On Feb 28 the war began after a final Situation Room meeting on Feb 26 where officials who privately doubted the plan did not block it. General Daniel Caine outlined risks — munitions depletion, securing the Strait of Hormuz and unclear follow-on strategy — but offered no recommendation. JD Vance, long an opponent, said he would support the president if he decided to proceed; Marco Rubio gave technical answers and pledged to articulate the administration’s justification; Susie Wiles raised private worries but did not publicly oppose the plan. The meeting exposed three behavioral drivers of collective acquiescence: fear of consequences after past firings, informational influence from a leader with a record of defying expectations, and diffusion of responsibility among many officials.

Within days several core assumptions proved wrong: the regime did not collapse, no popular uprising materialised, and the Straits of Hormuz remain closed. The episode, detailed by Pantelis Solomou, a Cyprus-based behavioral scientist, shows how apparent consensus can mask withheld objections and raises questions about why flawed decisions are harder to reverse than to make.