This wasn't Tulsi saying it, but the intelligence community going back to the dubbya administration.
Some of us are old enough to remember.
In honor of W. "fool me one, shame on you. Fool me twice? Well you cant fool me twice"
Some of us are old enough to remember.
In honor of W. "fool me one, shame on you. Fool me twice? Well you cant fool me twice"
In other words, this is not a civilian energy program.
Maybe they can build a bomb in 1 month, maybe three years. You may not agree whether or not action should be taken, but I do not see that agreement/disagreement based on the difference.
In any case, our "intelligence" community has lost a lot of credibility, and has been politicized for decades. I would not bet my life, let alone an entire nation, on what they have to say.
Common sense also needs to take into account that Iran already does have a working civilian reactor, and its fuel is supplied by Russia. Given the state of Iran's economy, there is no rational reason for it to be spending vast sums to build so many facilities simply to supply fuel to a reactor that is already supplied by someone else. They would be far better off spending their much needed resources building additional civilian reactors.
Is Iran close to producing an actual bomb ? Don't know. Is Iran investing huge sums to produce weapons grade nuclear material ? There is quite a lot of information to indicate that this is so, and there is only one reason to do this - to produce a nuclear bomb.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_facilities_in_Iran
Long list of nuclear sites, cross referenced from many diverse sources. Assume half is misinformation, there is a lot of evidence of a wide ranging program
https://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/analysis-of-iaea...
Analysis of the many IAEI reports. I am not sure of the reputation of the authors, but I have read through similar findings from different sources.
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/12/nx-s1-5431395/iran-nuclear-en...
"Iran isn't complying with its nuclear obligations for the first time in 20 years" from an IAEI report, reported by NPR
I believe that Iran is and has been trying very hard to produce enough enriched uranium to make a bomb. I do not know how close they are to an actual bomb, but I also do not believe the technical know how is beyond them, they have smart people, funding, and a technology infrastructure to make it happen. The hard part is the enriched uranium.
I also do not believe that Iran getting close to a bomb is the real reason for Israel's current offensive. Neither do I believe that Israel "acted alone", the US is complicit. Neither do I believe that Hamas and Hezbollah acted alone, Iran is complicit. The past 20 months has always been about Israel/Iran and US/Russia/China.
You may believe differently.
[0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/tulsi-gabbard-admits-to-asking... - forgive the crappy source, i'm not super serious about this line of discussion :)
Myself, I think they already have a bomb. Or actually don't want it for moral reasons. There is no universe where Pakistan and N. Korea have it and they're "working on it"