Assessments are that U.S. President Donald Trump conducted a smoke screen, as he made comments suggesting that nuclear talks with Iran would continue even after he ordered a full scale air assault on Iran.

At the first Ministry of National Defense briefing held 57 hours after the start of the Iran attack on the 2nd (local time), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Kane said that President Trump had approved the launch of the Iran operation, named Grand Fury, at 3:38 p.m. on the 27th of last month.

Around 12:30 p.m. that day at the White House, when asked by reporters whether he had made a final decision on Iran, he said no. While expressing dissatisfaction with the outcome of the third round of nuclear talks held the previous day in Geneva, Switzerland, he added that he would wait to see what happened.

He then boarded Air Force One and arrived at an airport in Texas at about 3:50 p.m. Since the approval time for the operation was 3:38 p.m., it appears the decision was made just before landing. Through Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, he sent a message to Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East, that he had approved the operation, that there would be no pause, and that he wished them luck.

Trump then kept to his planned schedule in Texas. When reporters asked how close he was to deciding on strikes against Iran, he said talks were under way but that they had yet to find the right answer. During a speech there, he also said that a momentous decision on Iran now had to be made, but that it would not be easy.

Approving the operation while outwardly projecting that he was still deliberating was a classic smoke screen. The Central Intelligence Agency had identified the time and location where senior Iranian officials would gather, and the Israeli military, acting on this information, killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, and others in the first strikes on the 28th.

Kane also said the operation began at 1:15 a.m. on the 28th (9:45 a.m. Iran time) with Cyber Command and Space Command disrupting Iran's surveillance and communications networks. At the same time, more than 100 fighters and bombers, along with early warning aircraft, tankers, and drones, sortied toward Iran from aircraft carriers and land-based air bases. From warships, Tomahawk missiles were launched at naval forces in Iran's southern region. He added that B-2 strategic bombers that took off from the U.S. mainland dropped precision bunker-penetrating munitions on Iran's underground facilities.

Kane said the ongoing operation, carried out by the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard together with the Israeli military, is historic not only in scale but also in the level of joint integration.