Trump’s patience runs out: inside the final days before the strike on Iran

“Trump has been pressing hard for weeks,” one of those people said. “Once the military was in place, the window of opportunity was there.”

For weeks, two of the people familiar added, U.S. officials were quietly laying the groundwork inside Iran for strikes targeting the country’s military and religious leaders. That effort involved gleaning intelligence about the location of Iran’s leaders for a strike and figuring out who would be willing to work with the U.S. if the regime were to fall.

On Tuesday, congressional leaders in the Gang of Eight were briefed on the possibility of U.S. military action in coordination with Israel.

Two days later, Trump received a briefing from U.S. Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper on his options.

In planning meetings in the lead-up to U.S. military strikes, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen.

Dan Caine expressed concern about the impacts of an extended U.S. military operation on the Pentagon’s stockpiles and air defenses, according to one of the people familiar with the conversations.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was not part of the day-to-day planning, also had reservations. But neither of them forcefully made the case against going to war, the person said.

Beyond Trump and a small handful of hawks, the mood in the administration became one of resignation. In the administration, “these guys are just apoplectic about where things are heading,” the person said.

“There were people uncomfortable with Midnight Hammer and Absolute Resolve,” the person said, referring to the June attack on the Iranian nuclear sites and the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. “But those were well planned and had discrete objectives. This doesn’t have that.” On Friday, Vice President JD Vance met with Oman’s foreign minister Badr Albusaidi, who was mediating the U.S.-Iran talks, in a Hail-Mary diplomatic play. Though Albusaidi left the most recent round of talks in Geneva saying there had been “significant progress,” the American delegation was not satisfied after the most recent round. To Washington’s allies it was clear time was running out.

At the center of the impasse was Trump’s insistence that Iran publicly and unequivocally commit to forgoing nuclear weapons. Iran’s repeated pledges over the years that it would not build such weapons apparently did not meet his bar.

Iran denies it has ever sought to build a nuclear weapon, but the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency has reported years of nuclear weapons-related work. Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium, the fissile material it could potentially use for a bomb, is believed to have been buried under rubble after the U.S. and Israel attacked its three main nuclear sites in June. Tehran says it has a right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes such as medical research.

“They have to say, ‘We’re not gonna have a nuclear weapon,’” Trump said Friday, hours before the strikes began. “They just can’t quite get there.”

“We’ve been playing with them for 47 years”

By Friday afternoon, Trump was in Corpus Christi, Texas, for a rally, stopping at a burger joint after addressing supporters. Trump’s tone, even then, was resolute.

“We’ve been playing with them for 47 years, and that’s a long time,” Trump said. “They’ve been blowing the legs off our people, blowing their face off our people, the arms. They’ve been knocking out ships one by one. And every month, there’s something else, so … you can’t put up with it too long.”That evening, Trump flew to Mar-a-Lago, where he set up operations at his private club as top defense and intelligence officials joined him.

Hours later, the strikes began, as Trump watched from Mar-a-Lago and Vance and other Cabinet secretaries monitored from the Situation Room at the White House.“Now you have a president who is giving you what you want,” Trump said in recorded remarks, appealing directly to Iranian citizens. “So let’s see how you respond.”

Nahal Toosi and Paul McLeary contributed to this report.