When protesters were being killed in Tehran in early January 2026, President Trumpthreatened strikes, telling Fox News he had “put Iran on notice” and that if the regime shot at demonstrators, the U.S. would hit Iran “very hard.” The Iranian diaspora and protesters were energized. Then Trump said he had been informed the killing had stopped and that executions of arrested protesters would not take place, citing “very important sources on the other side.”
His detractors seized on the apparent stand-down, repeating theacronym TACO, Trump Always Chickens Out, which had gained prominence after his tariff reversals in 2025 and was extended to foreign policy based on claims that Trump had threatened force against adversaries 22 times but followed through on only two occasions. Senate Minority LeaderSchumer publiclydeployed the label, a move counterproductive enough that a coalition of more than two dozen anti-war organizations wrote him a letter urging him todelete the videoand give Trump diplomatic space.
Throughout February, Trump struck a belligerent tone at the State of the Union while Iran’s negotiating delegation headed to Geneva for a third round of nuclear talks. Then, on February 28, the United States and Israel struck.
A senior Israeli official told Fox News that Khamenei had spent millions of dollars and years building anunderground bunker, which he did not use on the morning of the strike. Sources familiar with the intelligence said Khamenei believed no one had the guts to strike him.
His confidence was partially the product of a deliberate Israeli-American deception plan that included messaging, signals, and public statements by Trump suggesting nothing immediate was coming. Khamenei and nearly 50 senior regime leaders were gathered at a compound in Tehran, where they were killed in under 50 seconds during the opening strike of Operation Epic Fury.
The operation relied on years of surveillance, including Tehran’s traffic camera network, which had reportedly been hacked years earlier, giving analysts real-time visibility into movement patterns around locations connected to Iran’s leadership.
Kari Bingen,CSIS Vice Presidentfor Defense and Security and Director of the Intelligence, National Security, and Technology Program, described the result as an intelligence success “particularly at the tactical and operational levels,” crediting the U.S.-Israel intelligence relationship that had already demonstrated its precision in the Hezbollah pager operation and Operation Rising Lion.
Heritage Foundation Vice President Victoria Coates said critics “were predicting the president wouldn’t act, he was being tricked by the Iranians. Absolutely not. He was getting everything in place that he needed to execute this extraordinary strike.”
Speaking at a CSIS event on March 5, 2026, Bingen said the operation represented a major intelligence achievement. She explained that it was “an intelligence success, particularly at the tactical and operational levels,” crediting Central Command, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the broader intelligence community.
She added that the United States has maintained a longstanding intelligence partnership with Israel, which possesses significant capability against Iran and its proxy forces. She noted that the partnership had already demonstrated its effectiveness in the Hezbollah pager operation and Operation Rising Lion, which targeted Iranian military leadership and command-and-control structures with precision.
Source: The Gateway Pundit
