Over the past week, President Trump claimed he would make a decision about Iran in “two weeks” and repeatedly pressed it to come to the negotiating table. But the swiftness of the attack on Saturday night suggests that plans were underway after Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran a little more than a week ago.

President Trump appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett to clinch a conservative legal revolution. But soon after arriving at the Supreme Court, she began surprising her colleagues.

In sweeping attacks that started Friday, Israel struck at the regime in Tehran, hitting Iranian nuclear and military assets. Iran retaliated with barrages of ballistic missiles and drones. It is the most intense fighting in decades between the two heavily armed countries. To understand what’s happening in the region, Katrin Bennhold, a New York Times senior writer, spoke with Patrick Kingsley, the Jerusalem bureau chief.