within the regime, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Khamenei died in the attack; It is unclear whether an opposition bloc has been formed to replace him. In January, Trump told Reuters that Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late deposed Shah of Iran, “seemed very good” but that he did not know if Pahlavi was fit to lead the country.
“The problem here is that Trump may attack for two or three days, declare victory and walk away from it, which is certainly not enough to topple the administration,” said John Bolton, who was White House national security adviser for part of Trump’s first term but has fallen out with him. “Their lack of forward, strategic planning may be the problem here.”
Yet one Trump confidant said he was confident Trump would see the war through to a successful outcome.
“The president and his team don’t believe they’re out of the woods yet,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, RSC, said in an interview. “They still believe Iran is dangerous and are watching the situation closely. The administration is ready for more strikes and work to be done in the coming days.”
Attacking Iran is not routine. Trump had his own private doubts. In the run-up, he pushed for a deal to give up Iran’s nuclear weapons, with some sweeteners attached. US negotiators said they offered to provide Iran with free nuclear fuel, but the administration said no.
At the meeting in Geneva, a senior administration official said Araghchi’s response to the American offer was that “we don’t need any favors from you.” “‘We don’t want you to pay for our fuel.'”
Diplomatic negotiations in recent months have paralleled a massive US military build-up in Middle Eastern waters, increasing pressure on the Iranian regime.
Negotiators held talks on Iran’s nuclear program in Oman on Feb. 6 and in Geneva on Feb. 17. Sandwiched between those meetings was Trump’s USS Gerald R. A report arrived that Ford – the largest aircraft carrier in the fleet – had been ordered to sail from the Caribbean to the Middle East.
On February 13, Trump made it clear that he wanted another carrier in the region, “if there is no deal.”
But Trump used other tools to marginalize Iran. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant told Congress last month that he deliberately touched on the financial crisis in Iran, which led to massive street protests earlier this year that crippled the regime. By creating a dollar shortage in Iran, Besant said, the US forced Iran to print money to fuel inflation and internal animosity toward the leadership.
Meanwhile, according to a national security official, Trump had his own doubts about the attack. They were not convinced that the war plans would provide the lasting results they desired. The official said no one could assure them of what the strike would produce.
Still, Trump left little doubt that he might order the attack. On February 19, he gave Iran a deadline of 10 to 15 days to agree to the deal, warning that “really bad things” would happen if it defied him.
No one in Tehran could guess that he was bluffing. They had already hit the country once, sending B-2 bombers to hit nuclear sites in June and claiming they had been “wiped out.”
On Friday, the day after Kushner and Witkoff met with Iranian leaders, Trump said in a speech in Corpus Christi, Texas: “Now we have a big decision to make. You know that. Not easy, not easy.”
That same day, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee advised embassy staff that those wishing to leave Israel “should do so today.”
From Texas, Trump flew to Mar-a-Lago, his home in Palm Beach, Florida, where he oversaw the strike in the company of senior advisers who have conducted several foreign strikes this term. He made time on Saturday to attend a political fundraiser at his beach resort.
A picture released by the White House shows Trump in a USA ball cap, sitting at a table with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. On the wall was a map of the Middle East showing the deployment of US ships.
“Operation Epic Fury” began at 1:15 a.m. ET Saturday (9:45 a.m. in Tehran). The US B-2 deployed stealth bombers, fighter jets, missiles, rockets and other weapons systems the Defense Department did not disclose. They targeted Iran’s navy, missile sites, command and control headquarters and air defense systems.
The timing is not accidental. US and Israeli spy agencies were tracking Khamenei’s whereabouts. Intelligence showed that he would be meeting senior representatives in the morning as the two men briefed on the matter.
Instead of launching the operation at night, the leaders launched a daylight attack hoping to kill him and his companions, the people said.
In an interview with NBC News, Trump said the operation is “ahead of schedule and obviously, when we get 48 leaders, that’s a big event.”
The weekend attacks shook Iran and prompted counterattacks from the regime. Explosions were heard near the Intelligence Ministry in central Tehran and hit hundreds of targets.
Air raid sirens sounded in Israel warning of incoming Iranian missiles.
Airlines canceled more than 1,500 flights to the Middle East as missiles flew back and forth.
Three U.S. service members were killed and five wounded in an Iranian counterattack in Kuwait, two U.S. officials said.
In his public remarks over the weekend, Trump, now a wartime president, appeared to be pressing Americans for more casualties.
“Sadly, it will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is,” he said in a video released Sunday afternoon.
