War Glance
Senior lawmakers in both parties said Monday that the Trump administration’s decision to launch bombing and missile strikes across Iran this weekend was largely dictated by Israel’s plan to attack Iran with or without U.S. support.
Senior administration officials told Republican and Democratic lawmakers at a classified briefing on Capitol Hill that the Israeli plan to strike Iran pushed the United States to take preemptive action to protect U.S. troops stationed at bases throughout the Middle East, whom the Pentagon believed would have been targeted by retaliatory strikes.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who serves as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee attended the briefing, said the decision to initiate a massive military assault on another country because of pressure from a U.S. ally put the nation in “uncharted” territory.
“This is still a war of choice that has been acknowledged by others that was dictated by Israel’s goals and timeline,” Warner told reporters at the briefing.
Events are still unfolding rapidly across the Middle East, so here's a quick recap:
Dozens of teenage girls were attending their regular training sessions of volleyball, basketball, and gymnastics in the main sports hall in Lamerd, a city near the Persian coast, when a missile slammed into the building at 5 p.m. on Saturday. Additional strikes hit two nearby residential areas and a hall adjacent to a school, as the U.S. and Israel pounded targets across Iran on the first day of what President Donald Trump declared as a regime change war. According to local officials cited in Iranian state media, the strikes on Lamerd killed at least 18 civilians and wounded scores more.
The U.S. and Israel pounded targets across Iran, bombing the country’s ballistic missile sites and wiping out warships as part of an intensifying military campaign following the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Three American service members were killed in action amid the ongoing conflict with Iran, U.S. military officials confirmed, one day after the United States and Israel launched airstrikes and Tehran quickly hit back.
The United Stated launched military strikes and "major combat operations" against Iran on Feb. 28, President Donald Trump said, targeting the country's missile capabilities.
The United States will mark the 84th anniversary of the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Sunday, Dec. 7, as the number of Americans belonging to "the Greatest Generation" who lived through World War II diminishes.
