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.
Netanyahu argued that there might never be a better chance to kill Khamenei and to avenge previous Iranian efforts to assassinate Trump, including a murder-for-hire plot allegedly orchestrated by Iran in 2024.
The call has not been previously reported, but it has been confirmed by three people briefed on the call.
Netanyahu, determined to move forward with an operation he had urged for decades, framed the decision as an opportunity to kill an Iranian leader who allegedly had overseen efforts to kill Trump.
The Israeli leader also pointed out the dangers of Iran's ballistic missile program, including the risk that Iran might eventually gain the ability to strike the American homeland.
Trump had already approved the idea of the United States carrying out a military operation against Iran but had not yet decided when or under what circumstances the United States would get involved.
The U.S. military had for weeks built up a presence in the region, prompting many within the administration to conclude it was just a matter of when the president would decide to move forward.
The first bombs struck on Saturday morning, February 28, and Trump announced that evening that Khamenei was dead.
Netanyahu in a news conference on Thursday dismissed as “fake news” claims that “Israel somehow dragged the U.S. into a conflict with Iran.
Trump has said publicly that the decision to strike was his alone, but the reporting shows that the Israeli leader was an effective advocate and that his framing of the decision was persuasive to the president.
