CNN
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When Israel launched a string of strikes against Iran last week, it also issued many disastrous warnings about the country’s nuclear program, suggesting that Iran is approaching a point of no return in its quest to acquire nuclear weapons, and that a strike is needed to preempt the outcome.
However, the US Intelligence Report Assessment has reached a different conclusion. Not only is Iran not actively pursued nuclear weapons, but according to four people familiar with assessments, it was able to create and deliver choice goals up to three years apart.
Now, days after Israeli airstrikes, the US intelligence agency believes so far Israel has only revived Iran’s nuclear program for a few months. Even if Israel suffers major damage to Iranian facilities in Natanz, which houses the centrifuges needed to enrich uranium, Fordor’s heavily strengthened enrichment sites remain effectively untouched.
Israel does not have the ability to damage the Fordow without certain US weapons or air support, defense experts say.
“Israel can hover over these nuclear facilities and make them inoperable, but if you really want to dismantle them, it’s either a US military strike or a deal,” said Brett McGurk, a former top diplomat in the Middle East under the Trump and the Biden administration and CNN analysts.
It raises a key Trump administration dilemma and struggles to avoid being intertwined in a costly, complicated war in the Middle East.
President Donald Trump has made it clear he doesn’t want the US to be involved in Israel’s efforts to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but he recognizes that the administration told CNN over the weekend that the only way he could knock out Israel’s nuclear program.
It’s a tightrope walk that led to debate between more isolationist members of the president’s advisor and some of Trump’s more ridiculous Republican allies, and hedging from the president.
“We’re not involved in that. We could be involved. But we’re not involved at this point,” Trump told ABC News Sunday morning.
Speaking from Canada’s G7 Summit on Monday, Trump urged Israel and Iran to begin talks “before it’s too late.”
The US Central Command, responsible for US military operations in the Middle East, conveyed greater sense of urgency than the civilian intelligence community regarding the pursuit of Iran’s nuclear weapons.
Leading to Israel’s latest attack, Central Command supported a more disastrous timeline, believing that if Iran sprints towards its target, it could get more usable nuclear weapons more quickly, according to sources familiar with the discussion.
In recent weeks, some US military leaders, including General Michael Kurira of the US Central Command, cannot help launch attacks, but have called for more resources to defend and support Israel as they continue to exchange fires with Iran.
“{kurilla} would want to prepare for the most challenging coincidence,” according to sources familiar with the issue, referring to his push to deploy Middle Eastern US assets that support Israel.
The United States is realizing the military in the region as conflict escalates to help American troops become protected and protect Israel when necessary.
On Monday, US officials told CNN that the USS Nimitz career strike group was moving to the Middle East “without delay.”
Already some US naval assets that can defend Middle Eastern ballistic missiles are expected to move to the Eastern Mediterranean “in the coming days.” The US Navy ship intercepted missiles at least twice over the weekend to protect Israel, officials said.
Officials from the US military and Intelligence News have long said that they often differ in the way the US and Israel interpret information about Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump’s National Intelligence Director Tarsi Gabbard testified in March that the US intelligence community “continues to assess Iran as not building nuclear weapons.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was pressed on Sunday in an interview with Fox News about why Israeli information differed from Gabbard’s parliamentary testimony.
We were asked if anything changed between the end of March and this week, and if Intel in the US was wrong. Netanyahu said:
Photo: Escalating conflict between Israel and Iran
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the head of the international watchdog, said last week that Iran had accumulated enough uranium, well enriched at levels just below weapons grade, to potentially create nine nuclear bombs called “the issue of serious concern.”
The challenge for Iran is simply producing crude nuclear weapons. Experts say that if Iran decides, it can potentially do it within a few months, but it could also produce work delivery systems that could take longer.
Just as the IAEA works with the US intelligence reporting officials and the IAEA to assess the damage Israel has caused to Iran’s nuclear building, there are concerns that Blitz may force Iran to do what US officials believe it has never had it: pursuing weapons.
However, one source familiar with the latest information said, “Iran is upset. I don’t know if they have the ability or expertise to do so.”
Israel has not caused any serious damage to Fordow, perhaps the most invasive fortress of Iran’s nuclear programme, the enrichment facility buried deep beneath the mountain.
“It’s back to Fordow, Fordow, Fordow: One Question,” McGurk told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Monday.
“That’s something the US can take. That’s what the Israelis have a lot of difficulties. If this is done with Fordow, they could actually have bad problems,” says McGurk. “In fact, Iran has a tendency to go to nuclear weapons and leaves that infrastructure intact.”
Trump and his administration have argued that diplomatic solutions could still be realized. However, Iran told Qatar and Oman that it would not be involved while the region’s diplomats were attacked by Israel, which they told CNN.