With Military Strike His Predecessors Avoided, Trump Takes a Huge Gamble
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
With Military Strike His Predecessors Avoided, Trump Takes a Huge Gamble
The administration is arguing that it was engaged in an act of pre-emption, seeking to terminate a threat, not the Iranian regime. But it is far from clear that the Iranians will perceive it that way. In essence, Mr. Trump was threatening to broaden his military partnership with Israel, which has spent the last eight days systematically targeting Iran’s top military and nuclear leadership. He promised that if Iran did not relent, he would go after them “with precision, speed and skill”
In short, the administration is arguing that it was engaged in an act of pre-emption, seeking to terminate a threat, not the Iranian regime. But it is far from clear that the Iranians will perceive it that way. In a brief address from the White House on Saturday night, flanked by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Mr. Trump threatened Iran with more destruction if it does not bend to his demands.
“Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace,” he said. “If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.”
“There will be either peace,” he added, “or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left.” He promised that if Iran did not relent, he would go after them “with precision, speed and skill.”
In essence, Mr. Trump was threatening to broaden his military partnership with Israel, which has spent the last eight days systematically targeting Iran’s top military and nuclear leadership, killing them in their beds, their laboratories and their bunkers. The United States initially separated itself from that operation. In the Trump administration’s first public statement about those strikes, Mr. Rubio emphasized that Israel took “unilateral action against Iran,” adding that the United States was “not involved.”
But then, a few days ago, Mr. Trump mused on his social media platform about the ability of the United States to kill Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, anytime he wanted. And Saturday night, he made clear that the United States was all in, and that contrary to Mr. Rubio’s statement, the country was now deeply involved.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/21/us/politics/trump-iran-risks.html