Ahead of the U.S. attack on Iran, President Donald Trump received briefings that not only delivered blunt assessments about the risk of significant U.S. casualties but also highlighted the possibility of a generational shift in the Middle East in favor of U.S. interests, a U.S. official told Reuters.
The launch of what the Pentagon called Operation Epic Fury on Saturday plunged the Middle East into a new and unpredictable conflict. U.S. and Israeli forces struck sites across Iran, triggering retaliatory Iranian attacks against Israel and nearby Gulf Arab states.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said briefers described the operation to Trump as a high-risk, high-reward scenario.
Trump appeared to acknowledge those stakes at the outset of the operation, saying “the lives of courageous American heroes may be lost.”
“But we’re doing this not for now, we’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission,” Trump said in a video address announcing the start of major combat operations.
“For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder. We’re not going to put up with it any longer.”
The briefings from Trump’s national security team help explain how the president decided to pursue what could be the riskiest U.S. military operation since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Ahead of the strikes, Trump received multiple briefings from CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
On Thursday, Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, flew to Washington to join discussions in the White House Situation Room.
A second U.S. official said that prior to the strikes, the White House had been briefed on a range of risks, including retaliatory missile attacks on multiple U.S. bases in the region that could overwhelm air defenses, as well as attacks by Iranian-backed militias against U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.
The official said that despite a massive U.S. military buildup, there were limits to the air defense systems rushed into the region.
Experts cautioned that the conflict could take dangerous turns, and the first official said Pentagon planning did not guarantee the outcome of any broader confrontation.
Trump called on Iranians to topple their government, but that may prove difficult, said Nicole Grajewski of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“The Iranian opposition is pretty fragmented. It’s unclear what the population is willing to do in terms of rising up,” Grajewski said.
Both U.S. officials requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of internal discussions. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Pentagon declined to comment.
Trump’s sweeping goals
In the weeks leading up to the attack, Trump ordered a significant U.S. military buildup in the Middle East. Reuters previously reported planning for a sustained campaign against Iran if the president chose that path, including potential targeting of individual officials.
An Israeli official said Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian were both targeted, though the outcome of those strikes remained unclear.
Trump said Saturday that his objectives were sweeping: to eliminate what he described as the threat posed by Tehran to the United States and to give Iranians a chance to remove their leaders. He outlined plans to severely degrade Iran’s military capabilities and prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon, an ambition Iran denies pursuing.
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Iran strike on an American base in Bahrain
(Photo: Video obtained by Reuters/via REUTERS)
“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. We’re going to annihilate their navy,” Trump said. “We’re going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces.”
The decision signals a greater tolerance for risk, analysts said, surpassing previous actions such as last month’s U.S. special operations raid in Venezuela and earlier U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard warned that all U.S. bases and interests in the region were within reach and said retaliation would continue until “the enemy is decisively defeated.”
Experts say Iran retains multiple options for retaliation, including missile strikes, drone attacks and cyber operations.
Daniel Shapiro, a former senior Pentagon official for Middle East policy and former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said that despite the U.S. and Israeli strikes, Tehran remains capable of inflicting damage.
“Iran has many more ballistic missiles that can reach U.S. bases than the U.S. has interceptors. Some Iranian weapons will get through,” Shapiro said. “This is a major gamble.”