US President Donald Trump authorized Operation Epic Fury against Iran after Washington received intelligence indicating that the Islamic Republic would deploy its ballistic missiles either preemptively or simultaneously with any American action against Tehran, a senior US official said on Saturday.
For their part, Iranian officials have asserted that they would only deploy the country’s arsenal if attacked, which is what ended up happening.
“The president decided he was not going to sit back and allow American forces in the region to absorb attacks from conventional missiles,” the senior US official said, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity.
“We had analysis that basically told us [that] if we sat back and waited to get hit first, the amount of casualties and damage would be substantially higher than if we acted in a preemptive, defensive way to prevent those launches from occurring,” the senior US official claimed.
“We cannot continue to live in a world where these people not only possess missiles but the ability to make 100 of them a month in perpetuity, to overwhelm any potential defenses,” the US official continued.
“We are not going to be held hostage by them, and we are not going to let them hit us first because it would have substantially increased the risk to our troops in the region and to our allies,” he added.
The senior US official said the Trump administration viewed Iran’s “ambition” of nuclear weapons as a longer-term threat and Tehran’s existing stockpile of missiles that can reach US military bases across the region as a “short-term” threat posing “an intolerable risk to the US.”
The comments from the senior US official indicated a shift in Washington’s justification for launching a joint strike with Israel against Iran on Saturday morning, as Trump had hitherto placed much greater emphasis on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program than its ballistic missile program.
Reflecting on the last three rounds of nuclear talks with Iran, the senior US official asserted that Tehran demonstrated “no seriousness to achieve a real deal.
The official revealed that Washington had offered Iran “free nuclear fuel forever” in the negotiations.
“They basically said that didn’t work for them. And we basically said, ‘Well, that makes absolutely no sense,’” the senior US official recalled, accusing Iran of trying to “buy time,” rather than negotiating in good faith.
“They were in the throes of rebuilding everything that had been destroyed” in the US and Israeli strikes last June, the US official claimed.
While the US wanted to use the nuclear negotiations to also discuss Iran’s missile program, the senior Trump official said Iran had adamantly refused to do so.
“They won’t talk about it with us. They won’t talk about it with our regional partners. They will not talk about those missiles at all. And for us, that was also an unacceptable situation to be in, so the president, frankly, had no choice,” the senior US official said.
“It was very clear that the intent for them was to preserve their ability to do enrichment, so that over time, they could use it for a nuclear bomb,” the official continued. “If they wanted to have a civil, peaceful nuclear program, we offered them many, many ways to do that. But instead, that was met with games, tricks and stall tactics.”
Separately on Saturday, Fox News cited another senior US official who told the network that the goal of Operation Epic Fury is to ensure that Iran no longer has the “capability to attack its neighbors: no drones, no missiles, no navy.”
The US official claimed that Washington knows where Iran is stockpiling its highly enriched uranium but that it is difficult to reach.
The official speculated that the operation against Iran will last “a couple of weeks,” but that Trump could decide to wrap it up sooner.
There are still a number of Iranian air defenses left for the US and Israel to suppress before they will be able to operate more freely from the Iranian skies, the US official added.
After Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi suggested Saturday that Israel dragged the US into the current conflict with Tehran, a third US official vehemently denied that was the case.
“Israel did not drag the US into Operation Epic Fury. President Trump acted out of the national interest of the United States,” the US official told The Times of Israel on condition of anonymity.
“Any claim to the contrary by a desperate and floundering Iran is false,” the official added.
Arab diplomat: Iran prepared for killing of Khamenei
Meanwhile, a senior Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel that while the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is a massive blow to the Islamic Republic, the regime in Tehran prepared for how to withstand this scenario.
The New York Times reported earlier this month that Khamenei put in place detailed plans for his succession and emergency chains of command should he, or other top leaders, be killed in potential US or Israeli strikes, elevating longtime loyalist Ali Larijani to manage the crisis.
“Iran knows that the US wants this military campaign to end as quickly as possible and will seek to drag it out,” the senior Arab diplomat said.
“Mere survival, at this point, would be considered a victory” for the regime, the diplomat added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Iran’s retaliatory strikes on neighboring Arab states have further damaged its regional standing, but Tehran is hoping they will lead the countries hit to intensify their pressure on Washington to wrap up its military campaign sooner, the diplomat speculated.
