It's been a week since the United States and Israel went to war with Iran.

We know that the military campaign is very effective, but the question for President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu remains,

why did they attack and why now?

Tonight, a close look at the decision to go to war and an examination of America's strategy

to the extent that there is, in fact, a strategy.

Next.

This is Washington Week with the Atlantic.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

It was just last week that President Trump launched a war against Iran after telling Americans that he was opposed to new wars, especially new Middle East wars.

Thanks to the U.S. Navy and the U.S. and Israeli Air Forces, the Iranian regime is practically leaderless and on its back foot.

But the commander-in-chief of American forces has yet to explain to a doubting public the rationale for the war.

To discuss where we are, I'm joined tonight by Peter Baker, the Chief White House correspondent at the New York Times.

Susan Glasser is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Karim Sajapur is a contributing writer at the Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

And Nancy Yusuf is a staff writer and a Pentagon correspondent at the Atlantic.

Thank you all for joining me.

It's only been a week.

It feels like a year.

Peter, why did Donald Trump go to war against Iran?

It's a very good question.

Thank you very much.

And it only has about six or eight answers, depending on which one you want to pick at any given time.

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