Trump’s Shifting Reasons for War With Iran

0:05The U.S.

0:06Ryan Knutson:is at war with Iran, and the Trump administration has cited several reasons for it.

0:12Alex Ward: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, and in 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.

0:42Ryan Knutson:A spokesman for the Pentagon denied that the administration has shifted its 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?

0:55Alex Ward: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.

1:29Ryan Knutson: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.

1:42Alex Ward:The intelligence and just general understanding of what was going on is that it wasn't imminent. There was a looming threat, but not one that required an immediate response.

1:55Ryan Knutson:Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudsen. It's Tuesday, March 3rd.

2:08Ryan Knutson:Coming up on the show, the many different answers to the question, why did the U.S. attack Iran?

2:24Alex Ward:This episode of The Journal is presented by Intuit Enterprise Suite. If your finance team spends more time finding data than using it, if there's one entity here and one here and one here and one here, if scaling your business feels like starting over, you need the Intuit ERP. Intuit Enterprise Suite. The AI native ERP is here. From the makers of QuickBooks. Learn more at intuit.com slash ERP. This episode is brought to you by Claude from Anthropic. Anthropic just made a commitment. No ads in Claude. That matters because ads in AI aren't like ads elsewhere. On social media, they sit next to your content.

3:06Alex Ward:In AI, they could be woven into it. To keep you engaged rather than helping you think something through or getting the tough work done. See why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner. Try it free at claude.ai slash the journal.

3:28The U.S.

3:29Ryan Knutson:has pointed to several reasons for its military action in Iran. The first justification came earlier this year, when protesters were taken 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.

3:49Alex Ward: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.

4:05Ryan Knutson: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 Wyckoff talking about Iran's nuclear program last week.

4:38Alex Ward:They've been enriching well beyond the number that you need for civil nuclear. It's up to 60 percent. They're probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material.

5:02Ryan Knutson:What do we know about the state of Iran's nuclear program? Was Steve Wyckoff right in that Iran was a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material?

5:11Alex Ward: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?

5:24Ryan Knutson: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.

5:43Alex Ward: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.

5:57Ryan Knutson:And even if you have nuclear material, it doesn't mean you have a bomb.

6:01Alex Ward: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.

6:31Ryan Knutson:The third thing the Trump administration has talked about is that Iran was developing an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States. What do we know about how close Iran actually was to such a weapon?

6:43Alex Ward: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 its point, which is one of the more technologically advanced missiles one can build. So they basically were like, look, they're doing this. That means that the U.S. homeland will soon be in range from the Iranians, even though currently they have missiles that can hit Europe, Middle East, Israel, and elsewhere.

7:16Ryan Knutson:But the Trump administration has walked back this concern in recent days.

7:20Alex Ward:Secretary of State Marco 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 Hegseth say, well, Iran's really trying to build this, like, conventional missile shield that can stop 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 were making quite a remarkable missile arsenal.

7:51Alex Ward: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.

8:07Ryan Knutson: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?

8:19Alex Ward: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.

8:38Ryan Knutson: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.

8:50Alex Ward: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 is. That's a retaliation.

9:10Ryan Knutson:Trump was asked about this earlier today in the Oval Office. Mr.

9:13Alex Ward:President, did Israel force your hand to launch these strikes against Iran? Did that help all the United States into this war? No, I might have forced their hand. 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 is on its way. Two, they built a large armada here. And three, they weren't shy about saying if there's no nuclear deal, there are going to be strikes.

9:52Alex Ward:So the notion that this all started somehow over a defensive concern just kind of strains credulity.

9:59Ryan Knutson: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?

10:10Alex Ward:That's what it seems like. Again, there's no question that the Iranians were making gains in 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 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.

10:44Alex Ward: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. 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.

11:11Ryan Knutson:Why does it matter? Like, why would the Trump administration try to make a defensive case? Why not just say that this, we sensed an opportunity and we decided to strike?

11:21Alex Ward: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 in 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, etc., etc., etc. So this action counters their entire political messaging, their entire case for election.

11:55Ryan Knutson: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?