Trump sat facing the wall screens rather than at the head of the table, with Netanyahu directly across from him. On the screens behind the Israeli Prime Minister were Mossad chief David Barnea and other Israeli military officials, visually framing him as a wartime leader backed by his full team.

In the room were Susie Wiles, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, Gen. Dan Caine, John Ratcliffe, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff. The meeting was kept deliberately small to avoid leaks; other top cabinet officials were unaware it was happening, and JD Vance was absent because he was in Azerbaijan and could not return in time.

Over the next hour, Netanyahu made a hard sell for war, arguing that Iran was vulnerable, meaning retaliation against U.S. interests in the region would likely be limited, and that a joint U.S.-Israeli operation could not only cripple the regime but potentially bring about regime change.

The next day, U.S. intelligence reviewed Netanyahu’s four-part pitch: killing Iran’s supreme leader, crippling Iran’s regional military reach, sparking an uprising, and achieving regime change. Officials said the first two were feasible, but the latter two were not.

CIA Director Ratcliffe called the regime-change plan “farcical,” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “In other words, it’s bullshit.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine was similarly skeptical of the Israeli pitch, telling Trump, “Sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling.”

Trump said regime change would be “their problem" but remained focused on destroying Iran’s missile capabilities and leadership targets.

Vice President JD Vance was the leading internal skeptic, warning a war could be “a huge distraction of resources,” trigger regional chaos, strain U.S. munitions, and hand Iran leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth strongly backed military action in Iran.

As diplomacy stalled, Witkoff and Kushner told Trump that talks with Iran could take months and were unlikely to succeed soon.

When fresh intelligence in late February indicated that Iran’s top leadership, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was about to gather in the ayatollah’s compound in Tehran, it accelerated the whole timeline.

The C.I.A. director told President Trump that regime change was possible depending on how the term was defined. “If we just mean killing the supreme leader, we can probably do that,” he said.

In a final February 26 Situation Room meeting, Vance told Trump, “You know I think this is a bad idea, but if you want to do it, I’ll support you.” Rubio said strikes made sense only if the goal was to destroy Iran’s missile program, not force regime change.

Military leaders outlined the risks, including munitions strain and regional escalation, but stopped short of opposing the plan.

White House counsel David Warrington said the operation was legally permissible, while political advisers warned of possible backlash but ultimately deferred to Trump.

In the end, no one in the room firmly tried to block the decision.

After hearing out each of his advisers, Trump said, “I think we need to do it,” and approved Operation Epic Fury from Air Force One the next day: “No aborts. Good luck.”

Netanyahu and his team argued that Iran’s ballistic missile program could be crippled within weeks, that Tehran would be too weakened to close the Strait of Hormuz, and that retaliation against U.S. interests in the region would likely be limited.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, repeatedly warned that securing the Strait of Hormuz would be extremely difficult and that Iran most likely would disrupt shipping there. But Trump largely dismissed that risk, believing Tehran would fold before it reached that point and expecting a short conflict.

Bibi and the Israeli team said Mossad's intelligence indicated that renewed street protests would erupt inside Iran again and that a sustained bombing campaign, combined with covert Israeli support for unrest, could help topple the regime.

Israeli officials even raised the possibility of Iranian Kurdish fighters crossing from Iraq to open a northern front.

Netanyahu and his team presented the video and intel with confidence, and it appeared to resonate with Trump, who said, “Sounds good to me."

Bibi Netanyahu should be banned from the White House.

We never sought military intervention in our country.

Let's not forget that it is this regime that is responsible for bringing our country to the point where we had to suffer attacks from Israelis and Americans in this conflict.

Everyone, including journalists and parliamentarians, keeps asking, when will the Iranian people rise up?

I don’t say they will rise right away, but at the right moment.

Without Ukraine and Turkey, Europe will not have an army similar to Russia’s.

With Ukraine, Turkey, Norway and UK, you will control security on the seas — not one sea.

You have to save your country and then the economy.

First of all, security; second is the economy—not the other way around.

It’s a pity, but we have to recognize that some Americans feel that it’s not such a big price for us—for peace—to go out from our territories.

They don’t want to recognize that Putin will lie to them and continue the occupation even after such steps.

I think that is the biggest problem: we don’t trust Putin, and I think they trust him.