Donald Trump Gave Final Go-Ahead for Iran Attack Hours Before Bombs Fell

He had vowed to give Iran up to two weeks but ordered the attack abruptly, hoping it would catch Tehran off guard

- Michael R. Gordon, Josh Dawsey & Alexander Ward

President Trump had been saying he would give Tehran up to two weeks to yield to U.S. demands before ordering an attack. Then Saturday afternoon at his private club in New Jersey, he gave the final go-ahead to strike in a few hours.

"The goal was to create a situation when everyone wasn't expecting it," said a senior administration official. His order to the military to proceed unleashed an operation that has been the focus of top-secret planning. Within hours U.S. B-2 bombers penetrated Iranian airspace and dropped at least half a dozen bunker bombs on Iran's underground nuclear facility at Fordow. U.S. attack submarines launched Tomahawk cruise missiles against sites in Isfahan and Natanz.

In a White House address Saturday night, Trump called the attack "a spectacular military success" that left Iran's nuclear sites "completely and totally obliterated."

But key questions remain unknown, including whether the Iranian program was fully destroyed and whether Iran will respond with its own attacks on the U.S. or its allies—or possibly try to shut down oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran vowed Saturday not to give up its efforts. The organization "won't allow the progress of this national industry—built on the blood of nuclear martyrs—to be halted," it said in a statement.

U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff has been authorized to talk with the Iranians, as Trump tried to keep open the long-shot possibility of some sort of diplomatic understanding that could quiet the region.

A U.S. official said the Trump administration had reached out to Iran to make clear the attack was a one-off assault, not the start of a regime-change war.

The decision to attack came after weeks of White House deliberations, closely held military preparations and direct coordination with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had launched a similar sudden attack on Iran a week earlier.