Intelligence chief warned killing Iran’s supreme leader could bring a more hard-line successor
WASHINGTON — Six months after President Trump ordered an attack on Iran on Feb. 28, a conflict the president said would end within six weeks is continuing without a clear end in sight. The administration has shifted to a sanctions-and-blockade approach it calls Operation Economic Outcast, designed to “collapse the regime” through economic pressure.
The 60-day period for nuclear negotiations ended Aug. 17. Three days later, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Trump had turned to the economic-pressure campaign after the talks failed to produce a deal. White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said in a statement that Trump has “decimated” Iran’s military and nuclear facilities and is preparing to crush the country’s economy with a naval blockade and sanctions. “He will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” Wales said. “It would be wise for Iran to reach a deal. Otherwise, they know what could happen.”
The war has cost heavily in lives and resources since it began. An estimated 18 U.S. servicemembers and 3,000 Iranians have died related to combat operations, the Pentagon says an additional 756 American troops have been wounded, and the conflict has damaged U.S. bases, drained oil reserves and shrunk munitions stockpiles.
Days before ordering the war, Trump summoned then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to the Oval Office to ask whether a full-scale attack was a good idea. Senior aides and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the president that Iran was at its weakest point in decades, framing it as a rare opportunity to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program. The question was whether a large-scale attack would work and possibly topple the regime.
Gabbard outlined assessments from America’s intelligence apparatus, according to people familiar with the meeting. She told Trump that killing Iran’s supreme leader would likely usher in a more hard-line regime open to acquiring nuclear weapons. Tehran would rush to close the Strait of Hormuz, destabilizing the global energy market, and it would strike U.S. forces and partners in the Middle East, prompting questions about American resolve and reliability with allies, she said.
The cautions echoed warnings Trump was receiving from across his national security apparatus. Top military leaders told the president that a war would lead to casualties and would strain the weapons stockpile, creating readiness problems for an overstretched force, the Journal reported. Vice President JD Vance promoted a more cautious approach, telling Trump that Iran might dissolve its nuclear program in negotiations. That path was a risk, Vance said, but less costly than a war with unwieldy consequences.
Trump listened but was ultimately swayed by Pentagon presentations of “decisive” options, U.S. officials said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine and Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, briefed the president several times on plans to strike Iranian targets, including missile launchers, radar, weapons-production facilities, mine-storage sites and warships. Despite the warnings, Trump dismissed concerns during the meetings, suggesting the military could handle any problems as they arose. Hegseth and Caine replied on multiple occasions that they would navigate any complications.
On the battlefield, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps now controls Iran, and Mojtaba Khamenei has succeeded his slain father, Ali Khamenei, as supreme leader. Iran has continued to fire on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz and shows no signs of capitulating. The standoff has led Trump to consider declaring victory if the waterway opens, even without a nuclear deal.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Steve Witkoff, one of Trump’s main Iran envoys, walked into a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago after the war kicked off Feb. 28 to inform Trump that Israel had killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Trump was so pleased that he told them to deliver the news to the crowd, people familiar with the event said. The room burst into applause. The CIA did not respond to a request for comment.
Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz brought roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas trade to a halt, sending fuel prices soaring. Leaders from Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, contacted the White House seeking an end to the fighting and a face-saving diplomatic solution, officials said. Republicans also called Trump, telling him the war was hurting the party’s prospects in the November midterms.
Trump privately fumed at the backlash, querying aides about why Iran was not backing down amid the bombing, officials said. By mid-April, Trump remained torn. A friend who visited Trump urged the president to end the war. Trump asked whether he should “bomb the s—” out of Iran, a person familiar with the conversation said. The friend said no, warning that it would only pull the U.S. deeper into a widening Middle East conflict.
A June 17 interim agreement briefly reopened the strait and launched 60 days of nuclear talks. Trump told confidants that nearly 80% of Americans wanted an agreement to end the conflict, according to internal White House polling cited by those people. Tehran quickly renewed strikes on ships in the Strait of Hormuz after the agreement, a move Trump considered a betrayal.
The cycle of deal-then-collapse repeated itself, with Trump announcing deals and watching them unravel before issuing fresh threats. In late July, Trump ordered a large assault he claimed would be bigger than any other since World War II, only to pull back after regional leaders asked him to avoid more violence. The 60-day nuclear negotiation period ended Aug. 17 with no deal, leading to Bessent’s announcement three days later of the pivot to Operation Economic Outcast.
The conflict is weighing down Republican prospects ahead of the midterm elections and sinking Trump’s poll numbers to the lowest of his presidency. Some former White House and national security officials say there is no easy way for Trump to secure the deal he has sought — one that caps Iran’s nuclear work indefinitely and marks him as a historic wartime president.
“This was all predictable and predicted,” said Eric Brewer, a deputy vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative who served in Democratic and Republican administrations. “You can draw a straight line from the fact that the war was launched without any clear political objective to the mishandled diplomacy in trying to end it.”