And then there were stories saying that, actually, Iran wasn’t that big a problem, and in fact it wasn’t even building a bomb. That was the assessment of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, headed by Tulsi Gabbard. What was most striking about the assessment was that Joe Biden’s DNI had famously dropped the intelligence community’s rote phrase that Iran wasn’t building a bomb. Why did Trump’s DNI put the phrase back in? The effect, no doubt unintended, was to make Trump’s policy look strange: If Iran isn’t even thinking of building a bomb, why does Trump keep insisting that Iran can’t have a bomb? Like every good big lie, this one has a big element of truth - Iran wasn’t building the Bomb. They were busy building drones and ballistic missiles. I think, the idea was to build up their conventional deterrence to the point of being practically invincible. And THEN, go ahead and build their nukes. Or, maybe even NOT build them - but remain forever a few days - or maybe hours - from building them.
Had nukes not been part of their long term strategy, then WHY would they need 1000’s of kilograms of 60% enriched Uranium - which could be very quickly enriched up to the 90% weapons grade level?
I think Tulsi Gabbard is wonderful - but she seems to have a certain attraction towards Woke MAGA folks in the Tucker Carlson mold. I think people like that may have difficulties with seeing the full picture. Yes, Iran wasn’t building nuclear weapons - yet. They were preparing to do it - or not do it - in the future, on their own terms. |
