Why Trump Is Striking Iran Now

Alex Ossola (0:00)

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Luke Vargas (0:21)

Hey, What's News listeners. It's Saturday, February 28th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal, and this is What's News Sunday. Coming to you early this weekend to dig into the big questions after the US launched major combat operations against Iran earlier today. In coordination with Israel, American strengths have targeted Iran's leadership and its military assets, the prelude to what President Trump hopes is an end to the regime in Tehran. Unsurprisingly, Iran is hitting back, firing missiles and drones at Israel and at US bases across the Middle East.

While it's still early hours, the attacks that various factions in Washington and abroad have either feared or longed to see for decades are risking a wider conflict. Today we'll get the very latest on the US attacks and Iran's response and look at the likelihood of just such an escalation. We've got a lot to cover, so let's get right to it. For weeks now, we have been watching the accumulation of US military assets in the Middle East, and overnight, the US military pulled the trigger using sea and air-based platforms to launch strikes across Iran, including the capital Tehran. Iran's supreme leader was among those targeted, though his condition is currently unknown. As is a lot else at this hour, which is why I want to introduce now a pair of journal colleagues who are here to help us cut through the fog of war and help prepare for what we report could be days of intensive strikes on the line from Washington. His journal national security reporter Alex Ward and from Istanbul were joined by journal Middle East correspondent Jared Malsin. Alex, let me start with you and let's hear from President Trump here, who this morning made the case for these attacks and offered something of a history lesson, really.

SPEAKER_3 (2:10)

For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops, and the innocent people in many, many countries.

Luke Vargas (2:26)

Alex, so much of the focus on Iran lately has been about its nuclear program, its missile program, these things were the subject of negotiations just a few days ago. How significant is it then that the president here is citing something quite different, invoking all of that history?

Alex Ward (2:40)

I mean, I think he's just trying to put historical framing on all of this. But that's not what this is about. His main arguments have been that they are pretty close to acquiring a nuclear weapon and that they're pretty close to developing a missile that could hit the United States. Based on publicly available intelligence, and including some statements coming from Democrats now who are seeing that intelligence, Iran, because of the strikes from last year, last June, they might have enriched uranium, but really no ability to turn that into enough fuel for a weapon. The ability to make an intercontinental ballistic missile was probably years away from being done, assuming the Iranians had made that choice. And we should also remember that in January, when there were protests in Iran, Trump said he was gonna strike to defend the protesters. So there have been a slew of reasons for why Trump said he's gonna do this. The history bit just seemed more window dressing than anything else.

Luke Vargas (3:31)

The president is really seeking a lot here, Jared. In addition to no nuclear weapons, no missile program, we have annihilating the Iranian Navy, the president ordering Iranian troops and police to lay down their weapons or face certain death. What's your reaction to all this?

Jared Malsin (3:49)

They are very far reaching aims. He also vowed to raise the Iranian missile program to the ground and strike Iranian nuclear sites. He also called on Iranians to rise up and overthrow the regime, which is the end goal that he says he wants. That's also the aim articulated this morning by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It raises a lot of questions now about how the Americans and the Israelis intend to achieve that end state. They are saying that after this military campaign is over, they are going to call on Iranians to actually accomplish that. If they do go out and try to overthrow the regime, ordinary Iranians that is, they will be putting their lives at risk.

Luke Vargas (4:37)

I mean, do we have any early answers, signals we can see from these attacks about how well they line up with those goals?