{"id":425,"date":"2026-02-28T18:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T18:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/?p=425"},"modified":"2026-02-28T18:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T18:46:10","slug":"why-is-the-u-s-attacking-iran-six-things-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/?p=425","title":{"rendered":"Why is the U.S. attacking Iran? Six things to know"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday after weeks of threats from President Trump over Iran&#8217;s nuclear capabilities.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what you need to know about the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran:<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"edTag\"><strong>Israel and the U.S. launched military strikes against Iran<\/strong><\/h3>\n<div id=\"resg-s1-112026-100\" class=\"bucketwrap statichtml\">\n<div>\n<p id=\"responsive-embed-NnrYz\" data-pym-loader=\"\" data-child-src=\"https:\/\/apps.npr.org\/datawrapper\/NnrYz\/1\/\" data-embed-loaded=\"\" data-carebot-scroll=\"\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/apps.npr.org\/datawrapper\/NnrYz\/1\/?initialWidth=381&amp;childId=responsive-embed-NnrYz&amp;parentTitle=Why%20are%20the%20U.S.%20and%20Israel%20attacking%20Iran%3F%20%3A%20NPR&amp;parentUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2026%2F02%2F28%2Fg-s1-112026%2Fwhy-is-the-u-s-attacking-iran\" width=\"100%\" height=\"498px\" frameborder=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-ot-ignore=\"\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the goal of the joint U.S. Israeli strikes is to quote &#8220;remove the existential threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran<\/p>\n<p><main aria-label=\"main content\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"wrapper\">\n<section id=\"main-section\">\n<article class=\"story\">\n<div id=\"storytext\" class=\"storytext storylocation linkLocation\">\n<p>Netanyahu said in a video: &#8220;Our joint action will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their destiny into their own hands.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A person briefed on the operation told NPR it was expected to last a few days, with Israel&#8217;s military focusing on targeting Iran&#8217;s missile program.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"edTag\"><strong>Trump announced what he called &#8220;major combat operations&#8221;<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>President Trump announced what he called &#8220;major combat operations&#8221; that are &#8220;massive and ongoing&#8221; in Iran in a video posted to Truth Social at 2:30 a.m. ET. He said the objective was to &#8220;defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats&#8221; from Iran.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"edTag\"><strong>Attacks came after a week of U.S.-Iran negotiations over the country&#8217;s nuclear program<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>A third round of indirect negotiations between Trump&#8217;s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump&#8217;s son-in-law Jared Kushner failed to produce a diplomatic solution on Thursday.<\/p>\n<aside id=\"ad-backstage-wrap\" class=\"ad-wrap backstage visible\" aria-label=\"advertisement\">\n<div class=\"ad-footer \"><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<h3 class=\"edTag\"><strong>The Israel strikes targeted Khamenei and the Iranian president<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Israel strikes targeted Khamenei and the Iranian president, trying to assassinate them, a person briefed on the operation told NPR&#8217;s Daniel Estrin. A person briefed on the matter told NPR that Israeli assessments are that Khamenei was hit.<\/p>\n<p>Iran&#8217;s news agency IRNA says the U.S.-Israeli strikes hit a girls school, killing at least 53 young female students and wounding dozens more.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"edTag\"><strong>Trump encourages overthrow<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Trump encouraged innocent Iranians to &#8220;take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations&#8221; once what the Pentagon is calling &#8220;Operation Epic Fury&#8221; is over.<\/p>\n<p>He previously said he was concerned about the Iranian regime&#8217;s killing of protesters and has previously cited that as potential justification for U.S. strikes.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"edTag\"><strong>Iran&#8217;s response<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Iran&#8217;s foreign ministry has called the airstrikes by the U.S. and Israel a &#8220;gross violation&#8221; of its national sovereignty, and vowed to respond decisively.<\/p>\n<p>The UAE&#8217;s Defense Ministry says Iranian ballistic missiles targeted the country, which hosts U.S. troops at several locations in the country<\/p>\n<p>Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan have all been targeted by Iran. All of them have U.S. troops present.<\/p>\n<aside id=\"ad-secondary-wrap\" class=\"ad-wrap secondary visible\" aria-label=\"advertisement\">\n<div class=\"ad-footer \"><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>US Navy&#8217;s Fifth Fleet service center in Manama, Bahrain was hit according to the government there. The other countries say the missiles were intercepted. The UAE says debris from a missile interception killed an Asian migrant worker. Loud booms have been heard over Dubai according to our correspondent there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/main><\/p>\n<div id=\"loading-bar\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday after weeks of threats from President Trump over Iran&#8217;s nuclear capabilities. Here&#8217;s what you need to know&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427,"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions\/427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}