(ZeroHedge)—Summary: The White House held a high stakes presser Thursday afternoon, as President Donald Trump also again convened his top national security officials in the situation room to hear intelligence officials and make key decisions on the Israel-Iran war, just prior. Of course, the biggest question that remains is: will the US directly enter the war against Iran?
- White House quoting Trump: Amid speculation regarding negotiations with Iran, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next 2 weeks.
- Leavitt: Trump thinks ‘substantial chance’ of Iran negotiations
- Leavitt: Witkoff has been in touch with Iran
- Leavitt: Trump always interested in diplomatic solutions
- Leavitt: it’s the US belief that Iran has never been closer to a nuclear weapon
- Leavitt: Iran can and should make a deal or face consequences
- Leavitt: Trump remains in contact with Netanyahu
- Leavitt: Iran is in a weakened position and we have sent a deal
- Leavitt: Iran has all that it needs to achieve a nuclear weapon, it just needs a ‘decision’
Oil slides on the “two weeks” announcement, as the can gets kicked down the road:
The most pressing issues at stake:
- Last ditch diplomacy working? Reuters reports in a breaking development that Iran held direct talks with US over de-escalation and potentially restarting nuclear negotiations.
- The Guardian reports that Trump only wants to strike Iran only if the US can destroy the Fordow enrichment facility.
- Destruction of Fordow would at least require the 30k pound bunker buster bomb, but still may not be effective in ending Iran’s enrichment capacity.
- Netanyahu says that while regime change in Tehran is not the current goal, the option is on the table.
- Tactical nuke on the table?
- Will the Iranians close the Strait of Hormuz, choking off global oil shipping?
- Reports of US bases in the region taking protective and defensive measures
- Israeli intelligence official says ‘imminent collapse’ of Iranian government is “far from the truth” – NBC reports
- Iran is warning that a “third party intervention” would spark an immediate military response
- Netanyahu has said the US has been “helping a lot” – without defining specifics
WATCH (scheduled to begin at 1300ET):
Update(1210ET): Just an hour away from a high-stakes White House press briefing, and a report in The Guardian has really upped the ante…
Donald Trump has suggested to defense officials it would make sense for the US to launch strikes against Iran only if the so-called “bunker buster” bomb was guaranteed to destroy the critical uranium enrichment facility at Fordow, according to people familiar with the deliberations.
Trump was told that dropping the GBU-57s, a 13.6-tonne (30,000lb) bomb would effectively eliminate Fordow but he does not appear to be fully convinced, the people said, and has held off authorizing strikes as he also awaits the possibility that the threat of US involvement would lead Iran to talks.
The effectiveness of GBU-57s has been a topic of deep contention at the Pentagon since the start of Trump’s term, according to two defense officials who were briefed that perhaps only a tactical nuclear weapon could be capable of destroying Fordow because of how deeply it is buried.
Tactical nukes now?
And there’s much, much more that needs to be considered. Likely full American military entry in to the war would spiral into full regime change in Iran. What comes next?
Iran as a society is much larger, and with an even more complex ethnic division than neighboring Iraq… and we all remember the pandora’s box and US ‘forever war’ very well. Soon after Saddam’s toppling came the rise of ISIS and hellish decade-plus long Syrian proxy war. Have the politicians already forgotten? (or more likely they don’t care…) Adding to the chaos would be the IRGC likely closing the vital Strait of Hormuz – which would send oil prices skyrocketing.
By the day’s end we are likely to find out whether Trump will stick by being negotiator in chief… or war hawk in chief… will he listen to the likes of Tulsi Gabbard and Tucker Carlson, or to Lindsey Graham and Mark Levin? Meanwhile…
As Israel’s war with Iran nears the end of its first week, each side continued to inflict destruction from above in Thursday’s opening hours. In a development certain to be exploited by proponents of US intervention, the largest hospital in southern Israel reportedly received “extensive” damage after suffering a hit from an Iranian ballistic missile. Meanwhile, defying warnings of radiation dangers from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Israeli Air Force bombed Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor, even though Iran modified it pursuant to the 2015 nuclear deal to make it incapable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.
In other important recent developments:
- Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said “the prime minister and I have instructed an escalation in the intensity of strikes against government targets in Tehran to destabilize the Ayatollah regime“
- Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that direct US participation in Israel’s war on Iran would spark a terrible spiral of escalation”
- President Trump has reportedly approved a Pentagon plan for attacking Iran, but is holding off on giving the green light as he continues to seek Iran’s capitulation to foregoing any uranium enrichment — something Iran views as an intolerable infringement on its sovereignty. “I may do it, I may not do it,” he told reporters.
- The foreign ministers of Iran, the UK, France and Germany are set to discuss the nuclear impasse in Geneva on Friday.
- MAGA conservatives continue to erupt in angry rejection of US involvement in the war Israel started, as evidenced by Tucker Carlson’s merciless evisceration of Iran hawk Ted Cruz in a viral interview
In its initial retaliatory strikes on Israel, Iran had largely confined its missile barrages to the night. However, after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) observed significant success in evading Israel’s highly-hyped Iron Dome, Iranian barrages are now increasingly coming in broad daylight, as they did on Thursday morning in a 30-missile strike that caused dozens of injuries, six of them severe:
One of Iran’s missiles struck Soroka Hospital in the southern city of Beersheba, with health officials saying the explosion caused extensive damage along with injuries. Iran said the missile was aimed at a nearby Israeli military intelligence facility; the Times said the nearest military facility it knows of is over two kilometers away. Verified by the Times, this video captures the sound of the thunderous explosion blast and the huge mushroom cloud that rose up from the impact at the hospital:
Israeli President Isaac Herzog emphasized that the hospital has a staff of “Jews and Arabs work[ing] side by side…caring for Israelis of all faiths and our neighbors the Palestinians.” Thanks in large part to a Wednesday evacuation of the floor that was struck, no fatalities have been reported at the hospital, and only minor injuries. Israeli officials quickly condemned the attack. “The missile fired toward Soroka Medical Center is an act of terror and crosses a red line,” Health Minister Uriel Buso told Times of Israel. Israeli critics will be quick to point out Israel’s enormously destructive campaign in Gaza has damaged or destroyed 94% of the hospitals in the territory.
The Iranian barrage also caused major damage in the major city of Ramat Gan, an important business and educational hub just 5 kilometers east of Tel Aviv. With many modern skyscrapers, Ramat Gan has been nicknamed “the Manhattan of Israel.” Some of those shiny skyscrapers were shattered on Thursday morning, as two people were seriously injured:
On the other side of the war map, Israeli bombs and missiles rained down on Iran, with the Israeli military announcing 40 fighter jets hit dozens of facilities, including the Arak heavy water reactor, and a facility in Natanz that Israel claims Iran is using to develop a nuclear weapon. In March, the US intelligence community said it continues to conclude that, true to its decades of assurances, Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon.
Ironically, Israel’s attack on Arak helps draw attention to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal that Trump withdrew the United States from in 2018, sowing the seeds of the war that’s raging today. In compliance with that deal, Iran filled the heavy water reactor core with cement so it would be incapable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. Other JCPOA modifications were also in progress at the Arak facility. In announcing its Thursday strike, the IDF even referred to it as the “inactive nuclear reactor in Arak” — which only helps underscore the fact that the original nuclear deal was fully achieving its purpose, and it was only discarded in deference to Israel and its Western collaborators looking for a false pretense for war, one that’s astonishingly similar to the one used for the disastrous invasion of Iraq.
Earlier in the day, Israel had warned Iranians to evacuate from the vicinity of the reactor, using social media posts that featured satellite imagery of the facility in a red circle. However, Israel’s warning came after reports that Iranians were enduring a near-total loss of internet access more than 12 hours at the last report. The outage was reportedly the work of the Iranian government; the New York Times said the move was likely motivated in part by fear of Israeli cyberattacks. Earlier this week, Israel’s US ambassador cryptically promised “some surprises on Thursday night and Friday that will make [Israel’s explosive-beeper] operation [in Lebanon] almost seem simple.”
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