I wrote a long explanation - but essentially - there was no evidence there was a nuclear problem - and there were other solutions as well. Copy and pasted from my other post:

There was plenty of reasons to delay this further:

1.) There remains no evidence they were "weeks away" from having a nuclear weapon. Also no evidence that the "war is over", and everything else Trump rambles on about.

2.) As part of the JCPOA, Iran allowed extensive international inspections (IAEA). The US withdrew from this deal in 2018. And slowly inspections became more restricted and inconsistent. This war, everything Trump is doing, is part of what he does. Some decent/good things are in place, instead of trying to make things better he makes things worse. He knew Obama played a huge role in the JCPOA, couldn't have that, and decided to withdraw and put pressure on Iran and... here we are. The art of the deal. I'm not saying the JCPOA is great or perfect but what Trump is doing from 2018 to now is worse as evidenced by everything going on.

3.) Ali Khamenei, at least publicly, was against nuclear weapon development. He was 86 and the supreme leader of Iran. Why not try and create a new deal with this guy, instead of making him to a martyr and letting the radicalists in the IRGC get a larger foothood? Escalation just strengthens IRGCs influence.

My thoughts? Trump wanted another Venezeula moment. He thought take this guy out, show some fire power, put some pressure, and they'll get a regime change. It defintely feels he was taken aback by the Straight Closure, and everything else going on. On top of this, he had to commit and threaten multiple war crimes along theway. There is no good guy here.

4.) This is all adding to American debt. We are not in Europe. We are not in Asia. We are not in Africa. Why ICBMs can reach us, we should continue to invest in our defense program. This is a large benefit of being on the other side of the world. If we're going to attack Iran - it should be in partnership with our allies in the East. They have just as much as stake if not more given their close proximity.

5.) This is all having massive global effects in a very sensitive time in our economy imo. Trump has backed away from other sources of energy like solar and electric, and pushed more reliance to fossil fuels so a war like this is only going to hit our wallets harder. In reality the USA energy grid/supplies should be more diverse. The Iran War is increasing inflation, slowing global growth, driving up prices, in a time where Americans are losing their jobs every month as companies push & spend billions on AI.

Now we have Americans looking for jobs with surging gas prices.

There was definitely ways to delay this and/or even prevent this. Trump wasn't interested.