How Trump quietly made the historic decision to launch strikes in Iran

To onlookers at the club, Trump showed little anxiety about his decision to authorize airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities that could have profound ramifications both on US national security and his own presidential legacy. The B-2 stealth bombers carrying 30,000-pound bunker busters were preparing to take off at midnight from their base in Missouri, destined for Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

Another set of planes was heading west, a deliberate attempt at misdirection as Trump demanded complete secrecy for his momentous decision.

As Trump escorted Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, to an event for new members in a clubhouse dining room, he was loose and — at least in public — in an easygoing mood, people who saw him said.

“Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success,”

“Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success,” he said a few hours later during late-night remarks from the White House Cross Hall. “Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.”

The decision to go ahead with strikes thrusts the United States directly into the Middle East conflict, raising worries about Iranian reprisals and questions about Trump’s endgame. It came after days of public deliberation, as Trump alternated between issuing militaristic threats against Iran on social media and holding private concerns that a military strike could drag the US into prolonged war.

US strikes involved more than 125 aircraft

Ahead of the Saturday strikes, the US gave Israel a heads-up it was going to attack. Netanyahu held a five-hour meeting with top Israeli officials that lasted through the US strikes, according to a source familiar with the meeting.

Trump and Netanyahu spoke by phone again afterward, and the Israeli prime minister praised the US attack in a video message, saying it was carried out “with complete operational coordination between the IDF and the United States military.”

The unprecedented US operation involved seven stealth B-2 bombers. All told, over 125 aircraft were involved, including the B-2s, refueling tankers, reconnaissance planes and fighter jets.

At approximately 5 p.m. ET, Caine said, a US submarine “launched more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles against key surface infrastructure targets” at the Isfahan nuclear site.

And shortly after, at approximately 6:40 p.m. ET, or 2:10 a.m. local time, the lead B-2 bomber plane launched two bunker-buster bombs at Fordow nuclear site, Caine said, and the “remaining bombers then hit their targets.” Those additional targets were struck, Caine said, “between 6:40 p.m. ET and 7:05 p.m. ET.”