> It was only a surprise to the president (IMHO) who believed he could do a repeat of a Venezuelan decapitation strike. But Iran unlike Venezuela has suffered u

> It was only a surprise to the president (IMHO) who believed he could do a repeat of a Venezuelan decapitation strike. But Iran unlike Venezuela has suffered under reprehensible and unjustifiable sanctions and military adventurism by the US and its proxies such that the entire Iranian national project is built to resist US aggression, understandably. So that was never going to work. The New York Times has a good piece on the decision process leading to Trump starting the war here: https://archive.ph/20260408044252/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-war.html https://archive.ph/20260408044252/https://www.nytimes.com/20... Israel pitched a joint US-Israel operation with the goals of killing Khamenei, damaging Iran's military, starting a popular uprising, and regime change. Trump's advisors told him that the first two goals were achievable but the last two were farcical. Trump was willing to go to war anyway just to establish these two goals. His advisors brought up the difficulty of securing the Strait of Hormuz, but Trump thought Iran would surrender before that would become an issue. Iran's biggest mistake was its insufficient response to the US strikes on the Fordow nuclear site last June. They responded to getting their nuclear program set back significantly by shooting a few missiles at a US base in Qatar with hours of advance warning, most or all of which were shut down. They then accepted Trump's ceasefire proposal the next day. I think this put the idea in Trump's head that Iran was a paper tiger that could be attacked at will with little to no consequence. Even before Venezuela, the US and Israel were planning a follow-up war. Netanyahu visited Trump 3 times in 2025 prior to making his final pitch described in the New York Times article in February. If Iran had responded more forcefully and caused the US some actual pain, I don't think Trump would have chosen to go to war.