Although US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have made the ultimate war and ceasefire decisions regarding Iran, The Jerusalem Post now reveals the details and extent to which IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, US Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, and CENTCOM Chief Admiral Brad Cooper have been the next most dominant figures.
In many ways, Zamir was key to convincing Caine and Cooper that such a war was feasible, such that they would support it, or at least not oppose it.
Caine was then critical in convincing Trump that such a war was viable, even as the US chairman himself held doubts about significant aspects of the war, the Post understands. General Caine has also hovered over Trump’s decisions to repeatedly announce unilateral ceasefires with Iran out of concern that any upping the ante on the military playing field could cost him in both American lives and politically.
All three military high commanders can largely be held responsible for the war’s successes and shortcomings, even as aspects of the war’s architecture might not have always followed their personal preferences.
When Netanyahu made an emergency flight to Washington to meet with Trump around 11:00 a.m. on February 12 to try to convince him to go to war with Iran, as the US president had started to move away from that option, he presented a four-step plan.
The four steps were: 1) assassinating Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his top military and intelligence officials, 2) pounding Iran’s ballistic missile and drone capabilities, 3) helping foment an uprising within Iran against the regime, and 4) transforming the uprising, plus possibly a ground attack by the Kurds who straddle Iran and Iraq, into regime change.
None of the three high commanders really believed in steps three or four, but Zamir was willing to roll the dice to see what might come of it, the Post understands. Caine and Cooper were ready to go in for the first two steps and hold their noses regarding efforts at steps three and four.
This nuance of their stances: not having much faith in the prospects of imminent regime change, but being willing to push for it (as Zamir was) versus actively trying to avoid direct involvement in it, while not going public with opposition (as Caine and Cooper did) had fateful consequences, the Post has learned.
It was not a coincidence that Israel was assigned to bomb Iran’s top leaders and thousands of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij command centers and locations, as well as Iranian military threat capabilities, while US forces stayed more focused almost exclusively on Iranian capabilities.
Trump, to some extent under the influence of Caine (with Cooper supporting in the background), kept the US out of direct military involvement in regime change.
Despite this well-developed distinction, which could have given the US an “out” from being “blamed” jointly with Israel for failing at regime change during the war, in the end, Trump could not hold himself back from numerous subsequent public calls for regime change and for the Iranian people to rise up. This ended up saddling Trump and the US with Israel with much of the narrative that the parties failed to achieve regime change, though neither Caine nor Cooper ever endorsed these views themselves in public or in private.
Zamir helps persuade Caine
Sources have indicated to the Post that Israeli efforts to influence Trump and when and how to go to war have also heavily focused on Caine.
Zamir, Mossad Director David Barnea, and IDF Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder also visited Washington leading up to Netanyahu’s February 12 White House sales pitch to make their case directly to a variety of officials, but collectively especially to Caine.
When Trump posted about Caine on Truth Social just before deciding to go to war, he did not deny the influence of Caine, so much as he rejected characterizations of the US military chief’s views on a potential war with Iran.
Zamir helps persuade Cooper
In some ways, Cooper was easier to convince than Caine.
This is partially true because Cooper did not try as much as his predecessor, Erik Kurilla, to influence the decision of whether to go to war or not, focusing more on being the architect of what the different options of going to war would look like.
Cooper’s approach, though technically passive on the question of whether to go to war, in that sense, helped Zamir and Israel because all of the input that he gave was based on the assumption of going to war, the Post has learned.
Had Cooper opposed going to war in private (while supporting it in public in deference to the civilian decision-makers), he could have framed the risks of going to war in more fearful terms, could have reduced the options he presented to sounding less desirable, and could have presented those options in more costly ways.
Such an approach would not have been unethical, and in fact, is standard practice by many top generals in many countries. This is because formulating war plans is far more of an art than a science, and so much of the outcomes of war are unpredictable, such that choosing to emphasize costs more or less is considered fair game.
Instead, Cooper’s main role was his constant high-level friendship and contacts with Zamir to split Iranian targets for an anticipated war by the substance and geography of the targets.
For example, Israel mainly targeted western and central Iran along with the Tehran area, while the US focused more on southern Iran and the Iranian navy.
The efficiency of the splitting of the targets, which was made possible by Zamir and Cooper’s closeness, also made the going to war option appear more attractive.
Zamir’s responsibility for success
Zamir was very successful in bringing on board Caine and Cooper, and then indirectly Trump, in the sense of convincing them that the timing was right.
The political class has said that there was no choice but to attack when Israel and the US did, due to imminent threats.
The truth is more complex.
The Post has learned that Zamir made a sophisticated and nuanced argument to Caine, Cooper, and others, which reached Trump.
The argument acknowledged that in theory Israel and the US could wait some period of months, as Iran had not yet crossed a redline threshold of a volume of ballistic missiles which the IDF would have trouble with. After all, Israel’s original plan was not to attack Iran’s ballistic missile program until sometime between June and November 2026.
However, Zamir said that the Islamic Republic was racing forward too fast. The Post has learned that the IDF chief said that putting off attacking would heavily harm the war effort later.
Iran was producing an additional 200-300 ballistic missiles per month. It had replaced about half of its lost missiles and half of its lost missile launchers in only eight months, getting back up to 2,500 missiles.
In Zamir’s understanding, waiting another six months could mean an Iran with 3,700-4,300 missiles, and waiting another year could mean 4,900 to 6,100 missiles.
Although Israel has not disclosed a red line at which it feels its missile shield would be completely overwhelmed, such a tremendous increase in the missile threat by 50%, 100%, or more could mean much higher casualty rates.
It could also mean much more damage, could lead to Israeli difficulties with its volume of missile interceptors at a much earlier point, and collectively force Israel and the US to cut short their attacks on Iran’s missile and other capabilities much earlier than what might make sense strategically, the Post understands.
Adding on that if Israel and the US (Netanyahu and Trump) wanted to take a real shot at regime change, that February was a unique moment to build on the January Iranian domestic protests, the Post understands that Zamir argued that February was a unique moment to go to war. This was true despite Israel’s original plan for an attack in later 2026.
Finally, the Post has learned that Zamir focused on the nuclear threat potentially being moved underground in the coming months, such that it would be much harder to strike in the future, necessitating a strike before nuclear assets reached a “zone of immunity.”
Again, Zamir was less saying that there was any imminent nuclear threat than he was saying that waiting until later might make it impossible to prevent the escalation of the nuclear threat down the line.
Bringing on board Caine and Cooper for the timing of the attack and for steps one and two of Netanyahu’s later pitch, or at least convincing them to present Israel’s pitch to Trump as viable and reasonable, was a critical contribution by Zamir.
In that sense, Zamir can take significant credit for whatever achievements Israel and the US made in setting back Iran’s ballistic missile program, drones, navy, and broader military industrial strength.
Caine, as a key convincer or validator for Trump, and Cooper, as the main American architect of the campaign, including multi-dimensional, insanely effective coordination with around a dozen Arab countries, which Iran attacked, along with Israel, can also take credit for these accomplishments.
Here, Cooper benefited from having held high-level positions in the region for around five years prior to becoming the CENTCOM chief.
Zamir, Caine, Cooper responsible for failure to stop missiles
Zamir, Caine, and Cooper’s above successes are clear. And in fairness, none of them ever promised that Iran’s ballistic missile program would be completely destroyed by their attacks, or that real-time missile strikes by Iran on Israel and other Arab countries would stop mid-war.
However, expectations of average Israelis and other Arab countries were that the missile and drone attacks would fade to a much lower level than they did.
For example, only days into the war, Zamir, Caine, and CENTCOM were telling the public that missile fire was down 70-90%.
The expectation was that within a week or two, it would be down to a drizzle.
But while missile fire did drop to a medium level, the fading to a drizzle never happened.
Why?
None of the top Israeli or American officials anticipated how rapidly Iran would be able to unearth its underground missile launchers, which the allies had caused to be neutralized with cave-ins.
Pre-war estimates were that cave-ins would neutralize such missiles for the rest of the war, whereas in many cases, the Post has learned that Iran has developed bulldozer teams and techniques to uncover caved-in missile teams or silos within less than a day.
Also, Iran spread its surviving missile crews throughout its vast country, making it nearly impossible to track them down efficiently, and adjusted its missiles such that over 70% of them included cluster munitions, which the IDF was much less ready to defend against.
Israel stunned Iran in the early days of the war, but the Islamic regime stunned the IDF and US military back with its resourcefulness in maintaining missile fire at a medium pace.
Put differently, the first days of the war went much better than anyone could have dreamed on the Israel-US side, but as the war dragged into several weeks, the costs were much higher than the updated expectations for the US, Israel, and allied Arab countries.
Caine, Cooper responsible for failure to stop Iran’s Hormuz move
Another potential failure of Caine and Cooper relates to Hormuz.
In truth, the failure lies with Trump, who not only ignored the usual multi-agency vetting process for major national security decisions but also fired so much of the National Security Council that, in some cases, his team simply had gaping holes in areas of needed expertise, the Post has learned.
In other words, not enough senior people talked to him about how fast and how bad the Hormuz situation could get to alter the strategic framework of the war and post-war talks, because the US president had gotten rid of them.
Netanyahu also shoulders some blame, strongly downplaying the Hormuz problems, saying that Iran would not have sufficient coordination after its top officials were killed, to close the Straits quickly and completely enough to make a large difference.
Zamir is not part of this analysis, as Hormuz does not impact Israel as much, and he was not advising Trump directly.
On one hand, Cooper is an admiral by training, and that means that if the US were really stuck having to use military power to open Hormuz, he is by far the best man for the job.
But neither Caine nor Cooper raised their voices loudly and decisively about the Hormuz nightmare scenario, again preferring to provide neutral advice to an American president, who clearly was out of his depth in aspects of this conflict.
The two of them could have seen this scenario coming, and so their choice, despite their heavy potential influence, to not raise the alarm loudly enough leaves them with some contributory fault in not better preparing Trump and the US.
The fact that the US needed to wait several weeks into the war before troops were in place to do something about Hormuz, if necessary, was a massive strategic miss.
In fact, the US could have even deployed forces into the Hormuz area the day the conflict started, as opposed to focusing on sinking large Iranian naval vessels first.
Flipping back in the other direction, maybe Cain and Cooper have helped save Trump and the US from further losses by, at least at this stage, emphasizing the costs of undertaking an American ground force invasion of Hormuz or Kharg Island.
Or if Trump eventually surprises and orders more operations to open up Hormuz, instead of his current counter-blocking the Straits, it will only come after he has tried other methods to resolve the crisis, in no small part based on advice from Caine and Cooper.
Overall, the military campaign pitched by Zamir and approved by Caine and Cooper succeeded more than might have been expected upfront, with notable exceptions regarding the continuity of medium-level ballistic missile threats and regarding Hormuz.
Regime change’s success or failure is not on them, but rather on a mix of the Iranian people, the Mossad, and the CIA – though if it succeeds in the next year or so, they will be able to claim contributory credit.
Whether the US, Israel, and their Arab allies are able to translate the military gains into long-standing strategic achievements is now more in the hands of the political and diplomatic leaders than the generals.