Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitcheleff. This is The Daily. Mr. President, did Israel force your hand to launch these strikes against Iran? Did Netanyahu pull the United States into this war? No, I might have forced their hands. Six days into the war, the role that Israel has played in driving President Trump to attack Iran has become a major point of political tension.
Based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they were going to attack first. And I didn't want that to happen. So, if anything, I might have forced Israel's hand.
The key questions have been, to what extent is a foreign country shaping the actions of the U.S. commander-in-chief?
We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.
And how did Trump get on board with something no American president had ever agreed to? Waging a joint war with Israel against Iran.
Have we now delegated the most solemn decision that can be made in our society, the decision to go to war to another country?
Today, my colleagues Mark Mazzetti and Ronan Bergman on what we know about the extraordinarily close cooperation between the U.S. and Israel and how that partnership affects the endgame in Iran. It's Thursday, March 5th. Mark, Ronan, we wanted to bring you both onto the show because you've both been covering this conflict in Iran. Ronan, you from Israel and you, Mark, on the D.C. side.
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Chapter 2: What role did Israel play in urging Trump to strike Iran?
And over the last few days, the extent to which Netanyahu may have been a driving force behind this conflict has become a much more central question here.
And we want to go deep on that today to try to answer the unanswered questions about how much Israel is actually determining the shape of these attacks, which have now continued into a fifth day, and the degree to which this war is about what the U.S. wants versus what Israel wants. How should we think about that?
So publicly over the last few months, we've seen President Trump take this sort of circuitous path to war. Does he really want a strike? Does he want a deal? Does he want peace? Who knows? So it's been very unclear which direction this was going. But I think the real story is that behind the scenes, This was every day pushing closer to war.
And also behind the scenes, the constant was the pressure of Prime Minister Netanyahu to get Trump there. And that issue blew up this week after Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that, in essence, the war began because Israel was going to begin it. and that the United States needed to protect itself from possible Iranian attack. So in other words, Israel was driving this and the U.S.
was responding as if there was no choice but to join the war that Israel started.
Right. These comments by Rubio were seized upon. They were immediately controversial.
Right, because it already touches a point that many, particularly in President Trump's party, have criticized, this idea that Israel and Netanyahu are getting the United States into wars in the Middle East, ultimately driving American foreign policy. So Ronan and I have been covering this issue for a long time.
And we've written over the years about how Netanyahu has been pushing American presidents towards war with Iran for many years. We're talking about George W. Bush. We're talking about Obama. We're talking about Joe Biden. We're talking about Donald Trump. The dynamic has changed in the last year and a half where we now have two American wars in Iran.
Because Netanyahu began to see the costs of going to war with Iran as lower, and therefore that helped sell the United States getting involved.
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Chapter 3: How did Netanyahu influence the U.S. decision-making process?
And he says to Netanyahu, stop, don't.
Now, Trump said no, just like every other American president this century had said no to Netanyahu. And as Ronan says, in April, he tries to put a stop to it.
But obviously then a few months later, we do see these strikes on Iran's nuclear sites. So Trump at some point changed his mind. What happened? How did Bibi succeed where he'd failed with previous presidents?
So after Trump says no in April, the planning continues in Israel to do strikes in Iran without the United States joining in or maybe just in a defensive role. And this proceeds all the way to June when Netanyahu launches the war. And a day after the conflict begins, Trump is watching how it's playing. He's watching Fox News. He's watching the sense of, is this successful?
Meaning, is it being received well?
Is it being received well? Does it seem to be going well? Yes. and as we reported last year, decides the United States is going to join. That Netanyahu had begun something that Netanyahu himself said only the United States can finish because the United States has military capabilities, specifically these bunker buster bombs, that can hit deeply buried sites.
And so if this thing is going to actually be brought to its conclusion... The United States has to get involved. And that's ultimately what convinces Trump to join the strikes last June, hit the three nuclear facilities, and then declare them, in Trump's words, completely and totally obliterated.
Right. And both he and Bibi come out and say that they have successfully dismantled the sites and they have set Iran's nuclear program back a generation. So how did we then get from Trump okaying that kind of limited strike that was declared so successful to now this much more extreme campaign that is aimed at dismantling an entire regime?
Even before the planes, the bombers turned back to the U.S., and he already has the BDA, the Battle Damage Assessment. And Bibi's saying, we've removed the threat from the nuclear project and the missile project for generations. But he didn't have that, and it was not true. High-ranking military officials told us in real time, the tactical achievements of both militaries
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Chapter 4: What were the initial plans for U.S.-Israeli military action against Iran?
You're saying that even in this new world where you have the U.S. and Israel going after Iran, striking Iran, going to war with Iran together, that lockstep cooperation hasn't yet, at least, yielded the kind of solutions that actually would make things better for Israelis, better for the regions.
And better for the Iranian public. It's just the hammering of Iranian nuclear sites and the missile sites and the air defenses and the killing of people. And some of them were very, very bad people that had the citizens of Iran blood on their hands and American blood on their hands, exploding the American embassy in the 80s. But what's next? Is it solved?
Like, are we looking at the beginning of a new horizon to the Middle East? I'm not sure at all because the regime is still there and the problems are still there and they are not yet solved. And this cannot be solved just by words. I assume that by the end of this week or maybe a little later, the president of the United States will declare victory. He would say, we removed the threat.
It's obliterated, whatever phrase he uses. But is it? I don't see anything solved. I see only more potential difficulties and challenges here.
Well, Mark, Ronan, thank you both so much.
Thank you. Thanks, Natalie.
We'll be right back.
Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, the U.S.-Israeli bombardment of Iran became a wider international crisis. NATO was drawn into the conflict when its air defenses shot down an Iranian ballistic missile headed toward Turkey, a NATO member. A U.S. submarine destroyed an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka, killing dozens who were on board.
They're Navy, not a factor. Pick your adjective. It is no more.
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