Earlier than the U.S. launched its army offensive towards Iran on Saturday, President Trump had expressed frustration with the progress of talks about Iran’s nuclear program and deployed an “armada” to the Center East. However mentioned he had not mentioned a lot in regards to the the reason why the U.S. would conduct a bombing marketing campaign towards the regime.
Mr. Trump on Monday articulated the explanations the U.S. launched its assault on Iran, bombing over 1,000 targets within the opening days of what he has mentioned he expects to be a weeks-long warfare.
In his first reside public remarks on the operation, he provided 4 causes for the marketing campaign:
- Destroying Iran’s missile capabilities;
- Annihilating Iran’s navy;
- Stopping Iran from creating nuclear weapons;
- Making certain the regime cannot proceed to arm, fund or direct “terrorist armies” outdoors its borders.
A senior administration official mentioned the operation would proceed till all 4 goals are achieved. The president has mentioned he expects the warfare to final 4 or 5 weeks, however administration officers say the operation might be accomplished eventually than the timeline estimated by Mr. Trump.
The Free Press: This Is not Israel’s Struggle. It is America’s.
Here’s what the president and different prime officers have mentioned about why the U.S. is putting Iran:
Imminent menace posed by Iran’s ballistic missiles
President Trump mentioned Saturday, hours after the offensive started, that his goal was “eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.”
Iran’s “menacing actions instantly endanger the USA, our troops, our bases abroad and our allies all through the world,” Mr. Trump mentioned in a transient handle he posted on Reality Social.
He mentioned that after the strikes on Iranian nuclear services final 12 months, the regime continued “creating lengthy vary missiles that may now threaten our superb mates and allies in Europe, our troops stationed abroad, and will quickly attain the American homeland.”
However a Protection Intelligence Company evaluation from final 12 months indicated that Tehran wouldn’t have intercontinental ballistic missiles able to reaching the U.S. till 2035.
On Saturday, senior Trump administration officers advised reporters that they “had indicators” that Iran might probably use typical missiles “preemptively, but when not, simultaneous” to any U.S. actions towards the regime. The president “was not going to take a seat again and wait to get hit first” and if he had, the “quantity of casualties and damages can be considerably greater” than if the U.S. acted preemptively, they mentioned.
Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth indicated Monday that the justification for the offensive was Iran’s “swelling arsenal of ballistic missiles and killer drones,” which he mentioned they had been utilizing to “create a traditional defend for his or her nuclear blackmail ambitions.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio provided a barely totally different rationale on Monday, telling reporters the Trump administration determined to assault as a result of Israel was planning to strike Iran, and “we knew that that may precipitate an assault towards American forces.” For that purpose, he mentioned, the U.S. selected to strike Iran “preemptively” to take out a lot of its missiles.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the highest Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, advised CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, “I noticed no proof that Iran was on the verge of launching any type of preemptive strike towards the USA of America.”
Warner is without doubt one of the “Gang of Eight” members of Congress who was briefed by Rubio earlier than the operation started. After one other briefing by Rubio on Monday, Warner mentioned he did not imagine Iran’s missiles posed an imminent menace to the U.S. — although they did pose a big menace to Israel.
“That is nonetheless a warfare of alternative that has been acknowledged by others was dictated by Israel’s objectives and timelines,” Warner mentioned.
Iran’s nuclear program
Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program had been underway for weeks. Throughout his State of the Union handle final week, Mr. Trump laid down a purple line.
“My choice is to unravel this downside via diplomacy, however one factor is definite: I’ll by no means permit the world’s No. 1 sponsor of terror — which they’re by far — to have a nuclear weapon,” he mentioned. “Cannot let that occur.”
On Friday, hours earlier than the strikes started, the Omani overseas minister, who was the mediator of these talks, mentioned “substantial progress” was being made and a deal was “inside our attain.” He advised CBS Information’ Margaret Brennan that Iran had agreed it would “by no means, ever have … nuclear materials that can create a bomb.”
However the identical day, the president advised reporters he wasn’t pleased with how the talks had been progressing. “I am not pleased with the truth that they are not keen to provide us what we have now to have,” he mentioned. “I am not thrilled with that.”
Mr. Trump demanded Iran cease enriching uranium. Iran has lengthy refused to surrender its enrichment capabilities, insisting this system is meant for peaceable functions, although lately, Iran has enriched uranium to close weapons-grade degree, nicely past the purity ranges required for many peaceable makes use of.
“They need to enrich just a little bit. You do not have to counterpoint when you could have that a lot oil,” Mr. Trump mentioned.
Senior administration officers indicated they didn’t imagine Iran was negotiating in good religion. They mentioned that “it was clear to us that they had been within the throes of rebuilding all that had been destroyed in Midnight Hammer,” the June operation that struck the regime’s nuclear services, and that Iran’s intent “was to protect their capacity to do enrichment, in order that over time, they may use it for a nuclear bomb.” They concluded the president “had no alternative” however to behave.
In asserting the assault on Iran early Saturday, Mr. Trump emphasised that “it has all the time been the coverage of the USA, particularly, my administration, that this terrorist regime can by no means have a nuclear weapon.”
He mentioned Iran had “rejected each alternative to surrender their nuclear ambitions, and we won’t take it anymore.”
The 2025 Worldwide Menace Evaluation printed by the Protection Intelligence Company mentioned, “Iran nearly definitely just isn’t producing nuclear weapons, however Iran has undertaken actions lately that higher place it to supply them, if it chooses to take action.”
Rubio advised reporters final week Iran was not at present enriching uranium.
On Sunday, in a second video, the president mentioned the army operation is “vital to make sure that People won’t ever must face a radical, bloodthirsty terrorist regime armed with nuclear weapons and plenty of threats.”
Destroying Iran’s navy
In his first Reality Social put up of the day Sunday, Mr. Trump wrote that he’d been advised “we have now destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, a few of them comparatively giant and necessary.” And, he added, “We’re going after the remaining — They may quickly be floating on the backside of the ocean, additionally!” The president mentioned that one other assault had destroyed the regime’s naval headquarters.
By Monday afternoon, CENTCOM mentioned that each one 12 of the ships the Iranian navy had within the Gulf of Oman had been destroyed. The regime had relied on its navy to throttle ship site visitors via the Strait of Hormuz — an important passageway for transporting about 20% of the world’s oil and liquified pure gasoline.
The Iran warfare has introduced oil tanker site visitors via the strait to a digital standstill. Delivery giants Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd mentioned they had been suspending all shipments via the strait.
Oil costs spiked Monday on issues {that a} extended disruption of crude provides within the area might sharply enhance power prices, together with U.S. gasoline costs.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps introduced Monday that the strait can be closed and mentioned it will “set on hearth any ship that tries to move via the Strait of Hormuz.”
“We won’t permit a single drop of oil to depart the area,” the IRGC mentioned.
However as power analyst Kevin Ebook of Clearview Vitality advised the AP, “Iran has basically two methods to shut the strait. One is to harass or assault ships, and the opposite is to put down mines. And with no navy, each of these issues can be troublesome.”
Reducing off funding to Iran’s proxy terrorist teams
The president additionally said Monday that the offensive was supposed to make sure “the Iranian regime can’t proceed to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outdoors of their borders.”
Iran was designated a state sponsor of terror by the U.S. State Division in 1984. The division’s most up-to-date nation report on terrorism, printed in 2023, recognized the regime because the main state sponsor of terrorism, “facilitating a variety of terrorist and different illicit actions in the USA and globally.”
It said that Iran helps terrorism acts via proxies and companions that embrace Hezbollah in Lebanon, Ansar Allah (referred to as the Houthis) in Yemen, Hamas within the Palestinian territories, and teams that function in Bahrain, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.
Hamas carried out a terrorist assault on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed 1,200 folks in Israel and took 251 hostage, initiating a warfare with Israel that lasted just a little over two years. A ceasefire in Gaza is now in its second section.
Houthis in Yemen in late 2023 attacked delivery lanes within the Crimson Sea, “considerably disrupting maritime commerce and world commerce,” the report mentioned.
Different teams carried out drone assaults towards U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, the report mentioned, and likewise famous that Iran’s IRGC Quds Power and Intelligence and Safety Ministry supported terrorist recruitment and plotting in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.
In recent times, the Israel Protection Forces carried out a collection of deadly strikes on leaders of main Iranian proxy teams, together with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, key Houthi official Mohammed al-Ghamari and prime Hamas leaders Yahyah Sinwar, Mohammed Sinwar and Mohammed Deif.
The IDF known as the strike that killed Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Khamenei “the fruits of a sustained effort to eradicate the senior management of the Iranian terror axis.”
Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was additionally killed in Tehran in a 2024 operation {that a} U.S. official attributed to Israel, although the Israeli army has not taken duty.
Deaths of Iranian protesters and regime change
Regime change just isn’t among the many causes for the army operation listed by Mr. Trump on Monday, however the U.S.-Israeli offensive has focused dozens of Iran’s prime leaders, together with Khamenei, who was killed on the primary day. Whereas the U.S. has mentioned that Israeli forces carried out that strike, they did so after receiving intelligence about his location from the CIA.
Mr. Trump mentioned Monday that 49 prime Iranian leaders had been killed.
In his Saturday video, he urged Iranians to complete what the U.S. and Israel began and overthrow the federal government.
“Now could be the time to grab management of your future,” he advised the Iranian folks. “That is the second for motion. Don’t let it move.”
Amid the Iranian authorities’s bloody crackdown on protesters in January, wherein 1000’s had been killed, Mr. Trump warned of “very sturdy motion” towards the regime and advised Iranians that U.S. “assistance is on its method.”
Over the weekend, he advised the Washington Submit the aim is “freedom for the folks” of Iran.
“All I need is freedom for the folks,” he mentioned.
