Iran showed little urgency to reach a deal with the United States, and that forced America's hand to launch a war on Tehran, US President Donald Trump has claimed.
In his interview with TIME, the President said, "We have to be able to deal with sane and rational people."
Following months of preparation for potential conflict, President Trump was briefed on February 27 about the location of Iran's Supreme Leader.
Despite the United States deploying a carrier strike group in the region, with another on its way, Iranian negotiators exhibited little hurry to achieve an agreement, he said, proposing to meet with US envoys again in a week. "When I heard that," Trump recalls, "I said, you know, they're going to hit first."
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President Trump authorised a decapitation strike against Iranian leadership while hosting guests at Mar-a-Lago on February 27. In a phone call with TIME on March 4, Trump said, "We went way too early. We were going to do it in another week.”
The attack, carried out in coordination with Israel, targeted hundreds of Iranian military installations, killing Khamenei and several senior officials envisioned as potential successors. “I've killed all their leaders. That room is gone,” Trump said.
The heavy bombardment also led to significant civilian casualties, including over 150 deaths at a girls' school in Minab in southern Iran.
Meanwhile, Iran also launched missile and drone strikes against US bases and allied territory, targeting military facilities in the Gulf, killing six American service members at a command centre in Kuwait. President Trump acknowledged the possibility of domestic retaliatory attacks while emphasising that casualties are an expected outcome of war.
"But I think they're worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time. We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things. As I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die," he said.
In a striking departure from his campaign promise to end foreign conflicts, President Trump has deployed military force with unprecedented frequency, authorising strikes in eight nations—including three never before targeted by the US—since returning to office. In a single year in 2025, he authorised more airstrikes than his predecessor did in four years.
Despite campaigning as a peace-oriented leader, President Trump has committed the US to a major Middle Eastern conflict and a policy of regime change, explicitly seeking to control the selection of Iran's next government following the ousting of its previous leadership.
“One of the things I'm going to be asking for is the ability to work with them on choosing a new leader. I'm not going through this to end up with another Khamenei. I want to be involved in the selection. They can select, but we have to make sure it's somebody that's reasonable to the United States," he told TIME.
According to a report in TIME, the path to war with Iran was cemented during a February 4, 2025, White House meeting where Benjamin Netanyahu highlighted Iranian plots to assassinate Donald Trump. In an interview with TIME in November 2024, Trump did not deny the possibility of war with Iran. "Anything can happen," he noted.
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