U.S. Intel Says Iran Isn’t a Nuclear Threat. Israel Wants the U.S. to Bomb It Anyway.

Israel launched its war with Iran last week with what it called a preemptive strike Iran according to the Israeli cabinet was dangerously close to producing a nuclear weapon and Israel needed to carry out a series of assassinations of military leadership bombings in residential neighborhoods and attacks on nuclear production sites to stop them The U S has been providing direct military backing in the days since using its defensive weapons systems to shoot down ballistic missiles that Iran launched in retaliation for Israel s surprise attack Related Netanyahu and Trump Are Trying to Have It All Israel wants more Only the U S is in possession of the -pound bunker buster bombs that Israel says can punch through and destroy Iran s underground nuclear enrichment facility in Fordow Israel is calling on the U S to join the war and launch a series of attacks end Iran s nuclear threat But according to the U S intelligence group that threat is not real We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Iran s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons initiative he suspended in though pressure has presumably built on him to do so reads the Annual Threat Assessment the intelligence population s official evaluation of threats to U S citizens the Homeland and U S interests which was published in March On Saturday Susan Miller the former CIA station chief in Israel who retired from the agency in described SpyTalk that current leaders maintained that assessment Iran has repeatedly explained it does not intend to build a nuclear weapon but insists on being allowed to develop nuclear power for the country s necessities Israel is estimated to possess nuclear warheads and may have the ability to launch attacks with them by land sea and air That has not stopped the Trump administration from underwriting Israel s war with Iran and running the vulnerability of getting drawn further into the conflict according to experts Trump himself has adopted the Israeli framing of needing to prevent Iran from producing a nuclear weapon What a shame and waste of human life Trump wrote on TruthSocial on Monday Merely stated IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON I reported it over and over again Everyone should directly evacuate Tehran Related How Much Does Israel s War Cost the U S Don t Ask the State Department The U S has already poured billions into Israel s war machine supplying it with advanced weaponry from fighter aircraft and tank ammunition to tactical vehicles and air-to-air missiles The U S is also the primary supplier of all of Israel s combat aircraft and the bulk of its bombs and missiles These weapons are provided at little or no cost to Israel with American taxpayers primarily picking up the tab The U S has also consistently protected Israel at the United Nations shielding it from international accountability The Trump administration has basically lost control of its foreign plan Israel is now dictating U S plan in the Middle East They are clearly in the driver s seat Stephen Semler a senior fellow at the Center for International Approach informed The Intercept This makes Trump look incredibly weak It should be a personal embarrassment He s looking like a real chump Israel s war began on Friday with a surprise attack that killed almost the entire top echelon of Iran s military commanders and its foremost nuclear scientists Israel has since expanded its targets attacking force infrastructure and Iran s regime news agency The attacks have killed hundreds of civilians On Monday night U S Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth revealed the deployment of additional capabilities to the Middle East and declared these deployments are intended to enhance our defensive posture The Pentagon refused to provide further clarification about the U S military build-up in the region The Israeli strikes have prompted waves of retaliatory ballistic missiles and drones from Iran Israel explained at least people have been killed with about injured The U S military has repeatedly helped defend Israel from Iranian attacks The Pentagon did not respond to questions about what American assets were used or how several interceptor missiles were employed to defend Israel Semler pointed out that even ignoring the tremendous ancillary costs associated with stationing a carrier group in the Middle East the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense and Patriot missile batteries operating the equipment wear and tear extra deployments and bonus pay for troops among a multitude of other costs the price tag of just the interceptor missiles is immense Each THAAD interceptor for example costs around million Imagine it that s like blasting a bundle of Bugatti Veyrons into the sky to shoot down just one missile coming from Iran disclosed Semler referring to the million supercar one of the majority of expensive automobiles on the planet Is it really worth it Under Trump just as under Biden there is apparently no cost too high for the United States Related Israel and Israel Alone Kicked Off This Escalation In a Bid to Drag U S Into War With Iran An analysis by Brown University s Costs of War Project tallied up around billion in military aid to Israel in the year following the start of Israel s war on Gaza on October This represented far more than any other year since the U S began providing military aid to Israel in Read our complete coverage Israel s War on Gaza While Israel has crippled much of the Iranian nuclear project in its bombing campaign it appears unable to destroy Iran s Fordow nuclear enrichment facility without America s Massive Ordnance Penetrator or GBU- which is so heavy it can only be carried by a U S B- bomber Since Israel has neither and the facility is buried deep underground the U S would need to carry out waves of attacks on the site on Israel s behalf Using our bunker buster bombs would mean a direct war with Iran We shouldn t be doing that Iran already has the know-how to rebuild its activity It has the centrifuges noted Rep Ro Khanna D-Calif who is working to introduce a bipartisan War Powers Resolution to prevent President Donald Trump from plunging the U S into war with Iran Trump requirements to make it clear to Netanyahu that this is inflaming the region and risking more conflict without a cure because the Iranian quota at Fordow is still there Experts say that Israel launched its war on Iran having been emboldened by the laissez-faire attitude of the Biden and Trump administrations which allowed unlimited escalations of the Gaza war killing tens of thousands of civilians without accountability or consequence They also say that Israel could not fight its wars without heavy U S involvement Israel s military threshold is dependent on the high levels of military aid it has received from the United States for the last five decades including billion in help since October Stephanie Savell the director of the Costs of War Project narrated The Intercept That aid has ramped up over the last year allowing Israel to wage this war Neither the Pentagon nor the White House would offer comment on how much the war is costing the American people The costs in human lives and U S dollars of a full-blown U S war with Iran would be astronomical The post U S Intel Says Iran Isn t a Nuclear Threat Israel Wants the U S to Bomb It Anyway appeared first on The Intercept