Iran ; explosions across Tehran following Israeli and US strikes, 28 February 2026

[SouthAussie]

"WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed Monday that Washington launched major strikes against Iran over the weekend because it received intelligence that its assets in the region would be targeted in response to an Israeli attack.

“The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked — and we believed they would be attacked — they would immediately come after us,” Rubio said. “We were aware of Israeli intentions… and understood what that would mean for us and had to be prepared to act as a result of it.”

It was an extraordinary revelation that effectively suggested that the US had only struck Iran because Israel had decided to do so first, even though it is widely understood that any Israeli attack on Iran would only have taken place with Washington’s blessing."

Rubio reveals US launched strikes against Iran because of planned Israeli attack

Top diplomat says US understood its assets would be hit by Iran in retaliation for a preemptive Israeli strike, even though Jerusalem seen as unlikely to have acted without Trump's blessing

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[MassGuy]

Snipped by me for focus,

This much seems reasonable to me. It doesn't seem to have such political Trump-focused aims. It doesn't even mention regime change, though I think that is a reasonable part of the aims inasmuch as it's the choices of the current regime, their decisions to facilitate terrorism that have made their country a target.

I'm trying to sort of ignore the lousy messaging coming from the president and the politics of him and his administration and look at it purely from the perspective of perceiving what Hegseth has said here to be the main goals of the operation/war. And in this sense I would see all the years through different presidents and administrations as attempts to avoid this, but with the actions of Iran and their subsidiary terrorist groups over the past 2 years or so, I can see that it's reached a point where Iran can't be trusted to stop supporting terrorist groups, and I can agree that waiting until after they have working nukes is not the best option. Imagine an Iran that says you can't go after terrorist groups that we're supporting, because they're under our nuclear umbrella?

I don't know if better diplomacy could have changed this, I only see that it hasn't.

Now or several years from now, when US losses would be catastrophic. It's pretty clear that Iran had no intention of agreeing to anything remotely palatable, and my concern was that the US would settle for something like that past deal.

You do not mention "regime change" as one of the goals, as we all know how that has gone in the past. Yes, it would be wonderful if the regime did fall, but that's incredibly difficult to do with an air attack and unarmed civilians kept in check by a powerful, brutal regime.

Ballistic missiles are the biggest immediate threat, as if you have enough of them you can deter any further attacks on your nuclear ambitions.

Take them out. Take out the launchers. Take out the generals in charge. Kill the leadership. Hit those nuclear sites again if necessary.

Hopefully you set the conditions for a better deal down the road.

The ability to strike Iran like this was a pipe dream just a year ago (It's beyond a logistical nightmare, air defenses aside). The 12 Day War was proof of concept that this could be done, and those air defenses are really close to not existing at all.

This is the best shot you will EVER have - perhaps the last one.

 

[MassGuy]

"WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed Monday that Washington launched major strikes against Iran over the weekend because it received intelligence that its assets in the region would be targeted in response to an Israeli attack.

“The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked — and we believed they would be attacked — they would immediately come after us,” Rubio said. “We were aware of Israeli intentions… and understood what that would mean for us and had to be prepared to act as a result of it.”

It was an extraordinary revelation that effectively suggested that the US had only struck Iran because Israel had decided to do so first, even though it is widely understood that any Israeli attack on Iran would only have taken place with Washington’s blessing."

Rubio reveals US launched strikes against Iran because of planned Israeli attack

Top diplomat says US understood its assets would be hit by Iran in retaliation for a preemptive Israeli strike, even though Jerusalem seen as unlikely to have acted without Trump's blessing

www.timesofisrael.com

“That’s the question of why now, but this operation needed to happen because Iran, in about a year or a year and a half, would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so many short‑range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about it, because they could hold the whole world hostage. Look at the damage they’re doing now. And this is a weakened Iran. Imagine a year from now. So that had to happen. Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it. But this had to happen, no matter what.”

https://twitter.com/x/status/2028664327083860398%5B%2F

 

[Arkay]

another thing going on that i think absolutely plays a role is that the american civilian population is as far removed from war, in both space and time, as any civilian population in history. last time we had any significant amount of combat here, in the same place our civilians live (and, more to the point, our voters), was 1865. war is an abstraction to almost all of us. the human costs are almost invisible. that makes it easy, when the possibility of going to war comes up, to say "sure. why not?"

Maybe for the majority of Americans, but not to us in NYC. While 9/11 was not “combat” in the strictest sense, the human costs were ENTIRELY visible. I watched it with my own eyes. I saw the death of my friends. It took my daughter all day to get home and she brought some co-workers with her who couldn’t get home at all.

My students and colleagues were in hysteria all day because many had family who worked in the WTC. We most certainly ARE speaking of civilians.

I’d been to the WTC many times in the past, and since 9/11 I’ve been several times to the memorial.

I know Bin Laden was Saudi, not Iranian, but Iran has sponsored terror as well.

So I may not have witnessed the American Civil War, but what I did see that day WAS a war against America.

You watch people jumping from 100 stories up, you watch 220 stories of buildings collapse, you have dust and objects from the WTC land on your car and your terrace as I did, and you cannot say it is abstract for all of us.

My opinion because I lived through it.

 

[iamshadow21]

Paywalled

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/03/02/iran-war-tehran-live-in-fear-us-bombs-whats-left-regime/

 

[iamshadow21]

https://www.news.com.au/sport/football/irans-womens-football-teams-defiant-national-anthem-act-at-asian-cup/news-story/52fce7d19a5392b2d8daf037037cc518?amp

 

[iamshadow21]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/01/trump-iran-war-communications-distance/

Does regime change ever work? History tells us long-term consequences are often disastrous

Regime change has long proved tempting to large states. But it rarely goes to plan.

theconversation.com

 

[Sundog]

“That’s the question of why now, but this operation needed to happen because Iran, in about a year or a year and a half, would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so many short‑range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about it, because they could hold the whole world hostage. Look at the damage they’re doing now. And this is a weakened Iran. Imagine a year from now. So that had to happen. Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it. But this had to happen, no matter what.”

https://twitter.com/x/status/2028664327083860398%5B%2F

And also Iran would be working to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles and the nuclear warheads that fit onto them. It had to be stopped and there was an opening. When you get an opening like this, you have to take it.