Trump and Israel Start the Iran War

President Donald Trump said on Friday afternoon that he was expecting to sit down with Iran for more negotiations next week. A few hours later, he announced the beginning of “major combat operations” in order to “raze their missile industry to the ground,” “annihilate their navy,” and help Iranians overthrow their government.

“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties. That often happens in war,” Trump added. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also announced that his country was taking part in “joint operations” in order to “create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their fate into their own hands.”

Iran has immediately begun firing back at Israeli territory and U.S. bases in Arab countries, hitting Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Iraq with missiles and drones in the first few hours. The Iraqi militia Kataeb Hezbollah and the rebel Houthis in Yemen vowed to join the war on Iran’s side. There are about 40,000 U.S. troops stationed around the region.

Fires could be seen rising from the headquarters of the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. No U.S. casualties have been reported as of early Saturday morning. At least one bystander was killed in the United Arab Emirates.

Trump and Netanyahu preempted any kind of American public debate, launching their attack a few days before Congress was set to vote on a war powers resolution. An Israeli official told Reuters that the attack was planned months in advance and the date was decided weeks ago. Netanyahu visited Trump in December 2025—before recent Iranian protests began—to discuss attacking Iran, Axios reported at the time.

On Friday night, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who was mediating U.S.-Iranian talks, told CBS News that a “peace deal is within our reach” and Iran had agreed to give up its stockpile of enriched uranium. Shortly after, Trump claimed that Iran was refusing to give up enriched uranium.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly informed Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R–La.), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R–S.D.), and Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D–Va.) before the attack.

In his speech announcing the war, Trump cited a litany of decades-old grievances against Iran, including the takeover of the U.S. Embassy during the 1979 revolution and the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war in 1983.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), a sponsor of the war powers resolution, decried the strikes as “Acts of war unauthorized by Congress” immediately after the attack. “The American people are tired of regime change wars that cost us billions of dollars and risk our lives,” cosponsor Rep. Ro Khanna (D–Calif.) added in a video message.

“These strikes are a colossal mistake, and I pray they do not cost our sons and daughters in uniform and at embassies throughout the region their lives,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D–Va.), who is sponsoring a similar resolution in the Senate, said. “Every single Senator needs to go on the record about this dangerous, unnecessary, and idiotic action.”

On the other hand, hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) gave a ringing endorsement: “This operation will be massive in scope and has as its goal the elimination of the regime as demanded by the people of Iran.”

The first wave of bombing hit government buildings across Tehran. Iranian state media reported on Saturday morning that President Masoud Pezeshkian, Speaker of Parliament Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, and top military officials are all alive and well. But there was no word on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whose house was bombed.

Axios reports that Israel is targeting Iranian leaders “past, present, and future.” Strangely, that list of targets may include opposition figures who are ready to step into a power vacuum. The opposition Green Movement reported that the airstrikes targeted the house where their leaders, Mirhossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard, have been held under house arrest since 2009.

Whatever comes of the war, civilians are already starting to suffer. Iranian state TV played images of a bombed-out girls’ school in the south of the country, reporting that 57 people were killed. Another video widely circulated on social media shows men, women, and children running out of a bombed-out apartment building. A teenage girl shouts into her phone for her mother to come outside quickly, while another woman shouts, “Why did they hit a home?”

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Source: https://reason.com/2026/02/28/trump-and-israel-start-the-iran-war/