The path to war with Iran was paved by two meetings between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, held exactly one year apart, as "Hvylya" reports, citing a detailed reconstruction published by TIME.
On Feb. 4, 2025, the Israeli Prime Minister visited the White House for the first time since Trump's return to power. Netanyahu opened with a bracing reminder: Iran had plotted to assassinate Trump during the 2024 campaign. Then he walked through a slide deck showing enriched uranium stockpiles climbing and centrifuges spinning faster. International inspectors had assessed that Iran possessed enough weapons-grade uranium to be mere weeks from assembling a bomb. "Look, Donald," Netanyahu said, leaning in. "This has to be tackled, because they're racing forward. You can't have a nuclear Iran on your watch."
Trump was not ready to greenlight an Israeli strike at that point. He wanted a diplomatic attempt first and tasked his envoy Steve Witkoff with exploring a solution. U.S. and Israeli officials settled on a 60-day framework to test whether an agreement was viable. Israeli officials say the deadline was strategic. When Iran exceeded it without concessions, it hardened Trump's skepticism. "It proved to Trump that we have nobody to talk to," one Israeli official said. "It was a ruse."
On Feb. 11, 2026, Netanyahu returned to Washington for a meeting that participants describe as unusually grave. There were none of Trump's customary wisecracks, no theatrical asides. For three hours the two men sat together at the White House, working through operational plans and the parameters of a coordinated campaign. Trump has previously told TIME he does not trust the Israeli Premier - "I don't trust anybody" - but now they were working in lockstep.
By the time Netanyahu left Washington, the outlines of the attack were set. In a little more than two weeks, the first bombs would fall on Tehran. Between those two meetings, the June 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer had already destroyed three of Iran's most critical nuclear sites. The February 2026 strike would go further - targeting the regime itself.
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