A BBC analysis highlights the personal dimension of the US-Iran conflict after it emerged that Donald Trump secretly swapped aircraft while returning from June's Nato summit in Turkey, reportedly due to credible intelligence of an Iranian missile threat to Air Force One. Trump was moved between planes inside a catering truck as a decoy 747 carried journalists and most White House staff, an episode that only came to light more than a month later and underscores the security concerns still surrounding the president despite his insistence that Iran has been decisively defeated.

The piece notes that such precautions are not unprecedented for presidents travelling near a warzone, though previous trips to places like Afghanistan and Ukraine were disclosed to media under embargo rather than kept fully secret. It also traces the personal animosity between Trump and Iran back to his first term, including the 2020 killing of Qasem Soleimani and subsequent Iranian threats, as well as comments from Trump and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth suggesting Iran had tried to assassinate him. The White House has released little detail about the specific threat behind the plane swap.