Trump says war with Iran will end when ‘I feel it in my bones’
Story by Ryan Mancini
• 1d
The Hill
Success In Iran? Trump and Hegseth Praise U.S. Military Amid Second Week Of Strikes | TRENDING
fallen warriors as they returned to American soil.
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President Trump on Friday said he knows the U.S. military operation in Iran will come to an end when he can “feel it in my bones,” a remark that comes almost two weeks after joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on the Middle Eastern country began.
Since the bombing began, one thing has become steadily clearer: the hard-liners stayed in control. The IRGC was hit, but it did not fracture. Iran’s ruling system absorbed the blow, reconstituted leadership, and kept functioning. U.S. intelligence now says in multiple reports from multiple agencies and analysts: the regime is not at risk of imminent collapse.
That is news, but it is not the revelatory part.
The revelatory part is this: the resilience now visible in Iran was not merely a conclusion reached after the war failed to produce regime collapse. It was a assessment made clearly before the war and communicated clearly to Trump, who ignored it. Reuters has now reported that before the attack, CIA assessments presented to the White House warned that if Ali Khamenei were killed, he could be replaced by other hard-line figures, including elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or equally hard-line clerics. Reuters also reported that a separate U.S. intelligence report noted there had been no IRGC defections even during January’s mass anti-government protests, a crucial signal because successful revolutions usually require at least some fracture inside the coercive apparatus. This buttressed the assessment that the regime would not collapse. And it raises even more “what was he thinking?” questions.
The same pattern appears on the economic side. The Wall Street Journal reports that before the war, Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine warned Trump in multiple briefings that an American attack could prompt Iran to shut the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil exports pass. Trump went ahead anyway, believing Tehran would likely capitulate before it could close the strait or cause major economic damage.
Put plainly: Trump does not just appear to have misread the war. He appears to have brushed aside intelligence that undercut the political premise of the war before it started, and military warnings about the economic consequences if it escalated. (Comment: I’m not the only intel oriented Substacker reporting this — see Jeff Stein’s article at Spytalk. He’s on it too.)
What was known before the war
In the run-up to the U.S.-Israeli attack, the CIA produced assessments over a two-week period examining what might happen in Iran after a U.S. intervention. Those assessments consistently concluded that even if Khamenei were killed, he would almost certainly be replaced by hard-line figures from the IRGC or hard-line clerics. Reuters also noted that the reports did not treat any single scenario as certain, but hard-line continuity was clearly the most probable outcome in the assessment.
That matters because it cuts directly against the fantasy version of regime change that hovered over the opening phase of the war: kill the top leader, shock the system, trigger panic, open the way for internal collapse. It’s now clear the CIA never bought that script as the likely outcome.
Two days later, Reuters added another critical detail. It reported that the CIA assessments had been presented to the White House before the attack, and that they were reinforced by at least one separate U.S. intelligence report showing there had been no IRGC defections during the January protests. That is not a minor point. It goes to the heart of whether a regime is vulnerable to overthrow. If the coercive core stays loyal, battered autocracies often survive. If it fractures, they can fall. Reuters’ sourcing points toward a prewar intelligence picture in which the coercive core was still holding.
In other words, the idea that Iran’s regime was resilient was not something discovered only after the bombing began. It was already in the intelligence stream. Trump just ignored it.
What was learned after the war began
Postwar intelligence has only reinforced that picture.
Multiple US intelligence sources reported on March 11 that U.S. intelligence assessed Iran’s government was not currently at risk of collapse despite nearly two weeks of U.S. and Israeli bombardment. The reporting said the leadership remained largely intact, the regime retained control of the public, and the hard-line power structure was still functioning.
Reuters later reported that Trump’s aides were struggling to shape an exit from the conflict while Iran’s leadership continued to fight back and U.S. intelligence indicated that the regime was not at risk of collapse anytime soon. That same Reuters report says Iran has proved a much tougher and better-armed foe than the White House’s Venezuela analogy seemed to assume.
This is the distinction that matters. Before the war, the intelligence pointed to hard-line continuity and no obvious path to regime collapse. After the war began, the intelligence pointed to exactly what those earlier warnings implied: the regime was still standing.
The Strait of Hormuz warning
The Wall Street Journal fills in the other half of the accountability case.
According to the Journal, Dan Caine warned Trump in multiple briefings before the Feb. 28 assault that Iran would likely close the Strait of Hormuz if attacked. Trump acknowledged the possibility but decided to move ahead, believing Tehran would capitulate before it could shut the strait or cause serious economic damage. He also believed the U.S. military could handle the fallout if necessary.
That is not a side issue. It goes to strategic judgment.
The strait is the world’s most important oil chokepoint. A president choosing war after being warned that the adversary may respond by choking energy flows is making a decision with obvious global consequences. The Journal reports that Trump was warned about precisely that scenario and chose to gamble that Iran would fold first.
That gamble now looks catastrophic.
So where did Trump get the idea they would fall?
This is where the reporting becomes revealing in a different way.
At least on the evidence now in public view, the confidence that Iran would crack does not appear to have come from the CIA. It appears to have come from Trump’s own worldview, his reading of prior operations, and a highly compressed decision process.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump’s decision was shaped by his confidence in U.S. military power and by what he saw as the success of previous operations, including last summer’s strike on Iranian nuclear sites and the January mission in Venezuela. The Journal says those episodes reinforced his belief that swift regime change could be managed through a well-executed military operation and a more accommodating successor. It adds, bluntly, that “that didn’t happen this time.” Instead, Mojtaba Khamenei emerged as supreme leader and vowed to keep blocking the Strait of Hormuz.
The Journal also reports that planning was handled by a very small circle that included JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth, and that this narrowed the range of advice and dissent reaching the president. Even basic questions — including how to ensure a friendly successor in Tehran — were left unresolved.
Reuters points in a similar direction. It reported that although Trump publicly urged Iranians to “take back” their country, senior U.S. officials remained skeptical that the battered opposition could topple the regime in the near term. Reuters also reported that officials had grown pessimistic that any Washington-backed opposition figure could realistically control the country if the government fell.
So the picture that emerges is not one in which the intelligence community told Trump the regime would collapse and events proved them wrong. It is closer to the opposite. The intelligence pointed toward resilience. Trump appears to have preferred a story of rapid coercion, rapid capitulation, and manageable fallout.
This is the real scandal
Wars are full of uncertainty. Intelligence is not prophecy. No serious person should pretend that the CIA can predict every succession struggle or street uprising with perfect accuracy.
But that is not the issue here.
The issue is whether the president was warned that the most optimistic assumptions behind escalation were doubtful before he launched it. The Reuters and Wall Street Journal reporting strongly suggests that he was. Reuters says CIA assessments warned that killing Khamenei could simply harden the regime’s continuity under other hard-liners, and that other intelligence reporting showed no sign of the IRGC fracture that real regime collapse would likely require. The Journal says Trump was warned that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz and chose to believe it would surrender before that could happen.
That turns this from a story about bad luck into a story about accountability.
The resilience of the Iranian regime is not the revelation. The revelation is that Trump was told repeatedly in advance that regime change was highly unlikely — and went to war expressly for regime change anyway. When that didn’t work, the adlibbing began. And here we are.
Accountability is not a meaningful feature of life in America in 2026 — at least not when it comes to the highest levels of the Executive Branch. It’s wishful thinking to believe that independent media calling Trump out will accomplish any meaningful accountability — but we try. We try. Thank you—especially paid supporters—for helping give responsible independent media a voice. Collectively we may accomplish something. Your help matters.
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Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
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