New York Times: Netanyahu Sold Trump on Iran War in Situation Room; CIA Called Regime Change ‘Farcical’

April 13—A detailed inside account by New York Times White House correspondents Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman reveals how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu personally drove the decision for war in a classified White House Situation Room briefing on February 11—and how Trump’s own intelligence chiefs immediately assessed the central premise as fiction.

However, while the reports of Bibi's absurd oversell are correct, the Times left out how the real game was played right up to the moment of the Feb. 28 attacks. This involved Netanyahu telling the President that under no circumstance would he accept a nuclear deal with Iran, whose framework was on the table, and acceptable to Trump. Bibi, sources report, told Trump that he was going to launch strikes Feb. 28, no matter what Trump or anyone else thought, and he emphasized that he would, through the Zionist press sewers, make sure that to say that Trump did not have the guts to face the true situation in Iran. Faced with this Trump sabotaged his own negotiating team, headed by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and told them to stop short of reaching an agreement with Iranian negotiators. Trump the sources say did not have the guts to do what was necessary to stop Bibi, so he went in with him on the attack.

Everything that Netanyahu has told Trump about what would happen in the joint strike has proven to be wrong, one source close to the White House reported, and "Trump wants out of Iran, yesterday, if not sooner."

Netanyahu made a four-part pitch: Iran’s missiles could be destroyed in weeks; the regime couldn’t close the Strait of Hormuz; street protests would resume and, with Mossad help, could produce regime change; and Kurdish fighters could open a ground front from Iraq. He showed U.S. President Donald Trump a video montage of potential post-theocratic Iranian leaders. Trump’s response: “Sounds good to me.”

The next day, Feb. 12, with Netanyahu gone, CIA Director John Ratcliffe briefed Trump’s inner circle on the overnight U.S. intelligence assessment. He described the regime-change scenarios as “farcical.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio cut in: “In other words, it’s bullshit.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine told Trump: “This is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed.” Trump’s response was to set aside the regime-change question entirely and focus on Parts 1 and 2: killing the ayatollah and dismantling the Iranian military.

Vice President JD Vance was reportedly the most determined opponent of the war. He warned that it could cause regional chaos, deplete U.S. munitions, break apart Trump’s political coalition, and that Iran held the decisive advantage over the Strait of Hormuz. “I know you’re worried about it,” Trump told Vance, “but it’s going to be OK. Because it always is.”

The report concludes that at the final February 26 Situation Room meeting, Vance told the President that although he thought it was a bad idea, he would back up the President’s decision. Everyone else deferred. “I think we need to do it,” Trump said. The next afternoon, 22 minutes before the military deadline for a decision, he sent the order: “Operation Epic Fury is approved. No aborts. Good luck.”