The Journal. - Trump’s Shifting Reasons for War With Iran

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

The U.S.’s war with Iran has entered its fourth day. The Trump administration has given several reasons for initiating attacks on Iran. All of them are coming under scrutiny. WSJ's Alex Ward discusses the intelligence President Trump is using for his case for war and explores the challenges ahead. Ryan Knutson hosts. Further Listening: - What’s Next for Iran? - U.S. and Israel Attack Iran Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The U.S. is at war with Iran, and the Trump administration decided several reasons for it. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime. They possess these conventional weapons that are solely designed to attack America and attack Americans. They were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program in a particular nuclear weapons. Yet they continue to the great proud people of Iran. I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. A spokesman for the Pentagon denied that the administration has shifted as justification for the operation. Based on your reporting from sources inside the White House,

do you have any sense of how Trump himself has been thinking about this conflict? It's day by day. I mean, this is like wartime jazz. He's improvising in real time. That's our colleague Alex Ward, who covers national security. You know, I've talked to a lot of sources who are pretty clear there was no day after planning. Trump is in break mode. He's breaking a bunch of things.

And that's, as callous as it is to say, you know, kind of the easy part. We can break a bunch of stuff. But what Trump wants to build or replace for what's been, you know, removed from Tehran, that is wholly unclear. The Trump administration has made the case that Iran presented an imminent threat to the U.S. But after talking with sources in the intelligence community, Alex says that just how immediate that threat was is questionable. The intelligence and just general understanding what was going on is that it wasn't imminent.

There was a looming threat, but not one that required an immediate response. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudsen. It's Tuesday, March 3rd. Coming up on the show, the many different answers to the question, why did the U.S. attack Iran? This episode is brought to you by Fidelity. You check how well something performs before you buy it.

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Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home. You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store. Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. The U.S. has pointed to several reasons for its military action in Iran. The first justification came earlier this year when protesters were taking to the streets of Iran and the Iranian government staged a violent crackdown. The U.S. started sending ships and troops to the region,

and President Trump said the U.S. was coming to help. So Trump said help is on its way, and he encouraged Iranians to the streets to effectively throw over the government. And so Trump decides to build up a military presence to the largest the U.S. has done since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Iranian government eventually quashed the protests, killing thousands of people. The U.S. didn't intervene at the time, but kept building up forces in the region. The second justification for attacking Iran is Iran's nuclear program.

For years, the U.S. is worried about Iran's nuclear capabilities. And in the days leading up to this weekend's attack, some U.S. officials begin warning that Iran was on the cusp of developing material that could produce a nuclear weapon. Here's U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Wickhoff, talking about Iran's nuclear program last week. They've been enriching well beyond the number that you need for civil nuclear. It's up to 60%.

They're probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material. What do we know about the state of Iran's nuclear program? Was Steve Wittkoff right in that Iran was a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material? I mean, he was right in the sense that, like, Iran has that material, and it's enriched enough to get to that point. But the issue is, do they have the actual physical equipment to then enrich it to weapons grade? Many in the intelligence community don't think Iran has that ability, according to people Alex and his colleagues have spoken with,

because the U.S. destroyed most of Iran's nuclear equipment in an operation last year. Since then, Trump has said repeatedly that Iran's nuclear capabilities were, quote, obliterated. Here he is during last week's State of the Union. That's why in a breakthrough operation last June, the United States military obliterated Iran's nuclear weapons program with an attack on Iranian soil known as Operation Midnight Hammer. And even if you have nuclear material, it doesn't mean you have a bomb. That takes a while. And if Iran were to make that move towards a nuclear, bomb and to try to perfect it, then that would have been many months.

Now, we're talking about, like, crude bombs, right, early on, if they want to do something that's, like, really devastating, that'd be a while away. So, again, like, one of the things we should note here is that there's kind of always been an Iranian threat, a looming threat. The issue here is imminence, and on the nuclear front, like, it wasn't immediately happening now. The third thing the Trump administration has talked about is that Iran was developing an intercontinent ballistic missile that could reach the United States.

What do we know about how close Iran actually was to such a weapon? So the administration initially said, well, look, Iran is very close to obtaining an intercontinental ballistic missile, which that's basically a missile that spans oceans, goes into the atmosphere, comes back down, survives, you know, reentry, and then detonates at his point, which is one of the more technologically advanced missiles one can build. So they basically were like, look, they're doing. doing this, that means that the U.S. homeland will soon be in range from the Iranians, even though currently they are, they have missiles that can hit Europe, Middle East, Israel,

and elsewhere. But the Trump administration has walked back this concern in recent days. Secretary of State Marker Rubio on Monday said, well, the issue really is that they've got a bunch of short-range missiles, which they're using now across the region, to inflict harm. And then you had Defense Secretary Pete Hexeth and say, well, Iran's really trying to build this, like, conventional missile shield that can stop out. outside powers from preventing it from making a nuclear weapon. Now, that's very different from making an ICBM.

Like, there's no question the Iranians were, like, making missiles. That's been part of the problem this whole time, is that they're making quite a remarkable missile arsenal. But the ICBM is a whole different step, and it's not clear, according to U.S. intelligence and others, that they had even made that decision to make one. And if they had, that would have taken a few years, too. Finally, there's been a fourth justification,

which is that the U.S. suspected Iran was preparing to strike the U.S. or its assets. Can you explain why the Trump administration had this sense that there was an imminent attack? So on Saturday they said, well, we, the U.S. have obtained this intelligence that says they are thinking of a preemptive attack on the U.S. So even before the U.S. would strike Iran, they would go ahead and hit Americans. If we stood and waited for that attack to come first, before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties. But the administration offered more nuance on that when talking with congressional staffers, telling them that Israel was planning to strike Iran.

And if Israel followed through on that, then Iran would strike U.S. forces in the region. We've got thousands of troops all over the region. And, of course, we've got some in Europe. And we've got allies in Europe and elsewhere there, too. So basically what the administration was saying is Iran's preemptive attack decision is based upon Israel attacking first. And that is not what a preemptive attack. attack is, that that's a retaliation.

Trump was asked about this earlier today in the Oval Office. Mr. President, did Israel force your hand to launch these threats against Iran? No. No, I might have forced their hands. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack. If we didn't do it, they were going to attack first.

I felt strongly about that. This is an offensive decision, right? And we kind of know it was an offensive decision because one, in January, Trump said help us on its way. Two, they built a large armada here. And three, they weren't shy about saying, if there's no nuclear deal, they're going to be strikes. So the notion that this all started somehow over a defensive concern

just kind of strains credulity. Is it possible that the Trump administration just sensed an opportunity that it saw that Iran was weak and it decided to essentially just push it over? That's what it seems like. Again, there's no question that the Iranians were making gains and building missiles.

That they hadn't given up its nuclear work and that there were great suspicions and decent indications that they were moving towards making a nuclear weapon at some point. And they've been a fairly strong regime. They've had great state control and, you know, they've been doing a lot of this stuff.

They've amassed great proxy power. But look at what's happened really since the October 7th attack in Gaza. on the Israelis by Hamas. What happened? Well, after that, the Israelis knocked out, Hezbollah and Hamas, two of their major proxies. The Iranian economy under U.S.-led sanctions

has completely tanked. The protests in January show that there's massive public unrest and disapproval with the regime. All to say, there was no weaker point, really since 1979 for Iran. And if you're the U.S. and you do, or the Trump administration, you care about, you know, you see all these things Iran's doing, you go, well, why wait?

Why wait until they get stronger? Hit them now. But that's not the case they're making. Why does it matter? Why would the Trump administration try to make a defensive case? Why not just say that we sensed an opportunity and we decided to strike? Because Trump's political rise from the first term, but also in the second, was built around him being the president of peace. No more wars.

I mean, you also saw Vice President J.D. Vance and multiple occasions say, you know, part of the reason he joined the ticket was because, this would not be an administration that engaged in stupid wars anymore. And, you know, Trump had initially said the Iraq war was dumb, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So this action counters their entire political messaging, their entire case for election. The Trump administration did not go to Congress to seek approval for this conflict with Iran. Why not? Does it have anything to do with how the Trump administration is justifying it, the fact that they're saying it was an imminent threat? Yes, the president is allowed to do so without notifying Congress.

assuming an imminent threat. You're totally right about that. I should note, Congress has basically seated its foreign policy authority for a really long time. Right? This isn't just a Trump phenomenon. This is going back through multiple Democratic and Republican administrations. The Trump team for a while, as I have other administration said, Congress doesn't have any real say in this. You know, the president has constitutional authorities to do this kind of thing. Now, they've notified Congress through the War Powers Act as to their reasoning for this, and it was in their rationale to take out the threat from the Iranian regime. It's Navy, its missiles, it's nuclear, et cetera. So that was the reason.

How will the Trump administration know when its mission in Iran is finished? That's next. The Trump administration has laid out four specific goals for its operations in Iran. Destroy Iran's missile capabilities, annihilate its Navy, prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and stop it from funding terrorism. So he's thrown out a whole bunch of goals here. He's talked initially about cutting a deal with the regime right away. He's talked about, you know, the U.S. has the back of the Iranian people as they rise up. He's had conversations with local leaders who might be willing to take up arms against the regime.

He's talked about just basically crushing the regime militarily and then seeing what rises kind of naturally. It's all over the place. So the one consistent thing here is that Trump just wants to. to bomb and target a lot of the things Iran can do to hurt the U.S. and allies. What's your sense now of how the Trump administration is viewing regime change? Is it accomplishing any of these goals possible with the current regime that's in place? You know, we're in this, we're still very early into this. I think this is officially day four of this war.

I mean, we are in a world in which, you know, the range of possibilities go from at least U.S. friendly, but perhaps small D. Democratic, government forms in Iran to complete regional chaos and war. Now, the Trump administration keeps saying this isn't a war about regime change. In fact, Secretary Hegsev said, you know, this isn't about regime change, but the regime did change. This is not a so-called regime change war. But the regime sure did change. And the world is better off for it.

When Trump took questions from reporters today in the Oval Office, he said what's next for Iran's leadership. that's unclear. You know, we had some in mind from that group that is dead. And now we have another group. They may be dead also based on reports. So I guess you have a third wave coming in. Pretty sure we're not going to know anybody. In those same remarks, Trump also made a comparison

between Iran and Venezuela. Venezuela was so incredible because we did the attack and we kept government totally intact. How much do you think when we did, happened in Venezuela, where the U.S. military seized President Nicholas Maduro and immediately started working with his vice president who was thought to be friendlier to the U.S. How much do you think that is impacting Trump's thinking in Iran? It seems to be on his mind. He's mentioned this many times, what he's calling the Venezuela

model, which is effectively remove the leader and then have someone else from the regime be kind of a client of the U.S. But to compare Venezuela, and Iran is apples and oranges. For just one of the many reasons, you know, the Maduro regime was there for a bit, but Iran is a country that's been defined by its revolution since 1979. There are tons of people there who have benefited from this system, who would fight to keep that system there,

who would take up arms, who benefit financially, socially, et cetera. And it is a country that, you know, for a while, has defined itself by resistance to the U.S. by resistance to Israel. So does that discount the possibility if there's a Delci Rodriguez in Iran? No, that's possible. Trump feels that that could happen.

But he's also told the media, hey, we've identified some people who could potentially do that, and we've killed them. So if this is the goal, he's not doing a particularly good job of trying to realize it. You also reported this morning

that Trump is now open to supporting local militias. Why? Yes, well, this is part of his mosaic of ideas of what's to follow. I mean, the notion that Trump is against regime change doesn't really stand up to scrutiny because, you know, he's, I should note, he's not, like, made a decision

to support local militias like the Kurds and whatnot. And even if he does, it's unclear he'll send weapons or provide training or anything like that. But he does seem open to basically telling local militias, hey, if you want to take up arms and go and, you know, stream into Tehran and try to take the regime down, have at it. You know, the U.S. isn't going to stop you.

How will the U.S. know when it's been successful, when it's sort of mission accomplished? Your guess is as good as mine. I think at this point, it's the most important real estate in the world is between President Trump's ears. It's whenever he decides. Whenever he decides, he's satisfied, which is why you have people speculating all over the place, that he's willing to cut a deal, which would keep the regime in place, or he's willing to support local militias to overthrow the regime, or he's willing to support popular uprisings over the regime.

Like, it's unclear what he will define a success. But one could imagine that if, you know, say, oil prices go up, or more service members die, or the cost for Trump, however he perceives them, go up, he could find a political way out. And he's pretty good at this stuff, right, in that sense. And he could say, look, I killed Khamenei, I destroyed a lot of their weaponry, and I pushed back the nuclear program even further. You know, success. I'm good. That's all for today.

Tuesday, March 3rd. The journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Michael Gordon, Laura Seligman, Vera Bergen-Gruin, and Dustin Bowles. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.