President Donald Trump's administration is trying to explain why it struck Iran and killed its supreme leader without clear support from Congress or allies.
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Mary’s University to mark 110th year of Fiesta Oyster Bake with poster unveiling, coronation Read full article: St. Mary’s University to mark 110th year of Fiesta Oyster Bake with poster unveiling, coronationRecovery Werks offers free support for families battling addictionPresident Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Washington. FILE - Secretary of State Marco Rubio, left, speaks next to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the NATO summit of heads of state and government in The Hague, Netherlands, June 25, 2025. FILE - Boys stand on a launcher of an Iranian domestically-built missile during an annual rally marking 1979 Islamic Revolution at the Azadi sq. in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 11, 2026. FILE - The Iranian national flag flies during a special session of an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, March 2, 2026. FILE - A Qadr H long-range ballistic surface-to-surface missile is fired by Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard during a maneuver in an undisclosed location in Iran, March 9, 2016. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Washington. — including an exit strategy, a timeline and who President Donald Trump wants to take control of Iran from what he calls the “sick people” who run it now.What makes the latest U.S.-Iran conflict different from a series of others is that the Trump administration’s own officials do not appear to be clear or uniform on the important questions at hand: Why and why now? “It’s the standard practice to agree on the rationale before you start and then stick to delivering a consistent messaging,” said David Schenker, a former Trump administration official who is now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “But that’s a challenge for this administration.”to launch Operation Epic Fury as a consideration of past Iranian threats to the U.S."and the president's feeling, based on fact, that Iran does pose an imminent and direct threat to the United States of America.” Analysts say that's unclear. Here's a curated selection of the Trump administration's explanations over the last week as the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran expanded into a war.WHAT THEY SAID after the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran last summer: — “That is a false story, and it’s one that really shouldn’t be re-reported.” — Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a June 25, 2025, — “If we didn’t do what we’re doing right now, you would have had a nuclear war and they would have taken out many countries because, you know what? They’re sick people.” — Trump on Tuesday at the White House.Iran has long insisted its program is peaceful, but the United Nations' nuclear watchdog and Western nations say Tehran had an organized nuclear weapons program up until 2003. The current state of the program remains a mystery as officials have not allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency access tothat were bombed since June. That is according to a confidential report by the watchdog circulated to member states and seen Feb. 27 by The Associated Press.Iran is legally obliged to cooperate with the IAEA under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, but it— “Iran possesses a very large number of ballistic missiles, particularly short-range ballistic missiles, that threaten the United States and our bases in the region, and our partners in the region, and all of our bases in the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain.” — Rubio — “The regime already had missiles capable of hitting Europe and our bases — both local and overseas — and would soon have had missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America.” — Trump during — Iran “was building powerful missiles and drones to create a conventional shield for their nuclear blackmail ambitions.” — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during the Monday Pentagon briefing.Iran hasn’t acknowledged that it is seeking to build intercontinental ballistic missiles. The country currently has a self-imposed limit on its ballistic missile program, limiting their range to 2,000 kilometers . That puts all of the Mideast and some of Eastern Europe in range.Iran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against the U.S. The administration officials instead acknowledged there was a more general threat from Iran and proxy forces. "There’s been a lot of reporting that the assessments from the intelligence and military didn’t suggest that there was going to be an Iranian first strike,” said Naysan Rafati, senior Iran analyst at the Washington-based International Crisis Group. “My sense has been that opportunity is at least as much of a significant factor as threats, certainly.”— “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. And we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.” — Rubio to reporters on Monday. — “Israel was determined to act in its own defense here, with or without American support.” — House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.,. If that happened, he added, “exquisite intelligence” by the U.S. indicated that Iran would retaliate against American assets. “If we had waited, the consequences of inaction on our part could have been devastating,” he said. — “No," Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday, when asked if Israel had forced his hand on attacking Iran."If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”There is no sign that Israel was forced into cooperating with the U.S. in the strike. An Israeli military official, on customary condition of anonymity, on Wednesday described lockstep planning between the U.S. and Israel. Three weeks before the strikes, Israel understood that the operation was pointing toward another confrontation with Iran and sent a team to the Pentagon, the official said. On Friday, the Israeli army deliberately suggested that the military was standing down for the weekend, releasing photos suggesting that staffers and senior commanders were heading home for Shabbat dinner. The shared information allowed the strikes to be carried out hours later in a surprise daylight attack, people familiar with the operationcame so quickly that they were nearly simultaneous — with three strikes in three locations hitting within a minute — killing Khamenei and some 40 senior figures, another Israeli military official said Sunday. During the strikes, the U.S. and Israeli war rooms were synchronized in real time to allow for quick adjustments, the first Israeli military official said Wednesday. In a televised address, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel had carried out the strikes “in full cooperation” with the U.S.— “If Iran shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.” — Trump — “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take." — Trump to Iranians on Truth Social just after the first strikes. — “This is not a so-called regime change war. But the regime sure did change, and the world is better off for it." — Hegseth at the Pentagon on Monday. And in Iran, the CIA in 1953 helped engineer a coup that toppled Iran’s democratically elected leader and gave near-absolute power to. But as with the shah, who was overthrown in Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, regime change rarely goes as planned. That's in part because it's fundamentally out of Trump's complete control, as he acknowledged Tuesday. “Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” he told reporters. “Now we have another group. They may be dead also based on reports. So, I guess you have a third wave coming, and pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody."Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.Baptist Health System’s hybrid operating room credited with saving 82-year-old patient’s lifeElection Update on US Rep. 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Washington News Mike Johnson Ali Khamenei Marco Rubio Donald Trump David Schenker Pete Hegseth Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Benjamin Netanyahu
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