Donald Trump's conversation with Binyamin Netanyahu took place by phone. In it, the Israeli Prime Minister was supposed to argue about the validity of the US joining the war with Iran. Both leaders had known for several days from intelligence information that Ali Khamenei and his key associates would meet in Tehran.
“However, according to three people briefed on the content of the conversation, new intelligence indicated that the meeting had been moved from Saturday evening to Saturday morning,” according to information provided by Reuters.
After this conversation, Trump decided to attack Iran. This is what he heard from Netanyahu
Netanyahu allegedly argued to Trump that there may never be a better opportunity to kill Khamenei and avenge earlier Iranian attempts to assassinate the US president. This concerns the case of a Pakistani citizen who was accused by the Department of Justice of trying to recruit people in the United States as part of a plan that was supposed to be retaliation for the Americans' murder of one of the closest advisers to the leader of Iran, General Qassem Soleimani.
The conversation was supposed to take place after Trump accepted the idea of conducting a military operation against Iran. At that point, however, he had yet to make a decision about when and under what circumstances the US would engage in the conflict. As it turns out, it could have happened earlier, but the plans were thwarted by bad weather.
Reuters emphasizes that it was unable to determine how much the conversation with Netanyahu influenced Trump's final decision. However, three people briefed on the content of the conversation believe that it was – along with intelligence data pointing to a shrinking window of opportunity to eliminate the Iranian leader – a factor in the US president's final decision.
