In a brief interview, he said the country’s hardened military should simply surrender their weapons to the Iranian public.
President Trump again deployed heavy force against a country with which he had been negotiating, continuing a pattern seen in previous attacks on Iran and Venezuela.
The grim toll signaled that Iran was more prepared for war than the Trump administration anticipated, U.S. military officials said.
How long prices remain high will depend on what the United States, Israel and Iran do next.
Lawmakers questioned whether the United States faced an “imminent” threat from Iran, a requirement for the president to lawfully initiate military action without congressional approval.
The killing of Iran’s supreme leader and other top Iranian officials came after close intelligence sharing between the United States and Israel, according to people familiar with the operation.
President Trump did not deliver a formal address to the American public to explain why the country was at war, a departure from his predecessors.
President Trump’s ambiguous appeal comes after he undermined U.S.-funded media outlets that normally would have helped the administration reach people inside the country.
Here are images from Iran, Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East.
President Trump has become increasingly willing to assert American power overseas, a decade after propelling himself to the highest office by promising to focus on “America first.”