In the days before Saturday's strike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran were officially still alive. Oman, the mediator, said Iran was willing to make concessions that might help prevent a war and described the most recent meeting last Thursday as fruitful.
But behind the scenes, as the Financial Times reported and "Hvylya" relays, a different picture was forming. A person familiar with the matter said that in private, Donald Trump was "dissatisfied with the Iranian responses" - a judgment that paved the way for military action.
In public, Trump had grumbled that things were moving too slowly. He had also been repeatedly threatening military action. A person briefed on the operation told the FT that the attack had been planned for months, but officials adjusted the timing after US and Israeli intelligence confirmed Khamenei and his senior officials would be meeting at his compound on Saturday morning.
The gap between public diplomacy and private decision-making proved decisive. While mediators pursued what they believed was a viable negotiating track, the US and Israel were finalizing an operation that would render those talks irrelevant. Israeli jets had already been flying for hours to arrive at the right time and location when confirmation came through.
The strike killed not only Khamenei but multiple senior Iranian officials who had gathered for the meeting. US and Israeli planners had assessed that hunting them down individually after a war had properly begun would have been much harder, since the Iranians would quickly adopt evasive practices and retreat to underground bunkers immune to Israeli bombs.
Also read: Three Oval Office Visits: How Tucker Carlson Tried and Failed to Talk Trump Out of War With Iran