Regime change, the campaign to stop Tehran’s ballistic missile program, aid to protesters, and revenge for the deaths of American soldiers. Donald Trump has given many reasons for plunging America into another Middle Eastern war.
On Monday evening, his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said something else: The US knew that Israel was ready to attack Iran, which would retaliate against the US.
“We knew that if we didn’t go after those attacks carefully before they launched, we would suffer greater losses,” he told reporters in Congress. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson later repeated the same claim.
It was the latest interpretation of many just three days into a new war with Iran that is rapidly turning into a regional conflict.
Already, the conflict has destabilized oil markets and brought a vital shipping lane to a near standstill. Hundreds of Iranians have been killed so far, according to the Red Cross, and six Americans have been killed – with Trump saying more American deaths are likely.
Yet despite the threat of escalating turmoil, Trump’s timeline and explanations for the decision to go to war have changed at surprising speed.
Announcing the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday, Trump said the “heavy and precise” bombing would continue “uninterrupted all week.”
By Monday, the US president said the war – for which he has not asked Congress for permission – could go on too long.
“Whatever it takes,” Trump said. “From the beginning, we anticipated four to five weeks, but we have the ability to go much longer than that,” Trump told CNN. “We haven’t even started hitting them hard yet.”
Speaking in the East Room of the White House on Monday, Trump said the goals also included preventing Iran from supporting “terrorist proxy groups abroad.”
He was speaking after three US warplanes were downed in “friendly fire” over Kuwait, while Iranian retaliatory strikes targeted cities such as Dubai and the energy infrastructure of Gulf states, sending oil prices soaring.
Since launching his war from Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, Trump’s stated goals have centered on everything from overthrowing a “bloodthirsty” regime to forcing new negotiations with the same government — and everything in between.
On Sunday, in a six-minute video from his Florida estate, Trump cast the conflict as an epic cultural battle, and accused Iran of waging “a war against civilization.”
This is the second attack by Trump and Israel on Iran in eight months. The US briefly became involved in Israel’s 12-day war last summer, when the US President claimed that his forces had “destroyed” Iran’s nuclear sites.
But now the various reasons for the increase in attacks have confused critics and allies.
The president “has made four different arguments for war in the last 72 hours,” Democratic congressman Jake Auchincloss told the FT. With strategic clarity, US forces could “ruthlessly execute” their missions, he said, but added: “Who can take that kind of commander-in-chief seriously?”
Some contradictions have been apparent.
They began at 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, when Trump, wearing a white baseball cap, spoke via video to launch a regime-change campaign, urging Iranians to “take over their government” and “seize control of their destiny.”
A day later, Trump’s surrogates said the administration was not interested in nation building.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told NBC, “It is not our job to choose the next Iranian government.” “It’s not my job, it’s not President Trump’s job.”
Trump seemed to agree. In his Sunday message he said he had “fulfilled” his promise to help the people of Iran following the regime’s deadly crackdown last month. What happens next is up to them, he said.
But he also told The New York Times on Sunday that he had selected “three very good choices” among Iranian officials to take over the country. A day later he told ABC that the US and Israeli strikes were “so successful” that “all the candidates are dead”.
“We don’t know who’s leading the country now. They don’t know who’s leading,” he told CNN.
The messaging whiplash from a president who has repeatedly vowed to end America’s “forever wars” has stoked concern in Washington.
Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said, “It’s like we’re going to break all of China and you guys decide how to put it back together.” “That seems to be the strategy.”
Some people in Trump’s MAGA constituency are worried.
This war was “now going to open a major can of worms and chaos and destruction in Iran. Who will take power?” Eric Prince, who founded the Blackwater private security firm during the Iraq War, said on former Trump aide Steve Bannon’s podcast. “I don’t think it’s consistent with the president’s MAGA commitment.”
MAGA influencer Matt Walsh expressed his disappointment at
The Iranian people were now free, he wrote, but even the US had “no idea” who would run the country, adding that the message was “confusing, to put it mildly”.
Rubio’s comments suggesting that Israel’s attack plan had brought the US into the conflict drew incredulous reactions, even from Democrats.
Democratic Senator Brian Schatz said, “One country planning to attack another country” – neither of which is the United States – “is not an imminent threat”. “We are approaching Iraq War levels of deception by the Trump regime. This is completely absurd.”
The changing rationale echoes the US attack on Venezuela, where Trump in January ordered special forces to capture strongman leader Nicolas Maduro.
After ousting Maduro, Trump vowed to “run” the Latin American country and considered putting troops on the ground to guarantee “peace, freedom and justice.”
Within 24 hours, his administration appointed the dictator’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as the country’s new leader, otherwise retaining the regime.
Rubio also had to explain that sudden policy change. He suggested that Washington wanted to set policy in Caracas, not occupy it. The notion that Venezuelans would choose their leaders was replaced by the more pressing goal of American control of Venezuelan oil.
Ahead of the US-Israeli strike – which Trump ordered from Air Force One en route to Texas on Friday – the president cited the Venezuela operation as a model. Analysts warned that Iran’s ideological and brutal regime is different from the government in Caracas.
“There’s some confusion about the success theory as to how it’s supposed to work,” said Kelly Grieco at the Stimson Center, a foreign affairs think-tank. “They identified these people as candidates to run the country”, “Did they know they were candidates?”
Grieco said the plan appeared to be “wishful thinking” without understanding how Iran’s regime works. “Historically there is not good evidence that you can use air power to reshape domestic politics.”
The confusion after only three days of war has created space for others to present their own plans.
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last Shah, announced just hours after the first attacks that he was “leading this change” with the support of “millions”.
A rival exiled opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, also known as the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, has also announced its own provisional government.
In another attempt to explain the objectives of the war, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Monday, “Operation Epic Fury is laser-focused.” “Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure, and they will never have nuclear weapons.”
The war would not be “endless”, Hegseth said.
Rubio later warned that Trump’s war was going to be even more serious. “The next phase will be even more punitive on Iran than now,” he said.
Additional reporting by Lauren Feder
