President Donald Trump and his top officials have offered multiple, sometimes contradictory explanations for Operation Epic Fury, the joint U.S.-Israel military campaign that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some 40 senior Iranian officials. Rationales offered in public statements range from neutralizing Iran’s nuclear program to preempting its ballistic missiles to preventing a unilateral Israeli strike, with officials at times contradicting one another and the president contradicting himself.
Trump administration officials told congressional staffers in private briefings that U.S. intelligence did not indicate Iran was preparing a preemptive strike against the United States, according to the Associated Press. That disclosure undercuts one of the administration’s central public justifications for the operation and leaves open questions about its exit strategy, timeline, and plans for Iranian leadership.
“It’s the standard practice to agree on the rationale before you start and then stick to delivering a consistent messaging,” said David Schenker, a former Trump administration official now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “But that’s a challenge for this administration.”
The shifting nuclear rationale
Trump declared on Truth Social on June 24, 2025, that Iran’s nuclear sites were “COMPLETELY DESTROYED.” When an intelligence analysis subsequently suggested Iran’s nuclear program had only been set back a few months, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called that report “a false story” in a June 25, 2025, interview with Politico. By March 3, Trump was again invoking the nuclear threat, telling White House reporters the strikes had prevented “a nuclear war.”
The current state of Iran’s nuclear program remains unclear. Officials have not allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency access to the bombed nuclear facilities since June 2025, according to a confidential IAEA report circulated to member states and seen by the AP on Feb. 27. Iran has said it has not enriched uranium since June. Satellite photos analyzed by the AP show new activity at two of those sites, suggesting Iran was trying to assess and potentially recover material.
Iran is legally obligated to cooperate with the IAEA under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons but suspended all cooperation following the conflict with Israel.
The missile justification
Rubio told reporters on Feb. 25 that Iran possesses ballistic missiles that “threaten the United States and our bases in the region, and our partners in the region, and all of our bases in the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain.” Trump said at a March 2 Medal of Honor ceremony that Iran “would soon have had missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a March 2 Pentagon briefing that Iran “was building powerful missiles and drones to create a conventional shield for their nuclear blackmail ambitions.”
Iran has not acknowledged seeking to build intercontinental ballistic missiles. The country has a self-imposed limit on its ballistic missile program restricting range to 2,000 kilometers, or about 1,240 miles — putting parts of the Middle East and Eastern Europe within range but not the continental United States.
Trump administration officials acknowledged in the congressional briefings that U.S. intelligence pointed to a more general threat from Iran and proxy forces, not a planned preemptive Iranian strike, according to the AP.
“There’s been a lot of reporting that the assessments from the intelligence and military didn’t suggest that there was going to be an Iranian first strike,” said Naysan Rafati, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group. “My sense has been that opportunity is at least as much of a significant factor as threats, certainly.”
Accounts of Israel’s role
The administration’s account of Israel’s role also varied. Rubio said the U.S. acted because it knew of a forthcoming Israeli strike and moving first would reduce American casualties. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said Israel “was determined to act in its own defense here, with or without American support” and that American inaction could have been “devastating.” Asked whether Israel had forced his hand, Trump told reporters: “No. If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”
An Israeli military official, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, described lockstep planning between the two countries. Three weeks before the strikes, Israel understood the operation was pointing toward a confrontation with Iran and sent a team to the Pentagon, the official said. The Israeli military deliberately suggested it was standing down for the weekend, releasing photos indicating senior commanders were heading home for Shabbat dinner, then launched the strikes hours later in a surprise daylight attack. The barrage came nearly simultaneously — three strikes in three locations within a minute. U.S. and Israeli war rooms remained synchronized in real time during the operation, the official said.
In a televised address, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel had carried out the strikes “in full cooperation” with the U.S.
Questions about leadership and what comes next
The administration has not settled on whether changing the Iranian government was a goal of the operation. Shortly after the first strikes, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.” Hegseth said Monday the operation was “not a so-called regime change war. But the regime sure did change, and the world is better off for it.” Trump acknowledged Tuesday that the succession picture was murky: “Most of the people we had in mind are dead. Now we have another group. They may be dead also based on reports. So, I guess you have a third wave coming, and pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.”
Washington has a troubled history with engineered leadership transitions in Iran. The CIA helped topple Iran’s democratically elected government in 1953, installing Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was himself overthrown in Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The White House described Trump’s decision to launch the operation as grounded in past Iranian threats and, in its words, “the president’s feeling, based on fact, that Iran does pose an imminent and direct threat to the United States of America.” Analysts said that framing remained unclear.