SecureSignals
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User ID: 853
SecureSignals
4hr ago
The world is at risk from US operations in Iran because Iranian regime faces an existential crisis, and its deterrence is folded into the threat of eliminating regional infrastructure that would cause humanitarian and global economic crisis. This ought to be a very strong incentive to avoid the escalation ladder, the problem is Israel wants to climb the escalation ladder, they will burn down the region to become the regional hegemon even if America is sacrificed as a result (especially if it is). They just bombed Iranian gas facilities today and Iran has ordered the evacuation of Gulf facilities in a possible retaliation.
SecureSignals
4hr ago
Ok so it's about the Shah not about American/Israeli intervention in overthrowing Syria, Iraq, Libya. Libya disarmed their nuclear program and then we promptly proceeded with regime change resulting in the public torture and execution of its leader. We surround Iran with military bases with an obvious concerted effort by Zionist Jews to get America to attack Iran, but Iran just has an irrational hatred for the US because of the Shah. That is so obviously false.
SecureSignals
4hr ago
Do you know how hard we are now attacking Iran from our bases and military presence in Iraq and Iraqi airspace? Why were we in Iraq in the first place? You are just explaining how this all goes back to the same answer. We topple Hussein for Israel, Iran arms militias that resist. Oh well now the story is Iran just hates us for no reason, so we have to risk the world to achieve regime change in Iran as well.
How long are people going to fall for this circular logic?
SecureSignals
6hr ago
Essentially none of the comments like this are worth a dime if they don't contend with the progress in the negotiations, and in Iran's compliance with the former deal that Trump ended. Because you aren't even trying to lay out the case for why the escalation path you proposed is lower-risk than making another deal.
We have people here talking about how "oh we just bomb their desalination plants, and yeah maybe they retaliate against the Gulf desalination plans and oil infrastructure and bring the entire region to chaos, mass regional humanitarian crisis, likely mass refugee crisis, risk the global economy, but it's worth it." The fact is, if you are an American, the risk equation is UNAMIBUGOUSLY AGAINST this escalation path. It's only Israel that stands to benefit from this escalation path, nobody else in the world does so. There is no universe in which this escalation path is worth the alternative "risk" of continuing negotiations that, by all accounts other than Kushner and Witkoff, two Zionist Jews who were regarded as Israeli assets by diplomats involved in the negotiation, were proceeding very well.
This is why the Zionist element is the only explanation for why an American would accept this risk to their own interests and the global economy to scuttle those negotiations. This is also why, when someone like you lays out the case for this escalation path, you basically ignore the alternative and much lower-risk path that all parties agreed was alive and progressing well, but then was sabotaged by Witkoff and Kushner at the very moment they made the greatest progress by all accounts.
You also ignore the fact that Iran's hostility towards the US is downstream from our alliance with Israel. So that hostility and the risks associated with it are another cost of the Zionist integration in America. So every step of the way, from the first step to "bomb their desalination plants" is being influenced by Jewish interests, not American interests.
SecureSignals
6hr ago
I can't imagine how optimistic you are to think Iran can't target Gulf oil fields and infrastructure. Tel Aviv, airports, and US embassies are still being hit right now but you can't think they can target oil infrastructure?
SecureSignals
1d ago
The most important point was on enrichment and the treatment of the highly enriched stockpile, which Iran had conceded and was why those involved in the process, other than Witkoff and Kushner, thought a deal was within reach. And diplomats involved with the talks said Witkoff and Kushner were regarded as Israeli assets. So yeah the consensus among everyone involved except Witkoff/Kushner seems to have been:
- No imminent threat
- Major concessions put a deal within reach
SecureSignals
1d ago
Trump is in full bullshitting mode, lying and contradicting himself every other sentence. Yesterday he said he was preparing to announce a grand naval Coalition to re-open the Straits, today he says nobody is coming and he doesn't need them. Yesterday he said he talked to a former President who disclosed to Trump that the president regretted not attacking Iran like Trump did. A claim that was promptly disputed by every single living President. Most likely he was talking to AI George Washington, who happened to completely agree with Glenn Beck's support for attacking Iran.
Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced today he was resigning over the war in Iran.
President Trump,
After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Directory of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today.
I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
....
Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that you should strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make that mistake again.
What's most significant is that Kent is not a Marjorie Taylor-Green or a Thomas Massie. Kent served in the U.S Special Forces and in eleven combat tours, mostly Iraq, and then retired an became a paramilitary officer with the CIA. His wife was killed in Syria. Kent had a very public feud with the Nick Fuentes faction of America First which was started by Kent's public denunciation of Fuentes.
Kent was clearly amenable to an aspirational "middle ground" with respect to the tenuous America First/Israel Alliance, which is why he was targeted by the Groypers in the first place. Nobody can accuse him of hiding some deep-seeded Jew hatred because of his long and recent history of supporting Israel, this seems to be a genuine defection. This defection is highly significant and the first time a high-ranking official has described any of these conflicts in these terms.
There may be more shoes to drop/more resignations. My own criticism of Kent's resignation is that he tries to absolve Trump of blame, when Trump is neck-deep in all of this.
This resignation comes as the same day the Guardian reports that a UK security adviser present at US-Iran talks believed a deal was within reach immediately before the US/Israeli strikes on Iran.
Iran had also made an offer of what the mediators described as an economic bonanza, with the US being given the chance to participate in a future civil nuclear programme.
In return, nearly 80% of the economic sanctions on Iran would have been lifted, including assets frozen in Qatar, a demand Iran made in the 2025 talks.
The Oman mediator believed the offer of zero stockpiling of highly enriched uranium was a breakthrough that meant an agreement was within reach.
Accounts differ on whether Kushner left the talks giving the impression Trump would welcome what had been agreed, or that the US negotiators knew it would take something massive to persuade Trump that war was not the best option.
One diplomat with knowledge of the talks said: “We regarded Witkoff and Kushner as Israeli assets that dragged a president into a war he wants to get out of.”
The Guardian’s report that Powell was in the room during the talks was cited in parliament on Tuesday by Liz Saville Roberts, an MP for the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru party, during an update by Britain’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper.
“It appears diplomatic options were still viable and there was no evidence of an imminent missile threat to Europe or of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Saville Roberts told Cooper.
“Does she therefore believe a negotiated path between Iran and the US was still possible at that time and, if so, surely that means that the initial US and Israeli strikes were premature and illegal?”
Cooper responded: “The UK did provide support for negotiations and diplomatic processes around the nuclear discussions.
“We did think that was an important track and we did want it to continue. That is one of the reasons for the position we took on the initial US strikes that took place.”
As I said, what Trump did was accurately identify key fault lines that cut across large swaths of both the conservative and corporate sides of the Republican electorate as well as many former Democrats who'd been alienated by the national party's embrace of Id-Pol and then build a coalition around it.
I swear I feel like I'm the only one with a 10-year memory. Identity Politics reached peak during Donald Trump. BLM and all of its fallout and cultural Great Awokening was during Trump's first term. In 2016 he ran on Immigration restrictionism, which resonated with dissident elements who then turned all of his leadership faults into funny internet memes that went viral incessantly during the 2016 campaign, to the point Reddit had to eventually ban his subreddit. Trump's 2016 campaign was not an anti-idpol coalition, it was fundamentally a nativist movement. The Zionist wing of the GOP picked up on that energy, which is why they called themselves "Never-Trumpers" and opposed the movement, at least until he proved his worth and now they say they define the movement and all the "nativists" who are skeptical of another war for Israel are not MAGA.
Now, the 2024 campaign was more of an anti-idpol coalition, but by this point more discerning observers knew that MAGA was being subsumed by the interests that have brought us exactly where we are today, and "anti-idpol" was a Trojan Horse to move the chess pieces to achieve this war with Iran and the purge of the actual nativists.
SecureSignals
1d ago
The Strait of Hormuz is closed with no clear path to opening, Dubai International Airport is shut down, maintaining ~30 missiles a day is enough for mass economic disruption and disruption to daily life. The copium about Iran running out of missiles every day hasn't happened. We've gone from "We've won" to "We're winning" to "Please Help open the Strait" in 3 weeks.
Marcus Crassus fought the Persians (technically Parthians) at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. His strategy was to wait for the Persians to run out of arrows before attacking with his infantry. But it turned out the Persians were being resupplied with camels, so the Romans attacked, and suffered one of their worst defeats in history. Crassus himself was killed during subsequent negotiations to end the fighting. Legend has it that the Parthians poured molten gold down his throat to mock his greed.
As for the rest, the Alt-right has always had a vastly overinflated perception of their own importance.
It certainly cannot be attributed to the Jewish Zionist wing that now owns MAGA like Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro, given that they opposed it in 2016. I think it's delusional to think Trump would have won without the "meme magic" that constantly went viral on the Internet and basically defined his image/aesthetic, but in any case it was a far greater part of the creation of that movement than the people that actively opposed it at the time but now claim they define it. Chutzpah.
SecureSignals
2d ago
For the record, if it turns out Netanyahu has died there is no information, medical records, doctor testimony, audio, video that could convince me it was a poorly timed medical event rather than an Iranian attack haha.
They definitely can't keep it secret for a long period of time, but probably long enough for a severe escalation to put things past the point of no return. IF he is dead and they are trying to keep it secret, I suspect there's going to be a huge escalation, maybe an attack on Iranian infrastructure or worse. I do think Netanyahu's death would be a potential de-escalatory turning point because it gives the Iranians a powerful symbol to declare victory and return to the negotiating table. And the Israeli power vacuum could cause the US to hesitate, not to mention potential US allies and the Gulf States. If he is actually dead, and Israel wants to escalate, I do think they have a motive to keep it secret. Israel's desire for escalation is suggested by their attack on the Iranian Oil storage facilities, which kicked off the ongoing price volatility in oil markets.
But I agree by far more likely is laying low to avoid provocation and denunciation by potential allies. But then there's Ben-Gvir, who has also been notably absent. So something is going on there, there's a reason this is happening.
SecureSignals
2d ago
I think this is true, which is why I don't see how security concerns would be the reason for Netanyahu's total absence in his public-facing role. He can do meetings and pressers and meet-and-greets! The Iranian leaders actually can't. So why hasn't he done any public engagement like that, at all, for a week?
SecureSignals
2d ago
How is the MAGA v America First schism an example of that though?
The real story is the Ziocons weren't with Trump in 2016, they didn't create the movement, but after his ascendancy they found him pliable and then they took over the movement and purged the anti-semites. The end. I don't see the lesson you are proposing here.
It's not really ironic, because I and others do believe in a high likelihood that Khamenei is dead or severely injured also due to the lack of public presence typically shown by a wartime leader.
You want irony, I saw some IDF guy on Fox News earlier today float the theory Khamenei is dead, and he actually said the Iranians should release a video of him to prove he's not dead... it was literally like he was saying "we released the Coffee Shop video to prove Netanyahu isn't dead, what do you have Khamenei?" It's a strange situation.
Of course Twitter uses proceeded to AI generate a video of Khamenei in the exact same coffee shop scene replacing Netanyahu, pretty funny warfare nowadays.
SecureSignals
2d ago
I think they are definitely conspiracy baiting, I proposed that as the explanation for the "disappearing ring" but I don't feel fully explains Netanyahu's leadership strategy here... it's more of an addon misdirection to a different strategy they are pursuing by keeping Netanyahu out of the limelight for some reason.
Netanyahu Conspiracy Theories on X and Mark Levin as MAGA
Quick rundown:
- Netanyahu has had no public appearances since March 9th, leading to huge speculation on X that Netanyahu is dead, there are a couple different theories for which strike killed him.
- Netanyahu's son tweeted an average of something like 20-30 tweets a day up until March 9th, and then did not send a single Tweet until today- anomalous.
- Netanyahu was not present at the past two Security Council meetings he almost always leads, which is anomalous.
- The first "public appearance" by Netanyahu was a pre-recorded coffee shop visit released yesterday where he mocked the rumors of his death. Not good enough for many X users who scoured the video trying to find proof of AI creation, none of the evidence of that I found compelling.
- The second "public appearance" by Netanyahu was another pre-recorded video released by his X account of talking to some citizens in the countryside.
- The video released today does have a very suspicious element, the wedding ring on his left finger disappears entirely within a single frame and then reappears seconds later. This is clearly visible in the original video too, not just that edit. Some attribute this to filtering, I can't attest to that and in my own videos with filtering I've never seen a total disappearance of an object like that.
Needless to say, the evidence provided has not dissuaded the rumors on X. I do not think Netanyahu is dead or severely injured, but these anomalies do warrant an explanation.
Why has Netanyahu not had any sort of public presence since March 9th that would be expected from a wartime leader? During the 12-Day War he maintained a public presence and even toured damage sites from missiles and took questions. But now the first time he appears in public in quite some time is is in a pre-recorded video to mock the rumors of his death in a coffee shop?
The easiest answer for the lack of public presence is due to security concerns. But it seems pretty trivial to me for a leader like Netanyahu to maintain a public presence with very low risk, and that risk would certainly be worthy of the benefits of moralizing the Homefront and projecting confidence.
I suspect the reason for this is because Netanyahu wants Trump to be the "face" of the war- several times a day you can see Trump on the News babbling to the media about the war attracting huge amounts of attention, while we can't spare a penny for Netanyahu's own thoughts or leadership at a time it would be expected. In particular, while Trump is clearly trying to muster NATO to join the war, it would be wise for Netanyahu to be far away from weighing in on that question or publicly supporting it because it would do more harm than good.
I do not see how traditional video touchups or filtering would cause the wedding ring to disappear like it did in the video released today, any video editing experts feel free to weigh in. Barring some "yeah I edit videos all the time and I've seen this before", the most likely explanation is that the ring disappearance was a video manipulation, but one intended to misdirect the critics on X- give them a bone to chew on with a false lead.
Mark Levin is MAGA, his critics are not
Rewind to 2016, Mark Levin was an avowed Never-Trumper while the alt-right essentially memed Trump into existence against all expectations. The tables have turned, if it was not already clear what side Trump was on in this feud between the Shapiro/Levin wing of MAGA and the online Right (tbh it was already clear), Trump has picked sides unambiguously:
Mark Levin, a truly Great American Patriot, is somewhat under siege by other people with far less Intellect, Capability, and Love for our Country... When you hear others unfairly attack Mark, remember that they are jealous and angry Human Beings, whose "sway" is much less than the Public understands, and will, now that they know where I stand, rapidly diminish. Other than for his wonderful wife and family, Mark Levin only cares and wants one thing, GREATNESS AND SUCCESS FOR AMERICA! Those that speak ill of Mark will quickly fall by the wayside, as do the people whose ideas, policies, and footings are not sound. THEY ARE NOT MAGA, I AM...
So there you have it, MAGA has been subsumed, the 2016 alt-right energy that propelled Trump into office is out, hopefully the "plan trusters" now can stop pretending otherwise. For its part Fox News is unsurprisingly 100% behind the war, today they had on another 2016 never-Trumper Ben Shapiro, who gave Trump's Iran War an A+ grade and remarked:
The president, right here, is doing the BRAVEST thing that I’ve ever seen an American president do when it comes to foreign policy
MAGA is not dead, it's the rebranded neo-conservatism. The movement has been subsumed.
SecureSignals
5d ago
I think people here are underestimating 25A possibility if Republicans lose Congress, which is looking increasingly likely. Existing Democrat hatred of Trump + impeding Iran war disaster + global economic crisis + some wildcard (blackmail/allegations etc.) it's not as crazy as it sounds especially if Vance is willing to throw his weight behind it.
SecureSignals
5d ago
Just a thought about Vance's chances for presidency. On the one hand his electoral chances are slipping. On the other hand he has the greatest opportunity anybody will ever have of becoming the "American Caesar": 25A Trump, attest to the foreign subversion of US government, invoke any and all power under the sun (all the ones Abraham Lincoln used, any new ones since then), ignore the courts, air out the dirty laundry to stir the masses, orchestrate mass FARA surveillance and prosecution campaign (remember FARA allows you to surveil anyone who is a degree of separation from the target), sue for peace with Iran with an offer that throws Israel under the bus.
It won't happen, but Vance actually has the crisis at his fingertips to become one of the great American historical figures. Instead he'll take the flak for the war and Rubio I guess will be the GOP nominee.
Sure it's a subtle distinction but it's important to determine the threat-level. An actual nuclear bomb is a technology that requires the integration of many components, highly enriched uranium being one of the most important for sure. You can say "the engine manufacturer is trying to build a car", eh not really it's trying to build an engine. If you extended the logic to "well the engine would only be used in a car so they are building the car" then that would extend to Iran's missile program as well.
Iran is a country with highly competent engineers, the US stratotanker was shot down yesterday (killing 6) by an in-house developed anti-air missile. The notion Iran has been trying but unable to engineer this 1940s technology is false, it has not been trying to build a nuclear bomb, and this is attested to by all the international agencies who have weighed in and no intelligence has been provided suggesting otherwise. I already described the reasoning Iran had for enriching the nuclear material.
Most likely the plan was for this highly enriched stockpile to form the basis for "imminent threat" to muddy the waters in exactly this way. "Their highly enriched stockpile means they are trying to build a nuclear bomb now", even if that's not actually true, at least muddies the water with respect to Iran's motives.
But Iran offered to hand over that highly-enriched material in an agreement with the US. My take is that this offer, demonstrating actual good-faith towards a likely agreement, was their death sentence as they got bombed immediately after making that major concession.
But now Witkoff and Kushner can't point to that highly enriched stockpile to say "Iran was trying to build a bomb." So the Witkoff narrative shifts to the controversy over the 20% enrichment for the TRR which doesn't even come close anymore to the notion that Iran was trying to build a nuclear bomb, and we had to bomb them in the middle of negotiations in order to stop them.
The truth is that Witkoff and Kushner were not hampered in those negotiations by a lack of expertise. They had access to the highest expertise in the world to achieve their objectives of the negotiation, and their objectives were war with Iran. The idea that Witkoff misunderstood the enrichment for TRR as being an imminent threat to build a nuke is not true at all. The progression of the negotiations weakened the narrative, so they pulled the plug and worked with what they had to get the US started in the war.
Mostly bargaining chip, deterrence, and option to try to create a nuclear weapon in the future. That is not the same as "they are trying to develop a nuclear weapon now" which would constitute "imminent threat." The notion of "imminent threat" that could justifiably bring the world to the brink like it has now is important. There has been no evidence presented to anyone for "imminent threat", which is why the story is so inconsistent and has waffled between "they were going to attack the US" (no evidence) and "they are an imminent nuclear threat" (no evidence).
The Iranians also enriched that material after Trump reneged on the previous Iran deal. So is this responding to an imminent threat, or is this pretext for war on top of a planned controversy over this issue? Who was it again that lobbied most heavily for Trump to exit the Iranian nuclear deal in his first term?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday claimed to have evidence that Iran has lied about its nuclear program and urged President Donald Trump to “do the right thing” next month by pulling out of a 2015 deal designed to curb Iran’s atomic ambitions...
Netanyahu spoke less than two weeks before a May 12 deadline that Trump has cited as a decision point he may use to withdraw from the multinational agreement negotiated by the Obama administration...
One former Obama administration foreign policy official said that Netanyahu’s speech likely had “an audience of one": Donald Trump.
“That is just not an acceptable situation,” Trump said at the White House on Monday in response to a question about the Israeli leader’s remarks.
Trump also warned that Iran was not merely “sitting back idly,” but he declined to say whether he will terminate the agreement next month. “We’ll see what happens,” the president said. “I’m not telling you what I’m doing, but a lot of people think they know.”
Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, fired back on Twitter on Monday, calling the Israeli leader’s speech “a rehash of old allegations already dealt with by the [International Atomic Energy Agency] to ‘nix’ the deal. How convenient. Coordinated timing of alleged intelligence revelations ... just days before May 12.”
Also skeptical was J Street, a Washington-based liberal Israel policy group critical of Netanyahu’s foreign policy.
“While Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump have long been determined to undermine this agreement, their own security establishments continue to confirm that the deal is working and that Iran is compliant with all of its commitments. Nothing we were shown today contradicts or disproves that expert assessment,” said Dylan Williams, the group‘s vice president of government affairs.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the GOP chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, seemed to agree, telling Bloomberg TV in an interview that Netanyahu’s speech brought “nothing new” to the contentious debate surrounding the agreement.
In his remarks, Netanyahu argued that the seized Iranian intelligence proves the nuclear deal was negotiated in poor faith.
“The Iran deal, the nuclear deal, is based on lies. It’s based on Iranian lies and Iranian deception,” he said. “This is a terrible deal. It should never have been concluded. And in a few days, President Trump will make his decision on what to do with the nuclear deal. I’m sure he will do the right thing.”
So Trump breaks the deal, Iran starts enriching again, and then Witkoff and Kushner declare "imminent threat" on the mere existence of enriched material that Iran has proposed to hand over to the US as part of an agreement.
The Iranian offer to handover the highly-enriched material threw a wrench into the works, most likely, hence why the 20% enrichment for the Tehran Research Reactor is the "best" Wiktoff/Kushner could come up with to convince Trump of some "imminent threat" to justify another war for Israel.
SecureSignals
6d ago
Thanks fixed.
Do you have answers to my questions?
I did answer your question- Iran offered to turn over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and maintain enough enrichment for its civilian nuclear facility. It's a rational offer, not one that should have been reacted to with war.
It seems pretty clear to me that Iran has been trying to develop nuclear weapon capability. I guess you dispute this?
You can read the article I linked, there is in fact no evidence of that and none of the experts cited agreed with that conclusion. Iran offered to hand over all of its enriched material.
The major "ignorance" if it can be called that is Trump seemed to be under the impression that the Iranians negotiating 20% enriched material for their civilian reactor was equivalent to an assertion to be a nuclear power. But the fuel for that civilian reactor was already part of the Obama-era deal and no experts cited believed that fuel for this reactor would have remotely constituted the Iranian demands characterized by Witkoff/Trump:
Just 36 hours before the United States opened its military assault, Iran’s nuclear negotiators, along with Oman’s foreign minister as mediator, presented the U.S. with a seven-page proposal for a potential nuclear deal, according to U.S. negotiator Steve Witkoff. But the American negotiators, Witkoff and Jared Kushner — who, according to a senior Middle East diplomat with knowledge of the talks, chose not to include nuclear technical experts in the negotiations — balked at Iran’s request to continue using 20%-enriched uranium at the reactor, a facility for civilian nuclear development that the U.S. first built and provided to Iran in 1967.
“The claim that they were using a research reactor to do good for the Iranian people was a complete and false pretense to hide the fact that they were stockpiling there,” a senior Trump administration official told reporters during a briefing on Tuesday, three days after the attacks began.
But the Trump administration has yet to provide evidence or intelligence — to the public or to Congress — demonstrating that Iran intended to use the uranium at the Tehran Research Reactor for weapon development or that the facility was being covertly used for stockpiling purposes. In two classified briefings provided to lawmakers since the attacks, administration officials made no assertion that the reactor was being used for stockpiling purposes for a potential weapon, according to two people familiar with their comments.
...The reactor requires 20%-enriched fuel and a relatively minimally enriched amount compared with the material required for the production of a nuclear weapon. Under the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, known as the JCPOA, the reactor would have access to no more than 5 kilograms of 20%-enriched uranium at a time, supplied from outside the country and monitored by inspectors.
The reactor has not come under IAEA scrutiny for suspected nuclear development in more than 25 years, according to Katariina Simonen, a board member of Pugwash Conferences of Science and World Affairs and an adjunct professor at the Finnish National Defence University.
“TRR is not ideal for any other activity than what it is designed for — i.e., civilian use (isotopes, research, training),” Simonen told MS NOW. “It is a small, light-water reactor supplied by the U.S. under the Atoms for Peace program.”
Nobody has presented any evidence that Iran was trying to develop a nuclear weapon. None of the international agencies attest to that.
What is absolutely stunning is that 20% enriched material needed for Tehran Research Reactor was already resolved by the Obama-era deal that Trump ripped up. So Trump literally ended the deal that solved the exact controversy Witkoff cited as imminent threat and cause for war. It's really uneblievable.
Keith Woods has a pretty good article on some of the absurdity with linked sources:
On the question of the apparent nuclear threat, we have learned that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who led the U.S. negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, conducted the talks without nuclear technical experts and based their concerns on a research reactor, unaware that such a reactor is incapable of enriching uranium. When the Iranians made a good-faith offer to hand over their highly enriched uranium but keep the Tehran Research Reactor built for them by Eisenhower. Witkoff and Kushner, due to their ignorance of the subject, apparently interpreted this as a demand to become a nuclear power:
Elena Sokova, the executive director of the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, called the administration’s assessments of the Tehran Research Reactor “confusing and misleading” and riddled with “technical errors.”“It mixes up different elements of the nuclear program and their potential proliferation capabilities,” Sokova said. “Research reactors are not capable of doing enrichment of uranium, whether for civil or military purposes.”
Witkoff defended the decision to bring no nuclear experts by saying he had “read quite a bit about it.”
Aside from having no technical knowledge and bringing no advisors or nuclear experts, Witkoff was apparently ignorant of previous agreements and negotiations with Iran, did not bring a diplomat who was knowledgeable of these things, did not take notes, and did not understand Iranian proposals.
Trump relayed to the press that Witkoff told him Iran’s message was "essentially, in a real nutshell: We want to continue to build nuclear weapons." None of the mediators present reported this. The Omani foreign minister who mediated the talks travelled to Washington and told J.D. Vance and U.S. media outlets that the negotiations had made “substantial, momentous, and unprecedented progress.”
Think about how insane this is — either the war was sparked by America’s representatives being totally ignorant of nuclear enrichment while negotiating a nuclear deal, and no one along the way picking up their error, or alternatively, they actively misled Trump to lead to war with Iran on Israel’s behalf. So that’s either gross negligence and incompetence or high treason.
Who would have thought that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner representing America's interest could have led to this result?
The Witkoff/Kushner subversion is the "Iraqi WMDs" 2.0.
It matters because the "they're Islamo-Fascists who hate Americans for our freedoms", or as Trump put it yesterday "the worst people since Hitler", has been the conventional wisdom used to justify violence. They are rational actors. The notion they they are incapable of reaching and maintaining an agreement through negotiation is false. The idea they are some Rogue State that has to be put down immediately at any cost is false. The idea people propose here "the damage Iran is doing to the region is proof we should have started this war" are wrong. They are rational actors, we had other paths to balancing power and maintaining regional stability, we chose this catastrophic path for a very specific reason.
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