President Trump certainly hasn’t provided any. During his video statement his rationale at times seemed more retrospective than preventative. He listed previous conflicts involving the U.S. and Iran, including Iran’s support for insurgents during the Iraq War, and even all the way back to the seizing of the U.S. Embassy and subsequent hostage crisis in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. He also cited the ubiquitous “Death to America” chants perpetrated by Iran’s regime.
As to whether Iran’s ballistic missile program or nuclear program posed any kind of imminent threat to the U.S., there’s evidence that was not the case.
During his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump claimed that Iran was working on intercontinental ballistic missiles which “will soon reach” the U.S. But as the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, per experts outside of the government:
To build effective ICBMs, which soar out of the atmosphere and into space, Iran would have to overcome hurdles including developing a re-entry vehicle with heat shielding that can survive a fiery descent into the atmosphere, and a guidance system to keep the missile on target.
Trump administration officials haven’t said if they plan to declassify intelligence that suggests Iran is accelerating the development of an effective ICBM. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Defense Intelligence Agency projected in May that Iran could deploy as many as 60 ocean-spanning missiles by 2035, if it decided to adapt a system it has been developing for putting satellites into low-Earth orbit for ICBMs instead.
Iran has been working to rebuild its ballistic missile and drone arsenal after it was severely depleted and destroyed during the the 12-Day War. It launched more than 500 ballistic missiles during that conflict, and it still has short and medium range missiles that can reach U.S. military bases in the region. Iran has twice targeted bases in limited symbolic retaliatory strikes, after the U.S. bombed nuclear targets last year, and after Trump ordered the assassination of Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020.
The New York Times noted on Thursday that Trump and administration’s officials claims about Iran’s capabilities resembled the false rationale for war that the George W. Bush administration made ahead of the Iraq War. For instance:
Three American officials with access to current intelligence about Iran’s missile programs said that Mr. Trump exaggerated the immediacy of the threat posed to the United States. One official said some intelligence analysts were concerned that top aides have inflated the threats or that intelligence was being selectively presented or distorted as it was sent upward.
And regarding the Trump administrations’s claims about Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities? There’s no evidence to support them either. Again via the Times:
Steve Witkoff, the White House’s lead negotiator in those discussions with the Iranians, said on Fox News on Saturday that Iran is “probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb making material.”
But American officials and international weapons inspectors said that was not the case, largely because the U.S. and Israeli strikes last June badly damaged Iran’s three main nuclear sites, Natanz, Fordo and Isfahan.
Those attacks made it far more difficult for Iran to access the near-bomb-grade fuel it would need to produce a nuclear weapon quickly. Even if it were to dig it out, experts said, it would take many months — perhaps more than a year — to turn it into a warhead.
These assertions that Iran represents an imminent threat to Americans, not to mention Trump’s specific rhetoric on Saturday, also echo the exaggerated claims that hardcore neocons and Iran hawks like Senator Lindsey Graham, not to mention Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have been making for decades.
