What Trump Knew About the Attack Against Iran
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This story was updated at 5:30 p.m. on June 13, 2025.
As Israeli jets streaked over the Middle East last evening, President Donald Trump's key aides were making preparations for their next round of nuclear talks with Iran, hoping to cement their boss's reputation as the world's top dealmaker.
For weeks, Trump had been warning Iran to accept the agreement that his envoy, Steve Witkoff, had offered, under which Tehran would receive sanctions relief in exchange for dismantling its nuclear program and ending its uranium enrichment. Trump had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a call earlier in the week he believed that a deal was still possible and didn't want to risk a wider war, a White House official told us. When Netanyahu raised the possibility of a preemptive strike, Trump said he preferred the diplomatic route.
But by this morning, everything had changed. Israel's largest-ever attack on Iran had left senior leaders of the Islamic Republic dead, its nuclear facilities badly damaged, and the outlook for Trump's dealmaking in shambles. What remains of Iran's leadership appears even less likely to accept the embarrassing prospect of surrendering its enrichment capability, and will feel the need to hit back against Israel without restraint. More threatening for Trump, the president now faces the prospect of Iranian attacks on U.S. interests and an unpredictable, economically damaging wider war across the Middle East. The question that has dominated international attention on the Middle East for well over a decade—whether the standoff over Iran's nuclear aspirations would be resolved with force or at the negotiating table—appears to be careening toward an answer.
'Dead,' one person familiar with the matter said of Trump's diplomatic push. 'Yes, Iran is an authoritarian state, but they care about how they're viewed domestically and internationally. They can't be seen as negotiating from a position of weakness.'
[Read: Iran's stunning incompetence]
A diplomat from a Middle Eastern country said that Trump is being naive if he thinks Iran will resume talks 'in any meaningful way any time soon.'
'Also,' the diplomat added, 'Israel just killed their negotiators.'
Israel dubbed its operation 'Rising Lion,' and it included air strikes on more than 100 nuclear and military sites as well as the assassinations of a number of top officials, including the chief of staff of Iran's military, the senior-most Revolutionary Guard commander, and the diplomat overseeing negotiations with Washington. The details of the attack suggest that Israel had invested months or years of planning and had deeply penetrated Iran's security establishment, even beyond the espionage required to assassinate a senior Hamas operative at a Tehran guesthouse last year.
Netanyahu promised there would be more to come. 'Today the Jewish state refuses to be the victim of a nuclear Holocaust,' he said in a message to the Iranian people.
Former officials who have followed Israel's decades-long standoff with Iran described yesterday's assault as the 'big one' for Israel, which was hoping to take advantage of the setbacks it dealt its adversary's air and missile defenses in a series of tit-for-tat attacks over the past 18 months. Netanyahu said Israel was attacking to preempt a breakthrough moment for Iran in which the country develops nuclear-weapons capability. But the aims appeared even broader than that. 'They're not just trying to take out the nuclear program for a time,' the individual familiar with the issues said. 'They're trying to permanently set it back and potentially to destabilize the regime.'
What happens next may not only change the balance of power in the Middle East—it may also come to define a chapter of Trump's presidency. A senior White House official told us that Trump continues to believe that a diplomatic solution is possible—a view that is not universally shared by those around him. He had hoped to keep Israel from striking but thinks that Tehran, which had been stalling in the talks, may now be compelled to negotiate to avoid further destruction. Trump is clearly attempting to push this message, in any case. He took to social media and spoke with reporters early this morning, touting the success of the strikes—while exaggerating his support for them—and declaring that peace was possible. 'There is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end,' Trump wrote early this morning on Truth Social. 'Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left.'
While the president is projecting strength, he is also playing catch-up. The administration was given notice about the attacks only in the hours before they began, a White House official told us. The Department of Defense briefed some key congressional committees yesterday afternoon that they had been told Israel would soon attack, though the exact timing of the strikes was still unclear, according to a person familiar with the briefing. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio distanced the United States from the attacks, saying the country did not take part, the U.S. had taken steps in the days after Trump and Netanyahu's call on Monday to move personnel out of the region in anticipation of possible violence.
Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican and Trump ally who has been a staunch supporter of Israel, told us that Trump was not perturbed by the attack: 'He sees Israel as the winner right now.' If Iran doesn't reengage with talks, the senator added, his perspective is that Washington should 'help Israel finish off the nuclear program.'
After Israel attacked Iran, Rubio's statement did not address whether the U.S. would help with Israel's defense in the event of an Iranian counterattack. When Tehran launched two major aerial attacks at Israel last year, the Biden administration authorized the U.S. military to help Israel shoot down the onslaught of missiles. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Israel 'should anticipate a harsh punishment,' and after nightfall in the Middle East today, dozens of rockets arced toward Israel; explosions echoed across Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Most of the incoming missiles were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome defense system, but some broke through and crashed into populated areas. A U.S. official who spoke to us on the condition of anonymity confirmed that American forces based on land and at sea helped shoot down the Iranian missiles. Since Hamas's October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, the United States has maintained a heightened military presence in the Middle East, giving it greater ability to come to Israel's aid.
[Read: Israel's bold, risky attack]
The Pentagon must also be ready for strikes against U.S. troops or other American interests in the region. While Iran's proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, have been weakened, the ability of Iranian-backed groups to wreak havoc with asymmetric attacks remains significant, as the Houthi militants in Yemen have continued to demonstrate. In addition to major bases in Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, the Pentagon has an array of naval assets in the region that could mount defenses for an Iranian counterattack, including the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, with some 5,000 sailors aboard and its suite of F-18 and F-35 jets, along with five guided-missile destroyers. Since the October 7 attacks, the United States has also moved additional air-defense assets to Israel.
Daniel Shapiro, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration and was a senior Pentagon official during the Biden administration, told us the moment posed a significant dilemma for Iran: It would also want to hit back against the United States, Israel's chief military backer, but the prospect of war with Washington in a moment of internal chaos and military weakness was likely to be daunting.
Ironically, the blows to Iran's conventional military might make Iran's leaders less willing to accept limits to their nuclear ambitions than they would have been otherwise. 'It's more likely that Iran will now feel a desperate need to sprint toward breakout capability, because they're now so damaged,' said Shapiro, who is a fellow at the Atlantic Council. 'They've always viewed the nuclear program as part of their regime survival strategy.'
Yesterday's attack revealed the extent to which the Middle East has been remade since October 7, allowing Israel to extend its military advantage against Iran and its allies far more than most imagined possible. But that altered reality may pose a political danger to Trump, driving a wedge between his duties as Israel's chief foreign ally and the wishes of his political base.
If Iran does attempt to accelerate its drive to obtain nuclear weapons, it would pull the United States more deeply into the conflict. Trump has vowed that Iran will not get a bomb and that only the United States has the military capabilities to reach the deeply buried facilities at the Fordow nuclear site.
But some 'America First' influencers, such as Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk, denounced the possibility of the U.S. becoming further embroiled overseas. In the hours after the attack, the stock market went down while the price of oil went up. And a president who campaigned on promises of quickly ending foreign wars was suddenly on the precipice of another conflict.
Article originally published at The Atlantic
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