NEW YORK, March 10. /TASS/. The White House miscalculated Iran's actions after the assassination of part of the Islamic Republic's leadership, underestimating Tehran's determination to resist, The Wall Street Journal reported.
According to the newspaper's sources among US officials, the Trump administration hoped that "the February 28 decapitating strike on the Iranian leadership - including the killing of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - would trigger either a collapse of the Iranian regime or the repeat of the Venezuela scenario, in which more pragmatic officials chose to cooperate with Washington."
The publication also states that "neither of these scenarios has materialized so far." The article notes that the Washington administration appears to have failed to accurately assess how Iran would respond.
The United States and Israel launched a large-scale military operation against Iran on February 28. Major Iranian cities, including Tehran, were struck. The White House justified the attack by citing alleged missile and nuclear threats from Iran. At the same time, US leadership openly called on the Iranian population to rise up against their government and seize power.
As a result of the strikes, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and several other senior figures in the leadership of the Islamic Republic were killed.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced a retaliatory operation, targeting sites in Israel. US military bases in Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia were also hit.