They died in their own beds. Hossein Salami and Ali Shamkhani—Iran’s most senior military officers and the stewards of Iran’s nuclear weapons program—had spent years threatening Israel with destruction. They issued taunts, organized terrorist attacks, and orchestrated, since October 7, the encirclement of the Jewish state in a ring of fire of their terror proxies. And they knew—without the slightest illusion—that Israel had the capability and resolve to kill them.
This cohort saw the Israeli air force bury Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah in his bunker, hundreds of meters beneath the streets of Beirut. They saw Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh vaporized in a presidential guesthouse—in Tehran, no less. Yet on Thursday night, they came home as usual and went to sleep—unguarded, unworried, carefree. Like insurance salesmen and bank tellers following their daily routines, it never occurred to them that they might not wake in the morning.
In 1967, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser made a similar mistake. He moved forces to Israel’s border, declared war in all but name, and left his MiG fighter jets parked in neat rows. Israeli prime minister Levi Eshkol hesitated publicly—then struck with speed, ferocity, and total surprise. By the time Nasser understood what had happened, his air force was already in ruins.
History just repeated itself. But why did these seasoned Iranian officers—veteran warriors, intelligence chiefs, regime survivors—lower their guard so completely? How did Israel achieve strategic surprise?
The simple answer: Benjamin Netanyahu read Donald Trump better than the Iranians.
Beginning around April 12, Trump gave Iran a 60-day deadline, which ended near June 11. The Israeli strike that killed Shamkhani came on June 13—just after the deadline expired. In that interval, Trump repeatedly warned Iran to dismantle its nuclear weapons infrastructure or face violent consequences. In an early May interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, the American president offered Iran’s leaders two stark options for dealing with their nuclear facilities: “blow them up nicely”—meaning under international supervision—or “blow them up viciously.”
The Iranians didn’t believe he meant it. It’s easy to see how Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei and his advisers got confused.
In May, Trump announced that he would hold Iran responsible for all Houthi attacks. Then he did not. He made a separate deal with the Houthis—even as they continued attacking Israel. In doing so, he weakened the credibility of his own threats and left the impression that Israel had been placed outside the U.S. defense perimeter. It appeared that Netanyahu was on his own.
Trump reinforced that impression elsewhere. He began negotiating directly with Hamas on Gaza over the Israelis’ heads. When he visited the Gulf, he skipped Israel. Meanwhile, he lifted sanctions on Ahmed al-Sharaa, the new leader in Damascus, Syria. He did so, it seems, without talking to Netanyahu but listening instead to Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Seen from Tehran this was especially welcome news, because both the Saudis and the Turks were also advising Trump to reach a negotiated deal with Tehran, and to prevent an Israeli attack.
The MAGA-aligned media in the United States did much to increase the impression of a rift between Trump and Netanyahu. In Tehran, analysts were likely listening to the loud voices of restrainers, inside and outside his administration. Led by Tucker Carlson, this camp argued that Israel was dragging the U.S. into a needless war. Carlson warned that such a conflict would end with dead Americans for no strategic gain. Carlson’s reported closeness to Trump’s inner circle seemed like an effective proxy for the president’s intentions.
In mid-April, The New York Times reported that Trump had blocked Israel’s planned air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities scheduled for May 2025. After internal debates within the Trump administration, Trump opted for diplomatic negotiations with Tehran, a decision influenced by a desire to avoid military escalation in the Middle East and to focus instead on East Asia. This intention was communicated to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting in early April.
Israel’s mainstream media, which does not care for Netanyahu, and the opposition parties quickly seized on the apparent rift between him and Trump. They portrayed Netanyahu’s failure to secure American backing as evidence of his strategic weakness. Opposition leader Yair Lapid claimed that he had proposed striking Iran’s oil fields as far back as October, but “Netanyahu was afraid, and stopped it.”
On Thursday night, nine hours before Israel attacked, veteran journalist Raviv Drucker confidently declared that there was “no chance” of an Israeli strike on Iran. To be sure, Drucker’s anti-Netanyahu credentials are solid, and Channel 13—Israel’s equivalent of CNN—is also hostile to the prime minister. But this analysis wasn’t purely partisan spin. Drucker was articulating a consensus view that stretched across the Israeli political spectrum and security establishment. Everyone assumed the Americans were restraining Israel. The anti-Netanyahu forces were just making hay of it.
The Iranians saw the same picture. They calculated—rationally, if fatally—that Netanyahu, even if he was willing to, could not act alone. Experience had taught them that Israel’s missile defense system, though formidable, could be overwhelmed. Khamenei believed he could saturate Israeli defenses with a barrage of ballistic missiles. To blunt such an attack, Israel would need not only U.S.-supplied equipment, but also the direct operational support of CENTCOM’s regional missile shield—its advanced sensors and interceptors deployed in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states.
That network was fragile. They calculated that key Arab partners were alienated from Israel over the war in Gaza, and unlikely to fully cooperate. And Israel could not count on CENTCOM’s protection without Washington’s explicit green light. Iran also knew it could widen the conflict. It had warned Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that they, too, would become targets if Israel attacked.
Only the United States, with its regional presence and deterrent power, could prevent such a multifront escalation. The Iranians, therefore, had threatened to attack American bases directly if Israel acted. The goal was simple: Force the United States into a regional war, or at least to fear one. In doing so, Tehran hoped to turn Trump’s core strategic instinct—pulling U.S. troops out of the Middle East—into a political liability.
In addition, Iran had dangled the threat of nuclear breakout. Officials floated the possibility of leaving the Non-Proliferation Treaty and sprinting for a bomb. The message was clear: If Israel strikes us, we’ll not only fight back; we’ll go nuclear. And Donald Trump, will get dragged into precisely the conflict you want to avoid.
On the basis of these calculations, Ali Khamenei was riding high. On June 4, he declared, “The U.S. can’t do a damn thing about our program,” dismissing American demands to halt uranium enrichment. Trump’s threats, he clearly believed, were empty, mere posturing for domestic political consumption.
Just in case, Khamenei sought to buy added insurance, with tried-and-true diplomatic maneuvers. On June 11, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated on social media that his talks with Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, would continue. “President Trump entered office saying that Iran should not have nuclear weapons,” Araghchi wrote. “That is actually in line with our own doctrine and could become the main foundation for a deal. As we resume talks on Sunday, it is clear that an agreement that can ensure the continued peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program is close at hand.”
Araghchi calculated that as long as talks in Oman remained alive, Netanyahu would not dare disrupt the process, fearing it would derail Trump’s broader strategy of avoiding Middle East entanglements.
Can you blame him? When in history had an American president not succumbed to the temptation to negotiate with Iran rather than apply military pressure? Experience had taught Khamenei that the redlines of American presidents were invitations to begin haggling. Americans can be led around like trained animals, always chasing the mirage of a deal.
The Iranian analysis was, in nearly every respect, correct. They saw the gap between Trump and Netanyahu. They understood that Trump wanted a deal and was restraining Israel. They calculated that Israel could not act alone—that it depended on U.S. missile defense infrastructure, CENTCOM coordination, and the cooperation of Arab states disaffected over Gaza. They knew only the United States could prevent Iran from widening the war—and they believed Trump had no appetite for escalation.
They were right about all of it. Except for one thing: Trump meant what he said. Netanyahu took everything the Iranians understood—everything that was true—and used it to hide the two truths that mattered: Trump will not let Iran get the bomb; and Netanyahu was prepared to act boldly on that knowledge.
The heart of the deception was not a lie and not even a misdirection—it was the absence of deception entirely.
In a world of diplomatic doublespeak, hypocrisy, and strategic ambiguity, Trump and Netanyahu simply said what they meant. The simple truth, plainly stated, blinded Khamenei—and his top military officers died in their own beds.