Trump’s Shifting Reasons for War With Iran

The U.S. is at war with Iran, and the Trump administration decided several reasons for it.

Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the

Iranian regime.

They possessed these conventional weapons that are solely designed to attack America and

attack Americans.

They were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program in a particular

nuclear weapons, yet they continue to the great proud people of Iran.

I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand.

A spokesman for the Pentagon denied that the administration has shifted its justification

for the operation.

Based on your reporting from sources inside the White House, do you have any sense of how

Trump himself has been thinking about this conflict?

It's day by day.

I mean, this is like wartime jazz.

He's improvising in real time.

That's our colleague, Alex Ward, who covers national security.

You know, I've talked to a lot of sources who are pretty clear there was no day after

planning.

Trump is in break mode.

He's breaking a bunch of things.

And that's as callous as it is to say, you know, kind of the easy part.

We can break a bunch of stuff.

But what Trump wants to build or replace for what's been, you know, removed from Iran,

is wholly unclear.

The Trump administration has made the case that Iran presented an imminent threat to the

U.S.

But after talking with sources in the intelligence community, Alex says that just how

immediate that threat was is questionable.

The intelligence and just general understanding what was going on is that it wasn't imminent.

It was a looming threat, but not one that required an immediate response.

Welcome to the journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Ryan Konutsen.

It's Tuesday, March 3rd.

Coming up on the show, the many different answers to the question, why did the U.S.

attack Iran?

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The US has pointed to several reasons for its military action in Iran.

The first justification came earlier this year when protesters were taking to the streets

of Iran and the Iranian government staged a violent crackdown.

The US started sending ships and troops to the region and President Trump said the US

was coming to help.

So Trump said help is on its way and he encouraged Iranians to the streets to effectively throw

over the government.

And so Trump decides to build up a military presence to the largest the US has done since

the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The Iranian government eventually quashed the protests, killing thousands of people.

The US didn't intervene at the time, but kept building up forces in the region.

The second justification for attacking Iran is Iran's nuclear program.

For years, the US is worried about Iran's nuclear capabilities, and in the days leading

up to this weekend's attack, some US officials began warning that Iran was on the cusp of

developing material that could produce a nuclear weapon.

Here's US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Wyckoff, talking about Iran's nuclear

program last week.

They've been enriching well beyond the number that you need for civil nuclear.

It's up to 60 percent.

They're probably a week away from having industrial grade bomb-making material.

What do we know about the state of Iran's nuclear program?

Was Steve Wyckoff right in that Iran was a week away from having industrial grade bomb-making

material?

I mean, he was right in the sense that Iran has that material, and it's enriched enough

to get to that point.

But the issue is, do they have the actual physical equipment to then enrich it to weapons

grade?

Many in the intelligence community don't think Iran has that ability.

According to people, Alex and his colleagues have spoken with, because the US destroyed

most of Iran's nuclear equipment in an operation last year.

Since then, Trump has said repeatedly that Iran's nuclear capabilities were, quote, obliterated.

Here he is during last week's State of the Union.

That's why in a breakthrough operation last June, the United States military obliterated

Iran's nuclear weapons program with an attack on a radiant soil known as Operation Midnight

Hammer.

And even if you have nuclear material, it doesn't mean you have a bomb.

That takes a while.

And if Iran were to make that move towards a nuclear bomb and to try to perfect it, then

that would have been many months.

Now, we're talking about like crude bombs, right, early on, if they want to do something

that's like really devastating, that'd be a while away.

So again, like one of the things we should note here is that there's kind of always been

an Iranian threat, a looming threat.

The issue here is, is imminence.

And on the nuclear front, like it wasn't immediately happening now.

The third thing the Trump administration has talked about is that Iran was developing

an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States.

What do we know about how close Iran actually was to such a weapon?

So the administration initially said, well, look, Iran is very close to obtaining an intercontinental

ballistic missile, which that's basically a missile that spans oceans, goes into the

atmosphere, comes back down, survives, you know, reentry and then detonates at its point,

which is one of the more technologically advanced missiles one can build.

So they basically were like, look, they're doing this.

That means that the US homeland will soon be in range from the Iranians, even though currently

they are, they have missiles that can hit Europe, not at least Israel and elsewhere.

But the Trump administration has walked back this concern in recent days.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday said, well, the issue really is that they've got

what's a short range missiles, which they're using now across the region to inflict harm.

And then you had defense secretary of heat, Hexath say, well, Iran's really trying to build

this like conventional missiles shield that can stop outside powers from preventing it

from making a nuclear weapon.

And that's very different from making an ICVF.

Like there's no question the Iranians were like making missiles.

That's been part of the problem this whole time.

That they are making quite a remarkable missile arsenal.

But the ICBM is a whole different step.

And it's not clear, according to US intelligence and others, that they had even made that

decision to make one.

And if they had, that would have taken a few years, too.

Finally, there's been a fourth justification, which is that the US suspected Iran was preparing

to strike the US or its assets.

Can you explain why the Trump administration had this sense that there was an imminent

attack?

So on Saturday, they said, well, we the US have obtained this intelligence that says they

are thinking of a preemptive attack on the US.

So even before the US would strike Iran, they would go ahead and hit Americans.

If we stood and waited for that attack to come first, before we hit them, we would suffer

much higher casualties.

But the administration offered more nuance on that when talking with congressional staffers,

telling them that Israel was planning to strike Iran.

And if Israel followed through on that, then Iran would strike US forces in the region.

We've got thousands of troops all over the region.

And of course, we've got some in Europe and we've got allies in Europe and elsewhere

there, too.

So basically, what the administration was saying is Iran's preemptive attack decision is

based upon Israel attacking first.

And that is not what a preemptive attack is, that's a retaliation.

Trump was asked about this earlier today in the Oval Office.

President, is Israel forced your hands to launch these strikes against Iran?

Did that go to the United States into this war?

No, I might have forced their hands.

You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics and it was my opinion that they

were going to attack first.

They were going to attack.

If we didn't do it, they were going to attack first.

I felt strongly about that.

This is an offensive decision, right?

And we kind of know it was an offensive decision because one in January, Trump said help

is on its way, two, they built a large armada here.

And three, they weren't shy about saying if there's no nuclear deal, they're going to

be strikes.

So the notion that this all started somehow over a defensive concern just kind of strains

credulity.

Is it possible that the Trump administration just sensed an opportunity that it saw

that Iran was weak and it decided to essentially just push it over?

That's what it seems like.

Again, there's no question that the Iranians were making gains in building missiles, that

they hadn't given up its nuclear work and that there were great suspicions and decent indications

that they were moving towards making a nuclear weapon at some point.

And they've been a fairly strong regime.

They've had great state control and they've been doing a lot of this stuff.

They've amassed great proxy power, but look at what's happened really since the October

7th attack in Gaza, the Israelis by Hamas.

What happened?

After that, the Israelis knocked out, Hezbollah and Hamas, two of their major proxies.

The Iranian economy under U.S.-led sanctions has completely tanked.

The protests in January show that there's massive public unrest and disapproval with the

regime.

All to say, there was no weaker point, really since 1979 for Iran.

And if you're the U.S. or the Trump administration, you care about, you know, you see all these

things Iran's doing, you go, well, why wait?

Why wait till they get stronger?

Hit them now.

But that's not the case they're making.

Why does it matter?

Look, why would the Trump administration try to make a defensive case?

Why not just say that we sensed an opportunity and we decided to strike?

Because Trump's political rise from the first term, but also in the second, was built around

him being the president of peace.

No more wars.

I mean, you also saw Vice President J.D. Vance and multiple occasions say, you know, part

of the reason he joined the ticket was because this would not be an administration that engaged

in stupid wars anymore.

And you know, Trump had initially said the Iraq war was dumb, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So this action counters their entire political messaging, their entire case for election.

The Trump administration did not go to Congress to seek approval for this conflict with Iran.

Why not?

Does it have anything to do with how the Trump administration is justifying it?

The fact that they're saying it was an imminent threat?

Yes.

The president is allowed to do so without notifying Congress, assuming an imminent threat.

You're totally right about that.

I should note, Congress has basically seeded its foreign policy authority for a really

long time.

Right?

This isn't just a Trump phenomenon.

This is going back through multiple democratic and Republican administrations.

The Trump team for a while, as have other administrations, said, Congress doesn't have any real

say in this.

You know, the president has constitutional authorities to do this kind of thing.

Now they've notified Congress through the War Powers Act to their reasoning for this.

And it was in their rationale to take out the threat from the Iranian regime.

It's navy, it's missiles, it's nuclear, et cetera.

So that was the reason.

How will the Trump administration know when its mission in Iran is finished?

That's next.

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The Trump administration has laid out four specific goals for its operations in Iran.

Destroy Iran's missile capabilities, annihilate its Navy, prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear

weapon, and stop it from funding terrorism.

So he's thrown out a whole bunch of goals here.

He's talked initially about cutting a deal with the regime right away.

He's talked about the US has the back of the Iranian people as they rise up.

He's had conversations with local leaders who might be willing to take up arms against

the regime.

He's talked about just basically crushing the regime militarily and then seeing what

rises kind of naturally.

It's all over the place.

So the one consistent thing here is that Trump just wants to bomb and target a lot of

the things Iran can do to hurt the US and allies.

What's your sense now of how the Trump administration is viewing regime change?

Is it accomplishing any of these goals possible with the current regime that's in place?

You know, we're in this, we're still very early into this.

I think this is officially day four of this war.

I mean, we are in a world in which, you know, the range of possibilities go from a, at

least US friendly, but perhaps small, D democratic government forms in Iran to complete

regional chaos and war.

Now the Trump administration keeps saying this isn't a war about regime change.

In fact, Secretary Hexf said, you know, this isn't about regime change, but the regime

did change.

This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change and the world

is better off for it.

When Trump took questions from reporters today in the Oval Office, he said what's next

for Iran's leadership is unclear.

You know, we had some in mind from that group that is dead and now we have another group

that may be dead also based on reports.

So I guess you have a third wave coming in.

Pretty sure we're not going to know anybody.

In those same remarks, Trump also made a comparison between Iran and Venezuela.

Venezuela was so incredible because we did the attack and we kept government totally

intact.

How much do you think would happen in Venezuela where the US military seized President

Nicholas Maduro and immediately started working with his vice president who was thought

to be friendlier to the US?

How much do you think that is impacting Trump's thinking in Iran?

It seems to be on his mind.

He's mentioned this many times.

What he's calling the Venezuela model, which is effectively remove the leader and then

have someone else from the regime be kind of a client of the US.

But to compare Venezuela and Iran as apples and oranges for just one of the many reasons,

you know, the Maduro regime was there for a bit.

But Iran is a country that's been defined by its revolutions in 1979.

There are tons of people there who have benefited from this system who would fight to

keep that system there, who would take up arms, who benefit financially, socially, etc.

And it is a country that, you know, for a while has defined itself by resistance to the

US, by resistance to Israel.

So does that discount the possibility that there's a Delcy Rodriguez in Iran?

No, that's possible.

Trump feels that that could happen, but he's also told the media, hey, we've identified

some people who could potentially do that and we've killed them.

So if this is the goal, he's not doing a particularly good job of trying to realize it.

You also reported this morning that Trump is now open to supporting local militias.

Why?

Yes.

Well, this is part of his mosaic of ideas of what's to follow.

I mean, the notion that Trump is against regime change doesn't really stand up to scrutiny

because, you know, he should note, he's not like made a decision to support local militias

like the curbs of what not and even if he does, it's unclear if he'll send weapons or

provide training or anything like that.

But he does seem open to basically telling local militias, hey, if you want to take up arms

and go and, you know, stream into Tehran and try to take the regime down, have at it,

you know, the US isn't going to stop you.

How will the US know when it's been successful, when it's sort of mission accomplished?

Your guess is as good as mine.

And I think at this point, it's the most important real estate in the world is between President

Trump's ears.

It's whenever he decides, whenever he decides he's satisfied, which is why you have people

speculating all over the place that he's willing to cut a deal, which would keep the regime

in place or he's willing to support local militias to overthrow the regime, which will

have to support popular uprisings over the regime, like it's unclear what he will define

a success.

But one could imagine that, you know, say oil prices go up or more service members die

or the cost for Trump, however he proceeds them go up, he could find a political way out

and he's pretty good at this stuff, right, in that sense.

And he could say, look, I killed him in A. I destroyed a lot of their weaponry and

I pushed back the nuclear program even further, you know, success.

I'm good.

That's all for today, Tuesday, March 3rd.

The journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal, additional reporting

in this episode by Michael Gordon, Laura Seligman, Vera Bergen-Gruin, and Dustin Bowles.

Thanks for listening.

See you tomorrow.

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