America's spies say Iran wasn't building a nuclear weapon. Trump dismisses that assessment
Tulsi Gabbard left no doubt when she testified to Congress about Iran’s nuclear program earlier this year.
The country was not building a nuclear weapon, the national intelligence director told lawmakers, and its supreme leader had not reauthorized the dormant program even though it had enriched uranium to higher levels.
But Donald Trump dismissed the assessment of U.S. spy agencies during an overnight flight back to Washington as he cut short his trip to the Group of Seven summit to focus on the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran.
“I don’t care what she said,” Trump told reporters. In his view, Iran was “very close” to having a nuclear bomb.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/americas-spies-say-iran-wasnt-building-a-nuclear-weapon-trump-dismisses-that-assessmentOpen linkView original on lemmy.world819
Comments166
He's an idiot who has never been able to distinguish between his fantasies and reality
He's spent a lifetime making shit up, and never being held to account for it
He's a child, and what's worse, he has dementia.
He also lies as easily as he breathes. Truth means nothing to him. He sees being honest as a weakness
Just the person to entrust the most powerful military of the world with.
"But what choice do we have? Entrust the military to a lady? We'll take the dementia-addled toddler instead"
Don't forget that under the orange paint, he's white
Didn't matter. Look at the three elections that Trump ran, and his performance against the candidate with a penis vs. the ones without one.
The American electorate will vote for a Black penis-haver (particularly if he is a baller) over any vagina-haver right now. They still won't say "I'm a sexist pig" in the exit polls, though, so we get reasons like "She didn't explain her policies enough" or "She wasnt authentic enough" instead.
Maybe I’m just being hopeful, but I don’t think the vagina thing is as big of an influence as it seems. First, we only have a sample size of two.
One of them, Clinton, was just an objectively awful person. She wasn’t popular with anyone, including women.
The second, Harris, had an abbreviated campaign caused by Biden’s unwillingness to step down. She also wasn’t built up in preparation fora campaign during her VP term. On top of that, she was very unexciting policy-wise. Basically status quo when everybody is clamoring for progress.
Contrast that with Obama, who ran on “hope and change” and got people excited for actual progress. Which he didn’t deliver, but that’s another story.
Hillary Clinton was the most qualified Presidential candidate you’ve had since Eisenhower.
Why do women win Governor elections, then?
Because not every state is full of misogyny
That is not so clear-cut https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/11/01/17-states-havent-had-a-female-us-senator-and-18-havent-had-a-woman-governor/ I'd have to go see if there is any correlation between these and Kamala/Hillary's results, but I'm not expecting it to be strong.
(Oh, and of course, I didn't check if any of these elections were woman vs woman, where it would not serve as an indicator of misogyny to elect a woman)
My point is that even women can win elections in deep red states, particularly if they follow "conservative" values close enough. But then again president has the whole commander-in-chief aura...ok...
People can accept woman as the little boss, but not the big boss. Not yet anyway.
I don't flatly disagree, but I think to call Hillary or Kamala as "electable" as Obama is a hard sell. He was a better public speaker than any president in my lifetime and he played things off well. Kamala was certainly more likable than Hillary, but she didn't have as much sauce as the sauce king at least before he was usurped by the sauce god Mamdani.
The idea that the only reason she lost is because of being a woman is incredibly stupid.
I don't agree. Take the same political stances and ethos, but have it come from Keith Harris (or even Kailash or Kenan Harris) instead, and he is seen as decisive and likeable.
Yeah? Well my pop tart fell on the floor this morning. I think I'll sit out 2028.
He is. She is a Russian asset.
Who's "she" here? I'll assume in good faith that this is a typo
... Tulsi Gabbard
Tbh this is not specific to trump. Gulf wars happened the same way.
Not really it was all theatrical in un but everybody knew and called them out. https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/French_address_on_Iraq_at_the_UN_Security_Council
My point is this is not specific to trump. I don’t like him but this is typical American military complex which we have seen in the past. History repeats itself.
Destabilizing Iran has been a major part of the US vision to reshape the middle east in it's own favor, in order to retain hegemonic control and move the theater to China
It's also been Israel's goal since the 1990s, and Israel is an fundamental to US foreign policy in the region
The truth doesn't really matter. Israel will get their war, and the US will lumber into it behind them.
What's crazy to me is apparently the US has become so polarized, so used to division that pointing out Israel is acting like bloodthirsty psychos is somehow supporting Iran, or Hamas before that. It's like their whole culture has evaporated any nuance at all. Only diametrically opposed good and evil battling forever. Professional wrestling stories with Heels and Faces divided by clear black lines.
It is the only thing conservatives/fascists have left.
And shitlibs.
Liberals aren't even in charge of anything at the moment but you really out here trying to get this "shitlib" thing you made up to stick.
Yikes
tHiNg yOu mAdE uP
tHeYrE nOt eVeN iN cHaRgE
God vs Satan doesn't leave room for nuance.
First, weaken the commercial aviation in your country. Second, start calling everything terrorism. Third, start yet another war in the middle east.
Your guy is desperately looking for another 911.
I’m expecting a false-flag attack here soon to give him an excuse to officially pull the US into it
Or maybe a real attack from the guillotine squad. It'd amount to the same thing.
Tronald would likely abuse the fuck Out of it to do more "emergency measures". We've seen this in Germany in the 30s with the Ermächtigungsgesetz after the Reichstag burned.
*9/11
That's fine. Iraq didn't have WMDs either. They just need a lie to sell it to the public.
What’s the context for this photo?
Colin Powell lies to congress about "facts" and "evidence" of WMDs in Iraq that led to a 20 year war
The UN. This picture was when he lied to the UN about WMDs in Iraq.
My bad, he lied so much it's hard to keep it straight
Quick, dust off the "weapons of mass destruction" propaganda.
Came here to say the exact same thing.
It doesn't matter if it is true or not (not just this topic) but if you repeat the lie enough and gaslight the public it becomes true, and if it doesn't so what, what are you going to do about it.
NOTHING that is what they are counting on.
Keep up the protests, the No Kings protest was huge even if MSM is downplaying it.
Those are clearly Netanyahu's words in his mouth. Netanyahu has been loudly and confidently saying that at regular intervals since 2012. Iran is always weeks away.
At the same time Isreal is like the only country that probably has nukes yet refuses to acknowledge it.
Imagine Iran did a "preventive strike" against Israel because they might have nuclear bombs.
They're pretty open about it
Since the 90's
They’ve been saying “any day now” for twenty-some years
1995 actually
Are we now choosing to believe what Tulsi says because it fits the narrative?
The alternative is believing Israel's government...
And they're an openly genocidal far right government made up of violent religious extremists...
Like, America is bad right now
But Israel has been on some straight up Nazi shit for a while now, because both Biden and Trump let Israel do whatever
Saying Iran isn't building nukes is the most pushback Israel has gotten since Obama was in office
He's doing horrible shit...
But he hasn't been actively committing a genocide like Israel has.
If you think trump is doing as bad of shit as Israel. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
He's neck deep in supporting Israels Genocide, I would call that "actively committing"
That's what you replied too...
If I now said:
Does that mean that's the only topic you're allowed to respond to now? If you mentioned Nirvana could I tell you I never mentioned them so the band is verboten?
Maybe I'm just having a bad morning, but this shit is getting ridiculous
It's definitely not you. This shit happened (and is still happening) on Reddit all the time, it's like there will always be a sizeable population that doesn't understand the concept of context and how replies to a thread are never standalone but always within the ongoing context of the thread. If they want to make a standalone comment, make a separate comment thread. But somehow that's too advanced of a concept for them to grasp.
To be fair I was having a bad morning...
But I felt like the lady from the Thunder gun focus group multiple times today, not just there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wnf5UzGNIVU
You don’t have to believe either one.
What kind of pushback did they get from Obama?
This alternative is to believe the assessment that nuclear regulators made that they were stockpiling 60% enriched uranium and installing new centrifuges that could further enrich to weapons grade even faster. AFAIK there is no other plausible explanation for doing this, nuclear reactors only need 5% enrichment or so:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/could-iran-have-been-close-to-making-a-nuclear-weapon-uranium-enrichment/
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25/06/gov2025-24.pdf
It's also not a great look Iran immediately talks about testing a nuke a day after the attack. Despite that obviously being a lie, it at least makes it clear they don't seem to be trying very hard to hide it.
I'm sure Netanyahu has all kinds of nefarious reasons for doing this and with this timing, but this pretense at least seems pretty solid unlike Gaza and I'm sure there is genuine concern throughout their citizenry over how Iran would use them against them.
To be frank, if I was them, I would do everything to get a nuke before the crazies in Israel and the USA decide to wipe out Iran. So Iran trying to get it makes perfect sense.
I'm sure they see it that way as well. And so here we are.
So what? Just because she pushed back she’s now trustworthy? For fucks sake, screw your head on straight.
Also why are you even intent on defending Iran, an openly genocidal far right government made up of religious extremists? There’s no good guys in this fight.
You don't have to trust her.
But if she says the sun will come up tomorrow, it doesn't mean we need to plan to live the rest of our days in fucking darkness man...
Like. You understand that right? Someone can be a habitual liar, but that doesn't mean the opposite of everything they say is true.
I understand that, but it seems habitual liars are not lying only when it fits the narrative.
There’s plenty of evidence that points to Iran building a nuke. They are not the good guys, so excuse me for being unconcerned about their literal dictatorship getting blown to hell.
By all means share it with the class...
Because Israel's government isn't. And neither is any other government.
So I'm sure lots of people would absolutely love to see your proof
Otherwise, it's more likely Israel is lying because they've been saying Iran is a few years away from having nukes for literal decades. It means as much as Elmo saying Tesla will have auto omous driving in a few years
Someone else did it, see above.
Christ's sake...
This is the fediverse, you can't assume everyone sees the same comments when everyone's on different instances. And that's not even getting into how people block other accounts.
This is like pulling fucking teeth. So speaking of block lists...
Please stop getting your politics from marvel movies
Iran is authoritarian and brutal but this is the first I'm hearing of genocidal.
Got any examples I can look up?
They certainly call for genocide pretty often.
Got any examples?
They sent paramilitaries to Syria to engage in sectarian genocide.
If Trump doesn't believe her, then even from his demented perspective she shouldn't have the job. So which is it Donald? Does she ah, merit her position of authority and influence, or does she not?
Wmd
I wouldn't tryst Gabbard on this either since she's very likely a Russian agent and Iran is a partner to their war efforts.
Reported as "misinformation" by someone blissfully unaware of Gabbard's history:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tulsi-gabbard-russian-connection-dni-trump-syria-b2692244.html
On the bright side, though, if Russia is actively covering for Iran and Trump is aligning against that, then Putin might finally decide Trump has outlived his usefulness as an asset and send Trump some of his special tea....
Russia only cared slightly, Trump blocked Russian sanctions already passed by Congress and stepped in to stop Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil and Russia will not burn such an asset for a minor partner catching this kind of heat (or any partner, since they "don't have the cards" as Trump would say if he wasn't a complete pushover for Putin)
So we are gonna do the Iraq WMD lie again huh?
This season's twist is that the Intelligence community is claiming that there is no weapons. Unless the Intelligence community is doing reverse psychological on us.
The CIA reported no wmds before the invasion of Iraq too
People still believe Iraq had WMDs to this day.
I still have people telling me it wasn't Bush's fault, the intelligence was bad
Well, they're half right, but not in the sense they mean...
Of course there are ZERO valid reasons to go to war in the ME.
We have done this dance before last time it cost me my 20s my sanity and most importantly a huge amount for friends I loved like brothers who died before and are still killing then selfs..
This whole thing still has me scratching my head.
Such a large portion of the West gets a raging boner about coming to Israel's aide. I get it from the strange doomsday cult belief where something about Israel at war triggers the rapture or some shit. But I don't really believe that's what the western world leaders actually believe.
Trump has his own reality, and only a divine entity understands what's going on in the space between his ears.
Ignoring Trump and the doomsday cult thing, the other things I can think of:
US and Europe want an established western sympathizing military power in the middle-east. Some sort of remnant of the Cold war.
US and Europe want a military western sympathizing military power with close proximity to the Suez Canal and red Sea, as well as the Mediterranean.
The "Sampson Option" that Israel has is completely legitimate and Israel is ready to obliterate everyone if they don't get their way.
There's some economic or strategic value the West won't acknowledge.
Even with all that, attack Iran? Iran is not remotely similar to Iraq. Iran will put up much more of a fight. It also won't be a "forever war" like fascists dream about.
Because the fatwa declares: "Israel has a right to defend itself". Denying it is haram, and infidels must be punished.
At a certain point, it stops being about enforcing the fatwa, and becomes about defending your right to declare fatwas.
Using Islamic terminology to describe the driving force of a Christian nationalist coming to the aid of Jewish Zionists to fight an Islamic Hegemony has my head hurting in new ways.
It's really not that complicated. Trump is a bully and loves piling on to prove he's the alpha male. But he's also a coward (like many bullies) and is afraid to wade into something that will spiral out of control. So he's trying to subjugate the government of Iran using threats so he can get the satisfaction of the former without the risk of the latter.
Trump has always shown us he doesn't need intelligence.
We have irrefutable proof, that we can't show you, that Iran is stoning babies in the incubators with yellow cake.
Why that damn bullet had to hit the firefighter instead?
I'm so fucking tired.
Not only is trump ignoring this, but lots and lots of shitlibs on this site are also.
The moron just wants the war to hide his shenaningans at home. Sole reason. Everyone should know by now that he automatically denies any and every thing that runs contrary to his own personal narrative.
other problems make for a great distraction from the original problem. i suspect that's the reason behind a lot of trump's actions
The more he dismiss America's intelligence agencies, the more i believe them.
Yep exactly. If he says something I assume the opposite is true. I'm not saying this for comedy value, I genuinely do
America loves war. Simple as that. Bushes weapons of mass destruction was a guarantee that other nations had destructive weapons when they didn’t, but was motivation to get into a conflict that had nothing, zero, nada, zilch to to with the original reason of invading in the first place (911)
America is a disgusting whore of war. Actually they are good at starting a war, but similar to almost every man over 60, they have a hard time finishing, pull out, and leave the host to clean up their mess.
What is that?
That's Secretary of State Colin Powell testifying to Congress about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, during the Bush Jr. administration, I think.
I had to.
The Bush administration getting away with all their criminal shit paved the way for Trump.
Tbf I doubt it was new in politics
In fairness to Colin Powell, my understanding was he didn't know it was a lie/ trumped up evidence at the time, and was pretty bitter about it in later years.
It's not Congress. It's the UN. And he was doing a really stupid publicity stunt about how that vial could hold anthrax to kill them all. And then went on about WMDs in Iraq.
I think he's possibly talking at the UN or some security council as they plaque in front of him says "United States", at a guess that wouldn't be necessary in front of Congress. I might be wrong though, I'm not from the US.
"Better not drop that cake"
Pretty consistently it's been reported that Iran has been increasing its capabilities to quickly create a nuclear weapon should they need to, rather than simply embarking immediately on constructing nukes.
And honestly, at this point, they'd be stupid not to, since the main negotiator (the US) of their opposing coalition has proven to be utterly unwilling to maintain any agreements regarding denuclearization for more than 4 years at a time.
at this point a Nuke in Iranian hands would probably calm the region down
A few, maybe. One just means you have to use it or lose it, I think. One is very different from several.
yeeeah... shrug, Trump ignores them all. And why shouldn't he? They didn't prevent him from happening, what's the point of the CIA, NSA etc when they either knew about him & putin, and let hit happen, or, they didn't know, even though it's been obvious since the 80s?
Nice job Intel community, you shot us all in the face.
The situation could be more nuanced. Putin lost in Syria and Europe is split from Russia and massively spending on weapons. That's already a huge win, maybe big enough to accept a bleeding face.
tell that to the tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians murdered.
When was that ever a concern for the elite in power?
They're not reading my comments on lemmy.
Why do you give two flying fucks at a rolling donut what they think?
I fail to see your point regardless.
The point is to be additional arms of the government that he can manipulate and abuse to his own ends.
So we oppose US intelligence agencies overthrowing democratically elected leaders in other countries but not their own?
if your own intelligence organs don't warn your gov that there's a foreign power influencing the election, yeah, I think that group isn't doing their fucking job.
I can see a major problem with that timeline, but I suppose wild conspiracy theories don't have to make sense
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/trump-first-moscow-trip-215842/
https://medium.com/@abbievansickle/timeline-of-trumps-relationship-to-russia-5e78c7e7f480
https://time.com/4437403/trump-gorbachev-history/
wish it was a wild conspiracy theory.
Trump is going to end up getting the spies killed like he did on his first term.
The best hint that Iran has no nukes is that the US is attacking them. If they had nukes they would keep away.
Did Netanyahu get his hands on the pee tapes?
They can probably use Epstein's tapes.
I'm sure mossad has kompromat on everone in the administration.
Seriously, would there be anything that's not known already that would change anything? I think that a video tape of Trump anally violating a Teletubby would just get a yawn and 5D chess comment from his base.
They have all of Epstein's recordings.
What Israel is doing is in the interest of the current US administration (and many other western leaders). Why would you need kompromat.
weapons of mass destruction?
Tulsi has no home and has continually played herself. Congratulations.
Military control is power, and Trump wants to control the most powerful military in the history of the world. Nothing can stop him, except maybe the LEGISLATIVE BRANCH WHO SHOULD 25th amendment his bitch ass!
Both are Russian assets and Russia is building Iran's nuclear capabilities. Why are the fucking Saudis so quiet? They would like to destroy their largest oil competitor, Iran, like they did with Iraq.
Right from the Cheney playbook.
wasn't YET building?
I mean... Why do you even get the uranium enriched to such high levels if you don't plan to make use of it?
Power plants fueling desalination. There is alot of material about it. It's part of the treaties with America. But to refine to weapon grade uranium is not a technological enhancement, you simply run the same enrichment procedure multiple times is my understanding. The main difference is the tricky detonation, but come on, that's decades old tech.
The treaties were made with the understanding they could make nukes if they wanted to.
So that a reason can be given to not enrich further.
Despite your shitlib stance, I will concede that Iran should gave veen trying to build a nuke as a deterrent for exactly this scenario. The US never attacks nuclear powers. Trump even sucks off Kim Jong Un on weekend getaways.
Okay so we believe Tulsi Gabbard now?
Yes she works for Russia and they're friends with Iran.
So we can't really trust either.
How exactly does one become a spy?
Look, having nuclear...
Where are the zionist who claimes that iran was building a nuke?
We didn’t attack Iran so it doesn’t matter what we think. Presumably Israel thought they were.
It will matter when the USA attacks Iran, which was looking imminent last time I checked.
No. That is not what enriching means. I’m sorry, you need to do a lot more research on nuclear physics; you are flatly incorrect.
You're literally describing building a bomb with different words. And both the IAEA and the American IC are currently of the opinion that Iran hasn't been doing that since they suspended their nuclear weapons program in 2003. Is there something you know that they don't?
Tulsi Gabbard is a well known Iranian asset. She's been on their payroll for years. Of course she said that they weren't building a nuclear weapon, that's what they paid her to say. The entire Trump regime is corrupt.
I've heard the accusation that she's a Russian asset, but Iranian? First time I've ever heard that one.
Well known by whom, exactly?
Lol, she's a literal Hindu nationalist. That's about as far from an Iranian asset as possible
I love people putting "well known" before completely baseless accusations
Reddit-ass geopolitical experts.
why the fuck would a facist regime enrich so much uranium to such high levels? death to the iranian regime I say. follow reza pahlavi and not the pervy mullahs.
Citation needed.
The son of the Shah? That's... uh... a tenuous proposition, to say the least.
do you read news at all?
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sktf6cyegg
he is calling for days, all media covers it and you think saying it in the fediverse is tenuous? maybe telegram groups are more your thing.
and on the facist regime i want to quote: "Iran has insisted that it is not developing a bomb and that its nuclear program remains non-weaponized for peaceful energy purposes, though international inspectors have found increasing evidence to the contrary. The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog reported that Iran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium—just below weapons-grade—has grown large enough to produce multiple bombs if further enriched. Analysts say Iran could theoretically produce a bomb’s worth of material in as little as a week, and that no other country has that level of uranium without a nuclear weapons program."
https://time.com/7294133/iran-israel-nuclear-program-attack/
what else than a facist would do that? shitty mullahs behave like patrick star "nO. mAybe wE wAnt to wIpe all Jews. tihihihihi." irans regime should just die and anyone who thinks their childish shennanigans still fly ist just dumb. follow pahlavi.
Are you seriously defending the mullah regime? Do you know anything about what’s happening in Iran?
Yes, and I know it's not fascism. "Fascism" is a word that has a meaning, and that meaning is not "authoritarian regime I don't like".
I would say most if not all boxes of fascism by definition are ticked in Iran.
Dictatorial leader, forceful suppression of any opposition and/or critics, strong militarism, centralized autocracy, nation above the individual, a strong regimentation of society, …
I'm not sure how militarized Iranian society is, but most of what you said applies to most dictatorships. On the other hand,
-Wikipedia. The idea that there are undesirables in society who must be purged or suppressed to achieve national (as in racial) unity and greatness is a core tenet of fascism that is conspicuously absent from Iran. I mean hell, if Iran was running anything like this they'd go after their Jews (which they have a small number of), Christians or Sunni Muslims to rile up the Shia majority, but they don't.
The son of the source of the tragedy? You Zios are too stupid
ah, everyone who dislikes the facist regime of iran is a zionist now. you are just underlining my point.
You support the son of the shah who's killed Iranians. You do not care about Iranians and are happy to sacrifice them so israel put a puppet regime instead. The history show us how it always back fire and lead to creation of resistance group who hate the west