Good morning. President Trump suggested that the U.S. could join the conflict against Iran. ICE agents arrested a candidate for New York City mayor. The Gaza health ministry said dozens of Palestinians were killed while awaiting food aid. More news is below. But first, we explain why Israel chose this moment to go to war with Iran.
The war, explained
One way to look at Israel’s war with Iran is that it’s a natural escalation of the battles that the Jewish state has fought since the Oct. 7 attack. Israel has leveled much of Gaza to destroy Hamas, which is backed by Iran. It bombed Lebanon and Yemen to counter Hezbollah and the Houthi militia, both of which are also backed by Iran. Now, instead of focusing on proxies, Israel is taking its fight directly to Iran. But the timing matters. After all, the conflict between Israel and Iran isn’t new. Iran’s leaders have called for Israel’s destruction for decades. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has characterized Iran as an existential threat for decades. Western officials have debated the wisdom of a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear program for decades. What’s new is that Israel now believes it can win. Why now?Three issues led Israel to strike last week: Nuclear weapons: Israeli officials claim that Iranian scientists are close to making a nuclear weapon — potentially months away. (U.S. officials are more divided on the topic, CNN reported.) Netanyahu said he had to strike now before they completed their work. More urgently, though, Netanyahu likely worried that President Trump would sign a new nuclear agreement with Iran’s leaders. Israel opposed the previous deal, established under Barack Obama, in part because it let Iran keep some nonmilitary nuclear capabilities. If Trump reached a similar agreement, Israel couldn’t strike without violating the spirit of that deal and upsetting its biggest ally. At least for now, Israel has global support in this mission. Western countries see Iran as a threat because it has supported militants around the world. They’re happy to let Israel take the burden of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, even if they disagree with Israel on other issues. Several Group of 7 countries condemned Israel last month for its offensive in Gaza but blessed it Monday for its strikes on Iran. Iran’s weakness: Iran is not doing well. Years of sanctions have eroded its economy. Israel and the United States have killed many of its military leaders. They’ve also pummeled its proxies across the Middle East. All of this limits Iran’s ability to retaliate. The decimation of Iran’s proxies is particularly important to Israel. Years ago, Hamas and Hezbollah would have responded to strikes on Iran with direct attacks in Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities. Now, Israel can hit Iran without stressing as much about the home front. Domestic politics: Since the Oct. 7 attack, Netanyahu has faced conflicting political pressure from his right and left flanks. The right wants a more aggressive war in Gaza, focused on obliterating Hamas and reoccupying the territory. The left wants Netanyahu to focus on bringing home the hostages taken by Hamas, even if it means letting the group survive. Netanyahu also faces corruption charges that could land him in prison if he lost power, and his governing coalition has strained over debates about military service requirements for ultra-Orthodox Jews. But strikes on Iran have widespread support. Israelis broadly see Iran as an existential threat, and they support destroying its nuclear capabilities. It’s a winning issue, with an election slated for next year. What’s next?Israel’s war with Iran is likely to last weeks, not days, my colleague Patrick Kingsley reported from Jerusalem. That’s a lot of time for escalation. One unknown: Trump says he may join the fray. To truly dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, Israel needs a particular U.S. bomb to strike facilities buried deep underground. But Trump ran for president promising “no more wars,” and parts of his MAGA base take an isolationist view of the world. Trump, however, might go back on his word. Yesterday, he reiterated that Iran should never get nuclear weapons, demanded the country’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” and threatened to kill its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Trump’s posture toward Iran keeps changing. I spoke with David Sanger, a White House correspondent who covers national security and has written extensively on Iran, about how he reports on this story. — Patrick Healy, assistant managing editor We hear from readers regularly about how Trump veers around erratically with his positions. But he’s the president — his language can’t be dismissed. How do you deal with that as a reporter? It’s always a challenge. Just two weeks ago, the president was saying he was confident in a diplomatic deal with Iran. That didn’t match our reporting. Of course, Trump thinks he is the master deal maker. So you report what he is saying and doing — he is the president, as you point out — but remind yourself that his views could change overnight. He ran for president as the man who avoided wars; now he seems on the cusp of a bombing campaign. When Trump’s intentions and tactics are opaque, how do you sift through them? You’re a journalist who doesn’t jump to conclusions. So where you do start? I’ve spent nearly half my reporting career at The Times — and I’ve been here more than 40 years — examining Iran’s capabilities. So you test the president’s comments against what we know. Trump doubted the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies and issued his own proclamations about how close Iran is to being able to produce a bomb. So we reminded readers of what intelligence reports say and what outside experts have concluded. (Inspectors were inside Iran’s nuclear facilities until last week, so we have a lot of data.) Your colleagues help, too. Yes, fortunately The Times has reporters who are expert on nuclear technology, on Iranian politics, on intelligence. It’s my job not only to sift what the president says, but to make sure we bring readers the totality of that expertise. People can lose faith in journalism when we make assumptions and get ahead of the story, especially a fast-moving conflict. What goes into producing work that people can trust? The first rule of journalism is “write what you know.” Not what you suspect. Not what partisans need for their own political narratives. Not what intelligence officials may tell you to fit the White House’s desire. We use satellite photographs. We talk to nuclear inspectors. We talk to foreign intelligence agencies. And yes, when we can, we talk to the Iranians. Of course, the hardest thing to assess is what’s going on inside a president’s head. Whatever one thinks of his rhetoric, Trump is in command of the world’s biggest and most powerful military. And the path he takes in the next few days may reshape the Middle East and our world. More on the U.S. response
More on the conflict
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