Iran said it will never negotiate with the US after losing its Supreme Leader, but Trump just revealed he’s already waiting for the call
“Donald Trump” by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0.
He wants to negotiate after killing their supreme leader.
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President Trump has said he is ready and waiting to talk with Iran’s leadership, even as Tehran insists it will never negotiate with the United States. This comes after US-Israeli airstrikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sharply escalating the conflict in the Middle East. The airstrikes took place on Saturday, March 1, 2026, and were part of a broader effort to destabilize the Iranian regime.
Khamenei, who had led Iran since 1989, was the primary target of the strikes. According to The Atlantic, US intelligence had reportedly been tracking him for months, and the CIA tipped off Israel when Khamenei held a meeting with top defense aides at his compound in Tehran. Israeli military officers used misinformation to throw Iranian spies off guard before carrying out the strike.
A second day of intense bombing followed, hitting Iranian cities hard. Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir-Saeid Iravani, said hundreds of civilians were killed or injured, with strikes hitting civilian neighborhoods. Iranian state media reported that an attack on a girls’ primary school in Minab, a southern city, killed 165 people. President Trump claimed 48 Iranian leaders were killed in the first two days, and said nine Iranian warships were sunk and a naval headquarters destroyed.
Iran is publicly refusing to talk, but the pressure on its leadership has never been greater
Despite the strikes, Iran’s top security official, Ali Larijani, firmly said Tehran would not negotiate with the US and denied that any Iranian officials had tried to initiate talks with the Trump administration. Reports suggest that Trump accelerated the Iran strike timeline without informing Iran’s negotiators. Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, declared that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “crossed a red line” and “will pay for it.”
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, along with the judiciary head and a member of the Guardian Council, has temporarily taken over the duties of Supreme Leader. A spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry, Esmaeil Baghaei, expects the process of selecting a new leader to be sped up due to the ongoing conflict.
In retaliation, Iran launched missile counterattacks that killed nine Israelis. US forces also confirmed their first casualties, with three dead and five injured by shrapnel. The conflict has spread to Lebanon, where Israel struck Hezbollah targets after the group launched missiles and drones toward northern Israel.
Iran also targeted Gulf countries hosting US military bases, damaging airports in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai, causing one of the worst disruptions to global aviation in years. Trump, however, said he has agreed to talk with Iran’s surviving leaders. He told The Atlantic magazine, “They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long.”
He suggested the conflict could continue for another four weeks and vowed to avenge any American deaths. Satellite images later revealed what happened at Khamenei’s compound during the strikes, shedding light on why Iran took hours to publicly confirm his death.
Oil prices have surged after reported attacks on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for about a fifth of the world’s traded oil. Many major shipping companies have suspended navigation in the region. A Reuters-Ipsos poll showed that only about one in four Americans approve of the attack on Iran, even before the economic effects of rising oil prices are felt at home.
Published: Mar 2, 2026 04:45 pm