Why Trump Is Striking Iran Now

0:02Data is everywhere, but is it ready for consumption?

0:07Luke Vargas:Morningstar developed the language of global investment data, so you have the right ingredients to help you shine. Morningstar, where data speaks. Hey, What's News listeners, it's Saturday, February 28th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal, and this is What's News Sunday, Coming to you early this weekend to dig into the big questions after the U.S. launched major combat operations against Iran earlier today. In coordination with Israel, American strikes have targeted Iran's leadership and its military assets, the prelude to what President Trump hopes is an end to the regime in Tehran.

0:46Luke Vargas:Unsurprisingly, Iran is hitting back, firing missiles and drones at Israel and at U.S. bases across the Middle East.

0:57Luke Vargas:While it's still early hours, the attacks that various factions in Washington and abroad have either feared or longed to see for decades are risking a wider conflict. Today, we'll get the very latest on the U.S. attacks and Iran's response, and look at the likelihood of just such an escalation. We've got a lot to cover, so let's get right to it.

1:19Luke Vargas:For weeks now, we have been watching the accumulation of U.S. military assets in the Middle East, and overnight, the U.S. military pulled the trigger, using sea and air-based platforms to launch strikes across Iran, including the capital Tehran. Iran's supreme leader was among those targeted, though his condition is currently unknown, as is a lot else at this hour, which is why I want to introduce now a pair of journal colleagues who are here to help us cut through the fog of war and help prepare for what we report could be days of intensive strikes. On the line from Washington, his journal national security reporter Alex Ward and from Istanbul.

1:57Luke Vargas:We're joined by Journal Middle East correspondent Jared Malson. Alex, let me start with you and let's hear from President Trump here, who this morning made the case for these attacks and offered something of a history lesson, really. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops, and the innocent people in many, many countries. Alex, so much of the focus on Iran lately has been about its nuclear program, its missile program. These things were the subject of negotiations just a few days ago.

2:32Luke Vargas:How significant is it then that the president here is citing something quite different, invoking all of that history? I mean, I think he's just trying to put a historical framing on all of this. But that's not what this is about. His main arguments have been that they are pretty close to acquiring a nuclear weapon and that they're pretty close to developing a missile that could hit the United States. Based on publicly available intelligence, and including some statements coming from Democrats now who are seeing that intelligence, Iran, because of the strikes from last year, last June, you know, they might have enriched uranium, but really no ability to turn that into enough fuel for a weapon.

3:07Luke Vargas:The ability to make an intercontinental ballistic missile was probably years away from being done, assuming the Iranians had made that choice. And we should also remember that in January, when there were protests in Iran, Trump said he was going to strike to defend the protesters. So there have been a slew of reasons for why Trump said he's going to do this. The history bit just seemed more window dressing than anything else. The president is really seeking a lot here, Jared. In addition to no nuclear weapons, no missile program, we have annihilating the Iranian Navy, the president ordering Iranian troops and police to lay down their weapons or face certain death.

3:45Luke Vargas:What's your reaction to all this?

3:46Alex Ward:They are very far-reaching aims. He also vowed to raise the Iranian missile program to the ground and strike Iranian nuclear sites. And he also called on Iranians to rise up and overthrow the regime, which is the end goal that he says he wants. That's also the aim articulated this morning by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And it raises a lot of questions now about how the Americans and the Israelis intend to achieve that end state. They are saying that after this military campaign is over, they're going to call on Iranians to actually accomplish that. if they do go out and try to overthrow the regime, ordinary Iranians, that is, they'll be putting their lives at risk.

4:35Luke Vargas:I mean, do we have any early answers, signals we can see from these attacks about how well they line up with those goals?

4:42Alex Ward:From our reporting, we know that the Americans are striking along with the Israelis who have targeted the senior leadership of the regime. We don't know exactly what the outcome of those strikes were. And then, of course, we have the list of targets that Trump himself outlined in his video that he released early this morning. Beyond that, we don't really know. We can assume that the administration is looking at the Iranian regime, understanding that they are more vulnerable than they've been in years as a result of the war with Israel last year, the economic crisis in Iran, and of course, the protests themselves inside Iran.

5:22Alex Ward:That said, there are very few examples in history, really, of any regime falling as a result of an air war. And so it raises questions about what the endgame of this is.

5:36Luke Vargas:It seems like a lot of work, safe to say, remains to be done here if the U.S. really does intend to follow through on all those goals the president sketched out. And I want to play another clip of what President Trump said. He was speaking this morning about this major combat operation. He really sought to emphasize patience, endurance is going to be needed here, including potentially comfort with the loss of American lives. The Iranian regime seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties that often happens in war, but we're doing this not for now.

6:13Luke Vargas:We're doing this for the future and it is a noble mission. Alex, for those listeners, you know, kind of trying to hear parallels between what's playing out today and the operation earlier this year to remove Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro. Here's one area where it just seems like the messaging is already very different, preparing people for the potential loss of American lives. Yeah, I mean, Venezuela and Iran are very, very different. Those are more sort of one and done or at least lower risk operations. There is nothing low risk about this. There'll be days of airstrikes that could put American pilots and, of course, American troops in the Middle East in harm's way.

6:50Luke Vargas:Who knows if the U.S. will at some point have ground troops in the form of special operations forces. And that's even before we get to the fact that this could spiral into a broader regional war, if not contained. So this is by far the biggest risk by President Trump in either of his terms. And it is likely going to be the defining moment of his presidency, whether it ends with some sort of toppling of the regime, because that's what he's after. or what could be a mess that doesn't necessarily lead to the toppling of a regime, or even if it does, a vacuum that could cause chaos. So it's a massive gamble by the president here.

7:25Luke Vargas:And it's interesting to hear him talk about the casualties because he's trying to avoid certain pushback. Because, of course, the MAGA movement that he leads, he has promised for many years he would not execute a regime change war. And here we are. Okay, trying to borrow some excess political capital, should it be necessary. But just operationally, what do we know about the extent to which the U.S. can sustain a potentially prolonged military campaign like this? So the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Cain, has advised Trump that it's unlikely that this could go on for weeks, as was sort of initially discussed.

7:58Luke Vargas:It could probably go on for days, maybe a week or two in terms of munitions, in terms of weapons the U.S. has. So the president's going to want to have to achieve his goals in a relatively short amount of time compared to what they were initially signaling. Jared, over to Iran. What have we seen in terms of their response so far?

8:19Alex Ward:Well, the Iranians promised a harsh response, and they are delivering to some degree on that response so far with missile strikes. They say targeting U.S. bases across the Persian Gulf region and, of course, also hitting Israel. You've had strikes on bases in the United Arab Emirates, in Qatar, and in Saudi Arabia, so across the Gulf region. And for those Gulf countries who, by the way, diplomatically for weeks now have been pushing behind the scenes very hard to try to de-escalate, to try to find a diplomatic off-ramp from this crisis, because they were worried about precisely this scenario, there's obviously still questions about how long the Iranians themselves can sustain their own response.

9:05Alex Ward:Their supply of missiles is depleted after the 12-day war with Israel last summer, and their military sites, we presume, are also under attack right now. Nonetheless, it is already a very disruptive event for the region and for the global economy because, obviously, the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz being perhaps the world's most important energy shipping lane that's now in the line of fire.

9:31Luke Vargas:That would be kind of their trump card, right? Closing down the straits and probably activating their network of proxy groups around the Middle East too, neither of which we've seen yet, but those are cards they conceivably retain.

9:41Alex Ward:Those are cards that they can still play, and we haven't seen that yet, obviously. But even with this initial response, we've already seen that they can inflict damage and they can cause casualties across the region.

9:55Luke Vargas:We've got to take a very short break, but when we come back, we'll look at the political debate breaking out in Washington in response to these U.S. attacks, as well as how America's partners around the Middle East are getting pulled into this conflict and what it could take to trigger regime change in Iran. Stay with us.

10:15Luke Vargas:Introducing Fidelity Trader Plus, the next generation of advanced trading from Fidelity. Customize your tools and charts and access them seamlessly across desktop, web and mobile. For faster trades anywhere you go. Try the all new Fidelity Trader Plus. Learn more about our most powerful trading platform yet at fidelity.com slash trader plus. Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC. Member NYSE SIPC.

10:50Luke Vargas:Alex, you're there in Washington. I know you were on the phone very early this morning with one senator, an ally of the president. What's the buzz on Capitol Hill? How are these attacks going over with Democrats and Republicans? And kind of to the point we were discussing before the break, how much willingness is there in Washington for the U.S. to get into a sustained military operation here? Yeah, I broke my record for an early senator interview by several hours about four in the morning. And look, there's kind of three-ish factions here, I mean, to oversimplify, two of which are in the Republican Party.

11:25Luke Vargas:So Democrats, you can imagine, are very upset, right? There's no congressional authorization. They feel that this is a misguided war, that the Trump administration exaggerated the intelligence that they had about what Iran was planning and its current capabilities. They've been pushing for a war powers vote next week, which could take place, but say it even passes. You know, what does it matter at this point? The war has begun. Then within the Republican Party, you've got the establishment types like Senator Graham, who is ecstatic that this has happened. He's been pushing for this. He was your early morning interview, was he not?

11:56Luke Vargas:That's right. He was my early morning interview. He said it was a dream of his kind of for this to happen. And there are others like Senator Tom Cotton, who leads the Intelligence Committee. You know, Senator Cruz. There are many of Republicans out there who are ecstatic that this is happening. And then you've got the MAGA wing. And those are some lawmakers like Thomas Massey from Kentucky, the House member who often tussles with Trump. But they also have, you know, MAGA figures outside of government, like, say, Tucker Carlson, who told ABC News that he considered this a disgusting, quote unquote, attack.

12:25Luke Vargas:So does MAGA split with Trump to a certain extent over this? I mean, MAGA has proved to be pretty sticky in staying with Trump no matter what he does. But that's sort of the political bit everyone's watching now. Jared, how does that compare to the reaction to all this from the Gulf states? There's already really been quite a long list of countries who've been pulled into this.

12:44Alex Ward:I think we need to be closely watching the reaction from the Gulf states especially. I cannot stress enough, this block of countries, along with Egypt and Turkey, so a broad array of U.S. allies in the region, all lobbied the Trump administration not to do this ahead of time. The context in the region is that this is happening in the middle of Ramadan, which is a holy month in Islam. It's a time when practicing Muslims are fasting from sunup to sundown, and it's a time of quiet religious reflection. And of course, it's a time of a massive religious pilgrimage in which more than a million pilgrims travel to Saudi Arabia to go to Mecca.

13:26Alex Ward:And now you have a huge disruption where the airspace is closed, no one's able to travel. And that's obviously a huge problem for them. And then in addition to that, they're also under fire from these Iranian missiles that are happening. So it is a huge test of the U.S. partnership with those countries who also, as a group, decided to disallow the U.S. from using their bases to launch strikes on Iran. And that decision is also going to be tested in the coming days.

13:57Luke Vargas:I want to return to Iran. Jared, earlier you had sort of mentioned the role that the U.S. envisions for protesters. They're sort of picking up and delivering the fatal blow of this operation, which would be a change in Iran's leadership. Let's hear a clip of President Trump on that point. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations. For many years, you have asked for America's help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want.

14:33Luke Vargas:So let's see how you respond. Have we seen people hitting the streets in Iran, Jared? And what should we be watching for there in the days, weeks to come?

14:43Alex Ward:I think it's too soon to say that we're seeing any kind of significant protests. We haven't seen that yet. But it would be one thing to watch for once the military operation is over. My guess is that a lot of Iranians are concerned right now about their own safety.

15:02Luke Vargas:And Alex, crucially, there hasn't been a leadership vacuum yet. I mean, there may have been attacks trying to target members of the Iranian leadership, but from what we've been able to determine, no one's been killed. There isn't any openings to be filled. Not that I've seen confirmed yet by the US or Israel. That could change in the coming minutes, hours, days. So if that were to change, you know, say the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is killed. I mean, is there a clear successor? I haven't heard of one. But even if someone somehow takes up the mantle, say it's a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, right?

15:36Luke Vargas:They could be more hardline. They'll probably have to use violence to keep the people in line who would be protesting against them taking over. I mean, this seems somewhat callous to say, but like we're currently in the easy part of this, right? America and Israel airstriking all over Iran is actually not that hard. It's dangerous and it is difficult, but it's much easier compared to not only just killing the leader, but then somehow forming a legitimate government that the people support. And even if Trump's idea is you, the Iranians, go out and do it, there's going to be a lot of pressure on the U.S.

16:08Luke Vargas:to come and help them if they find themselves in trouble. Jared, how realistic is all of this? I see Iran's foreign minister has now come out and called the prospect of regime change mission impossible. Yeah, I would just say that what's fascinating about that question is that senior members of the administration themselves have also pointed to this question.

16:30Alex Ward:Marco Rubio himself, in his testimony to the Senate in January, said that because the regime is structured in a way that's so complex with multiple centers of power, he said, and I'm quoting, I don't think anyone can give you a simple answer as to what happens next in Iran if the Supreme Leader and the regime were to fall. And now we're in a moment where Trump has called for regime change. He and his administration have not outlined a plan for what comes after. We do know that the regime probably can survive a few days of bombing. It did last summer. And what comes next is extremely uncertain.

17:08Luke Vargas:I've been speaking to Wall Street Journal Middle East correspondent Jared Malson in Istanbul. and national security reporter Alex Ward in Washington. Jared, Alex, thank you both so much. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me. And that's it for this special episode of What's News Sunday. Today's show was produced by Pierre Bien-Aimé with supervising producer Sondra Killhoff and deputy editor Chris Sinsley. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back in your feet again on Monday morning. Until then, thanks for listening.

17:41Luke Vargas:Hello, I'm Laura Castleton with Janice Henderson Investors. We've worked to help our clients achieve superior financial outcomes and fulfill our purpose of investing in a brighter future together. To learn more, go to JaniceHenderson.com.