The Daily - Did Israel Force Trump Into War?

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

The U.S. decision to strike Iran was a victory for Israel, which had been pushing President Trump for months on the need to hit the country. Now, Israel’s role in spurring the operation has become a point of political tension. The New York Times journalists Mark Mazzetti and Ronen Bergman discuss what we know about the extraordinarily close cooperation between Israel and the United States. Guest: Mark Mazzetti, an investigative reporter for The New York Times in Washington, D.C., focusing on national security. Ronen Bergman, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine in Tel Aviv. Background reading:  How Mr. Trump decided to go to war. Photo: Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From the New York Times, I'm Natalie Kittrelev. 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? 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 Mazetti 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. You are writing a book together. You are often reporting partners. And it is so wonderful to have you both here today.

Thank you for having us. Thanks, Natalie. Pleasure. So, Mark, you told us when you were on the show a few days ago that part of the lead-up to the war in Iran involved Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin and Yahoo. lobbying hard for it with President Trump. 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. Yep. 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 is lower, and therefore that helps sell the United States getting involved. Got it. And to understand that new dynamic, as you've described it, where should we start? Where does that story begin? Well, I think you could begin at the beginning of the Trump administration.

So in January 2025, Trump comes in and Netanyahu once again begins this pressure campaign about a war in Iran. And remember, these two men have a history of mistrust. Remember, Bibi in 2020 congratulated Joe Biden on winning the election that Donald Trump thought was stolen. So Trump was angry about that. So there is a history of mistrust here. So when Trump comes in in January 2025, he sort of inherits planning that Netanyahu was already doing about an war with Iran. Okay. And tell me about that planning that was already underway, Ronan. What do we know about it? So this was an rolling plan towards an attack that called for in the first time in history a joint U.S. Israeli strike on Iran.

that would involve the Israeli intelligence and the almighty power of America together, something that Tataniahu always, always, this was his dream. He thrived for that, and everybody told him this will never happen. And then someone said to President Trump,

this is April 2025, listen, we are being dragged into war that we don't want. And we want an agreement. You're saying that when Trump came to office, there were already these plans afoot that involved a joint U.S. Israel attack that Trump then has to contend with. And in April of last year, he said no. Yes, at the beginning, he doesn't want that.

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. Right. 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 BB 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? 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. he already has the BDA, the battle damage assessment. And Bibi is 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 were as expected, but nobody expected that this limited campaign would remove the threat because if it removed the threat, what are we doing now? Like, you remove its threat and then it comes back after eight months? But just to be clear, what you're saying is they did not actually set Iran's nuclear program back a generation and that the threat was very much still present.

And everyone knew that. Yeah. And Israeli BDA said that in a good day, maybe they withdrew parts of the nuclear plan in maybe up to a year, maybe in some other parts in months. So the problem was not the achievements versus the targets, but the state. from the leaders who said it's obliterated, and it was not. But nevertheless, in Trump's mind, this issue is largely settled. He does the strikes, he declares the sites obliterated, moves on. But Netanyahu doesn't move on, because as Ronan says, in Israel, there's a view that

there needs to be at least another round. The sites aren't obliterated. There's still the issue of Iranian missiles. So this doesn't go away for the Israelis. And in the months after the June strike, you see the pressure campaign continue at a low level where Israeli officials are discussing with the U.S. military and others about the need for another conflict in Iran. And this ultimately gets really to Trump in late December when Netanyahu comes to Mar-Alago

and basically makes the case for another war. And what is the case that Netanyahu makes at that point? So the case that he's making to the president is one, but let's first talk about the case that he's making to the Israeli military and maybe the possible additional motives behind what he's saying. Sure. He is giving the Israeli military in order to get ready to another massive strike in Iran, either with the U.S. or without the U.S.

Somewhere between April to June 26. That's back in November, October, November. And also, he saw, I am sure he saw the timeline of 26. Elections are coming. Netanyahu is lagging much behind in all the polls. The attack on Iran in June did not bring the expected votes in the polls. All of that together, he is getting the military ready to attack. And with that preparation, he comes to Marlago.

And what you're saying is that he is convincing the Israeli military building a plan to go forward with this as he goes to meet with Trump. So with all that in mind, what happens when Bibi gets to Mar-Lago? What does he say to Trump? He says, we have work to do. China is resupplying Iran with a necessary component for the production of ballistic missiles. Russia is helping them. They are re-arming.

They are regrouping. We need to attack them again. We would be more than happy if it's a joint U.S. Israeli strike. But even just an Israeli strike, I am asking the president blessing to a strike, at least an Israeli strike and a help in the defense of Israel from ballistic missiles between April and June 26.

So Netanyahu is saying there is an imminent threat to Israel posed by Iran. First of all, is that true, Mark? And second of all, he's not at this point talking about any direct threat that Iran is posing to the U.S. at this time, right? That's not part of the case. That's correct. Iran does not have any missiles capable of hitting the United States. and Netanyahu is making the case that the missile production has continued a pace since the June war, and it poses a direct threat to Israel.

Now, I think the question of imminent is always one that needs to be sort of unpacked a little bit, right? I mean, Iran launched missiles at Israel after Israel began the war in June, right? So the question is, is it imminent because Iran is about to launch another war? I don't think Bibi was making that case at all, but there's no question that the capabilities of Iran poses a direct threat to Israel. May I just add here that I think that Iran didn't pose a threat to the U.S., but Bibi keeps reminding Trump that it did pose a very personal threat to Trump, that Israeli intelligence was able to identify a conspiracy to kill Trump or that personally, by the supreme leader. Right.

This was, of course, disrupted by an Israeli intelligence who told the FBI and American officials about that. But that left a very personal point from the point of view of the president. Right. Look, this guy tried to kill me. And you're saying BB is reminding Trump of that. These guys tried to kill you, remember?

Yeah, and they did. It was real. And Trump remembers. And another case that Netanyahu is making to Trump is that Iran is weak right now, and the time is to strike. He's basically arguing that Iran's proxy forces, like specifically Hezbollah, has been largely destroyed. Their missile launchers and their missile sites were hit hard in June. And remember also, this is the beginning of mass protests happening on the streets of Tehran

that the government has to put down. So this is a moment of weakness for Iran that it looks like Netanyahu at that time is just trying to seize. There's an interesting contradiction here, right? I mean, the first argument BB's making is Iran poses an imminent threat, aka Iran is strong.

The second argument is Iran is weak, so we should strike them while they're down. I mean, both of those reasons end in we should strike Iran. Yeah, I think that's fair to say. I mean, Net Yahoo is arguing that, again, primarily because of these missiles that Iran is trying to build and is building, that if we wait three, four months, it'll be even more dangerous to strike. So this is the moment to do it. And the regime itself is distracted and weakened by the events of the last year and a half.

Got it. And how does Trump respond to this argument? So he doesn't close the door on a possible strike in 2026. And so Netanyahu leaves Florida thinking that it's at least on the table for some time in the future. And then just a few days after that, Trump authorizes the military operation in Venezuela to capture Nicola Maduro and his wife in Caracas and take them to the United States. And the significance of this is, is that Trump sees military operations that can be done quickly, cleanly, with relatively little risk, and he is emboldened by the Venezuela operation, and it sort of colors his view of where military force can be used elsewhere around the world, including Iran. I wonder, Ronan, if Netanyahu is also looking at this moment at the extraction of Maduro as a sign that Trump is willing to go very far and be very aggressive. now on the global stage. I wonder if he sees it as an opportunity. I believe that, and this is just an assessment, that if Prime Minister Netanyahu concludes anything from this event is that he would be finding President Trump in a mood that he's omnipotent.

And just with the flipping of his fingers, he can order a history changing maneuvers. Right. So he will be more sensitive to anyone. And I'm not sure just Netanyahu. I'm talking about American politicians as well who say, listen, you can succeed where all the previous American president failed, especially Obama. And you can do it.

You have the guts. And Netanyahu sees himself as the person who can whisper to the president here. You can do something that all the previous presidents of the United States failed. You are the man. You will have the guts. have the Kahunis to go for this one strike, one big attack that would take down this horrible regime once and for all and do what they needed to do and they were afraid. But you, you, Mr. President, you will not. You are not afraid. And then soon after the Maduro capture,

we get the January protests in Iran, which Trump reacts to by promising to help the protesters with possible American strikes. We all heard that. So how does that? How does that? fit into this story, Mark? Well, now there's a whole other factor, which is that these protests suggest that the Iran regime is weak. And I think in Trump's mind, it's this idea of the United States can intervene to bring down or at least weaken the Iranian government to help the protesters. So all of a sudden, the pivot for justification goes to helping protesters.

And Trump says publicly, as you said, that, you know, the United States might use its military to intervene on the behalf of the protesters. Right. But then something very interesting happens. On January 14th, Netanyahu calls Trump and basically says, don't do anything yet in Iran because we're not ready. We, the Israelis, are not ready for a strike. There's, as Ronan said earlier, the original plan was April to June, 26, right? We're now early January. and any preparations that were being made were not mature. And so the argument is you've got to wait.

Trump doesn't strike in January, right? We know that they wait until February to do that, which suggests that he did heed Netanyahu's warning. And all of this, what you've described, really suggests that Israel and the U.S. are very clearly coordinating on all of this. It's not just Trump telling Netanyahu, yes or no, giving his blessing or not.

In this case, Netanyahu has quite a bit of influence on what kind of path both sides are going to take here. Yes, and from, you know, this period in mid-January, you start seeing planning happening at a lower level with the militaries moving towards what would be a joint operation, a joint strike between Israel and the United States. So the protesters opened the door here in Trump's mind for U.S. military action, but pretty soon afterwards, the seat has been planted for a larger U.S. Israeli operation to go after the entire regime.

And so looking forward to today, we see that Netanyahu ended up getting far more than he ever wanted back in December. He got a U.S.-led war in Iran. Okay, so by this point, I now understand why Netanyahu wanted this and how he made his case to Trump, how he was perhaps more successful than he even bargained for. What's less clear to me is why exactly Trump got on board this time around, why he went this far, what he calculated was in it for the U.S. We've spent a lot of time over the last week trying to answer those questions and to sort of get to the matter of what led Trump to war.

And the answer is that there were a lot of factors behind the scenes that led him to his decision and the deliberations that ultimately centered around the question, what's in this for the United States. We'll be right back. So Mark, Ronan, I assume that as Trump was considered, during a potential attack on Iran, he was hearing from advisors, from allies around the world about just how risky that would be. You said these were complicated deliberations. What do we know about them and what do they tell us about where all this is headed? We certainly know that President Trump was presented by his military advisors, namely, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Kane, a set of not only options for what he could do

in terms of striking Iran, but also what the potential repercussions are. And from our understanding, General Kane gives a quite sober assessment of especially if there is a large-scale attack, what the implications repercussions might be. American service members killed, economic disruptions, potential destabilization of the entire Middle East. Of course, if you were to overthrow the regime in Iran, obviously large-scale casualties in Israel. So these are things that were presented to President Trump as he was making his decision. They run those war games, you're saying. They run the war games. On the other side, even though there are these potentially negative consequences, no one among his close advisors seem to be telling him this is a bad idea. He's getting mostly

support from his advisors. We report that J.D. Vance, the vice president, who has been skeptical of American military interventions, tells the president, listen, I don't know if this is a good idea, but if we're going to do it, go big, right? So you have this idea being reinforced in the president's mind that military action should take place. Remember, there's another track going on where Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff are negotiating over the future. of Iran's nuclear program, and they're basically reporting back saying, you know, we don't think there's a deal here because there's no space for a deal between Israel, the United States, and Iran that's going to satisfy everybody. We report that one of the few people who suggests

that this is a bad idea is Tucker Carlson, who meets with the president at least three times, and he is making the case that this is an enormous mistake. And of course, he's got a long history of criticizing the role that Israel plays in American foreign policy. Right. And at the same time, it sounds like Trump is not concerned with the potential reaction within his own base to another foreign war. I think that, you know, Trump has said in his public comments, boiling it down, you know, the MAGA movement is me. And what I say and do, the people of this movement will. support. So this idea that the MAGA wing of his party is against it, it seemed to not factor significantly in Trump's thinking in the lead up to this conflict.

It is possible, right, that he's not just not worried about potential political downsides, but that he sees political upsides here. I mean, if you look at the possible best case outcome here, and I know we are far off from that, but just as a way of understanding, the best version of a rationale for what we're seeing. A world in which Iran's ability to attack its neighbors and repress its people is significantly degraded, a world in which Iran becomes potentially less openly hostile to the U.S., less of a chaos agent in the Middle East, that could be a world-changing development, right? Yes, and on the issue of Iran, Trump compares themselves to his predecessors, right?

All these presidents before me left this regime in place. place. And in the last couple weeks, we've sort of heard the administration and Trump himself kind of road test different ideas for what is the real reason for this war. And we heard an imminent threat from Iran's ballistic missiles that can hit the United States that he said in the state of the Union. That's not true. Okay. At least they can't do it anytime soon, right? Steve Whitkoff said Iran can have a bomb in a week. That's not true, right? And then finally, after the strikes began and Trump made his recorded message on Saturday morning, he basically made this case of, listen, this is a regime that's been carrying out terror for 47 years that has been left in place,

that has a history going back to the takeover of the American embassy in 1979, the killing of hundreds of Marines in 1983 in Beirut, and it's time someone dealt with it. And that's sort of where he landed at the end here, which was that this regime, is a bad actor and it needed to go. Okay, I want to ask. We've obviously seen that while there have been many factors that brought Trump to this decision of going to war, Netanyahu has been a driving force. He has constantly been in Trump's ear pushing for this, and he has followed through on his promise to be a full partner in it. And we've seen that over the last several days.

Now that we are five days into this war, what do we know about how aligned Netanyahu? and Trump are right now. So on the operational level, on the working level, we have dozens of American fueling tankers taking off from Ben-Gurion Airport every minute to help the Israeli Air Force in its war effort. So on the working level, it couldn't be more close and more extensive.

But I think that while they are aligned and closely synchronizing, this is the point where their path and goals and targets and interests might diverge. Because Trump is looking for a very short war. And Israel, they say that they need two more weeks. And also, how do you end it? What you're saying is that the two sides,

U.S. and Israel, they may begin to diverge in terms of how long each side wants to stay in this conflict, with potentially Trump favoring getting out of it. early and Israel pushing for a longer engagement. And I feel as though part of the issue for Israel, but also for the rest of us, is that Trump hasn't really laid out a coherent vision for how this ends. He has called and talked to several different reporters, media outlets, on this question

recently, including our Times colleague Zolan Cano Young's, and he's been unclear about what he sees as the best resolution for this conflict and how to get there. said he wants the Iranians to rise up and take over their government, but he's also suggested that he's open to negotiating with whatever's left of the Iranian regime. Those are conflicting and confusing messages about what the U.S. actually wants here. And also the conflicting and confusing messages from Israel, because Israel is also saying, we are doing this in order to prepare the ground for the Iranian people to go back to. to the streets and revolt and demonstrate.

But what does that mean? Like, if they go, then Israel will send an attacking chopper to each street to fight against the besiege who are going to butcher them or the U.S. would do that? What does it mean? And also, Israel is fighting the missile project and the nuclear project. But how is this connected to support of the protesters? I really don't understand where President Trump is going. And I don't really understand what's the goals from Israel except for inflicting as much damage

to the military sides of the regime. What do you guys actually think the end games are here, the actual endgames for both sides, for the U.S. and Israel? I'll speak from the American side and just say it is incredibly unclear what the goals are because the administration has not done a good job explaining what the goals are. Is it regime change? Is it a narrow effort to destroy Iran's military capabilities? To me, the most telling comment of the last week came when President Trump said, well, we had some people in mind to lead Iran, but they're all dead now.

Right. So that implies that the people they were considering were close enough to the Supreme Leader or to the leadership that they got killed in strikes among the senior leaders of Iran, suggesting that what was envisioned is not wholesale change, but something like. removing the top leaders and calling the war a success and moving on. And then that goes to Ronan's point. So just how does that help Iranian protesters? This has been a muddle over the last week of exactly what the goals of this war are. And I'd imagine those goals could also change, especially for Trump, if he starts to worry about this war becoming really costly and unpopular. Yes, and I think for Netanyahu, the concern is that Trump would see chaos and economic disruption and the stock market cratering and want to stop the war sooner rather than later.

And Netanyahu, because of all the history we've just discussed, wants to have a more definite resolution to this conflict. But so far, I need to say, that despite predictions that, despite predictions that, Netanyahu and Trump's alliance would collapse. It hasn't. The two have remained in lockstep since the war began. And for Netanyahu, that might be the most significant thing. From the point of view of Netanyahu, I think so far so good, the region, the whole world,

see the close cooperation between the two militaries of U.S. and Israel and how close these countries are together. Right. But that also bears the seeds for a risk to Israel because with respect to the corporation, it sometimes meet with realities of the area. And the reality of the area is that nothing is really solved with the help of the U.S. Like, Hamas is still in control of Gaza, still aspiring to execute another October 7. Chisbalah is still the most powerful military force in Lebanon that just launched missiles at Tel Aviv yesterday. And Iran, the regime is still in place, and they still have the 450 kilograms of enriched uranium to almost military grade. They still have the centrifuges.

They still have the missiles. So even with the support of the U.S., nothing is solved and we are still living in a very risky region that every minute sits on a barrel of explosive that can re-explode. every minute. Right. 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 region. and better for the Iranian public. It's just the hammering of Iranian nucleosides

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 the hand 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? least, 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 remove the threat.

It's obliterated, whatever phrase he uses. But is it? I don't see anything sold. 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. Their Navy not a factor. Pick your adjective.

It is no more. During a news conference, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth said that the attack demonstrated the reach and resolve of the U.S. military as it seeks to decimate Iran's military. An American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo, quiet death. The first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II. Finally, Iran's leaders appeared close to naming a new supreme leader, likely the son of the late Ayatollah Hamini, who was killed last weekend. But Israel's defense minister said that if the next supreme leader followed the same ideology as hominae,

he would become, quote, a target for elimination. Today's episode was produced by Ricky Nevetsky, Caitlin O'Keefe, and Stella Tan. It was edited by Devin Taylor and Paige Cowett with help from Chris Haxell. Contains music by Dan Powell and Rowan Nemistow. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. That's it for the daily. I'm Natalie Kitroa.

See you tomorrow.