{"id":495899,"date":"2026-02-28T16:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T16:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/495899\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T16:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T16:20:09","slug":"live-updates-us-and-israel-strike-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/495899\/","title":{"rendered":"Live updates: US and Israel strike Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <a class=\"AnchorLink\" id=\"image-f70000\"\/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"Image\" alt=\"President Donald Trump disembarks Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Fla., Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo\/Matt Rourke)\"   fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"599\" height=\"399\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1772295609_984_.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump disembarks Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Fla., Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo\/Matt Rourke)<\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump disembarks Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Fla., Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo\/Matt Rourke)<\/p>\n<p>                Add AP News on Google <\/p>\n<p>        Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google.<\/p>\n<p>            Share<\/p>\n<p>                            Read More<\/p>\n<p>America\u2019s massive use of air power alone against Iran won\u2019t be enough to rid the country of its repressive theocracy unless the U.S. succeeds in persuading the Iranian people and elements of the current government to actively back change, security expert Phillips O\u2019Brien says.<\/p>\n<p>This is crucial to remember because U.S. President Donald Trump appears to have launched this attack for domestic political reasons and so will not want to risk heavy American casualties by putting troops on the ground to back up the air campaign, said O\u2019Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrew\u2019s in Scotland.<\/p>\n<p>While air power can destroy buildings and weaken the current leadership, lasting government change won\u2019t occur without the cooperation of people within Iran who are willing to support Trump\u2019s aim of replacing the current government, O\u2019Brien told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat air power can do is attack the present regime, in some cases quite powerfully, but it cannot guarantee it will be replaced or how it will be replaced,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>We should be able to see within a few days whether support for the ruling theocracy is weakening if Iranian military units start to rebel or members of the regime begin to speak out against the country\u2019s rulers, O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump disembarks Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Fla., Friday,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1072,801,803,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-495899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-donald-j-trump","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}