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Despite U.S. intelligence once again finding Iran is not currently developing nukes, the president is trying to force Tehran into a nuclear deal after unilaterally abrogating an existing one in 2018.
Iran's military has reportedly readied ballistic missiles for possible launch against U.S. bases in the Middle East after President Donald Trump renewed his threat to wage war on the country if it does not reach an agreement with his administration regarding nuclear weapons—which American intelligence agencies have repeatedly found Tehran is not building.
Trump discussed Iran during a Sunday phone call with NBC News' Kristen Welker, telling her that "if they don't make a deal, there will be bombing, and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before," adding that there is also "a chance that if they don't make a deal, that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago."
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran's theocratic government, warned Monday that "if any hostile act is committed from outside, though the likelihood is not high, it will undoubtedly be met with a strong counterstrike."
Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said on social media Monday that "an open threat of bombing by a head of state against Iran is a shocking affront to the very essence of international peace and security."
"It violates the United Nations Charter and betrays the safeguards under the [International Atomic Energy Agency]," Baghaei added. "Violence breeds violence, peace begets peace. The U.S. can choose the course."
Iranian Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) Aerospace Division, noted Monday that "the Americans have 10 bases in the region, particularly around Iran, and 50,000 troops based in there."
"This means they are sitting in a glass house; and when one sits in a glass house, one does not throw stones at others," he added.
The Tehran Timesreported Monday that Iran's military has "readied missiles with the capability to strike U.S.-related positions" and that "a significant number of these launch-ready missiles are located in underground facilities scattered across the country, designed to withstand airstrikes."
The U.S., meanwhile, is amassing firepower including B-2 Stealth Bombers at its base on the forcibly depopulated island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for possible use in strikes against Iran.
Trump today: If Iran does not agree to a deal “There will be bombing and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before” Can he go 1 day without threatening a new war? How many would he like? - Greenland - Panama - Gaza - Mexico - Yemen - Somalia - Gaza - Venezuela Is 8 enough?
— Secular Talk (@kylekulinskishow.bsky.social) March 30, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Trump's threat to attack Iran—which hasn't started a war since the mid-19th century—comes despite U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week that "Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003."
U.S. intelligence agencies have repeatedly come to the same conclusion since the George W. Bush administration.
However, Gabbard added that "Iran's enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons."
That's at least partly due to the unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the landmark Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—also known as the Iran nuclear deal—in 2018 during Trump's first administration.
Since Trump abandoned the JCPOA—which was signed in 2015 during the Obama administration by China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—Tehran has been operating advanced centrifuges and rapidly stockpiling enriched uranium.
While there were hopes of a renewed deal during the tenure of former U.S. President Joe Biden, no agreement was reached, and Iranians continue to suffer under economic sanctions that critics have said are killing people and crippling the country's economy.
Earlier this month, Trump sent a letter to Khamenei in which he claims to have said, "I hope you're going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it's going to be a terrible thing."
On Sunday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian left open the possibility of indirect talks but said that the U.S. could not be trusted to keep its word.
"We don't avoid talks; it's the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far," Pezeshkian said during a televised Cabinet meeting. "They must prove that they can build trust."
This isn't the first time that Trump has threatened Iran. In 2020, during his first term, the president vowed to strike 52 sites across Iran "very fast and very hard" if it retaliated for the U.S. assassination of IRGC commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Iraq. Later that year, Trump had another message for Iran: "If you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before."
On the campaign trail last September, Trump told Iranians he would "blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens" if he was reelected and Iran didn't cease what he perceives as threats against the United States.
While the U.S. has never directly attacked Iran, it did help overthrow the country's reformist government in 1953 and supported a repressive monarchy for decades leading up to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The U.S. backed Iraq during that country's eight-year war against Iran, during which then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces used chemical weapons against Iranian troops and his own restive Kurdish population. In 1988, a U.S. warship in Iranian waters accidentally shot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard. Then-President Ronald Reagan blamed the incident on the "barbaric Iranians."
The U.S. has also
supported the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), a State Department-designated terrorist group that had previously assassinated six American officials, and successive U.S. administrations have used international financial institutions to punish Iran, like in 2007 when Bush pressured the World Bank into suspending emergency relief aid after the 2003 Bam earthquake, which killed more than 26,000 Iranians.
"A reminder that various administration officials lied under oath in the Senate yesterday," said one former Democratic congressman, "which is a crime punishable by imprisonment."
In response to U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claiming on live television earlier this week that "nobody was texting war plans," The Atlantic magazine on Wednesday morning published the "war plans" that were, in fact, shared on the private sector messaging app Signal by top members of President Donald Trump's national security team, including Hegseth and national security advisor Mike Waltz.
It was The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg who on Monday published a bombshell report about how he was, seemingly "inadvertently," added to the Signal group chat by Waltz, a conversation that, in addition to Hegseth, also included director of national security Tulsi Gabbard, CIA director John Ratcliffe, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, Vice President JD Vance, and others.
In the new piece published, Goldberg said that public denials by these top officials since the original reporting presented the magazine "with a dilemma" about what to do with information the editorial team had initially withheld, citing national security concerns.
"These are strike plans. There must be a broad investigation of how compromised our national security is because of their shocking incompetence." — Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas)
Though its editorial decision to withhold information was criticized by some journalists who believe the public has a right to know such details—including reporter Ken Klippenstein who accused the magazine of falling prey to "media paternalism" by not initally releasing the full contents of the chat—Goldberg explained The Atlantic's decision this way:
we withheld specific information related to weapons and to the timing of attacks that we found in certain texts. As a general rule, we do not publish information about military operations if that information could possibly jeopardize the lives of U.S. personnel. That is why we chose to characterize the nature of the information being shared, not specific details about the attacks.
However—citing Hegseth's on-air denial Monday, a statement by Trump that nothing in the chat was "classified," as well as testimony before a committee in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday by Gabbard and Ratcliffe, both of whom said under oath that classified information was not shared—Goldberg said the magazine's assessment changed.
"We believe," writes Goldberg in the latest piece, "that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions. There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared."
Given that the nation's highest-level national security officials, up to and including the President of the United States, have said the material is not classified, the magazine acknowledged—and since the attack plans were for an operation already carried out against Houthis targets in Yemen—it would be strange if The Atlantic still felt not at liberty to publish them.
After reaching out to various agencies in advance of its decision to publish, Goldberg reports that the White House still objected to the release of the exchange, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt claiming that even though "there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat," the administration holds that what was said on the unsecured, third-party communication app was "intended to be a an [sic] internal and private deliberation amongst high-level senior staff and sensitive information was discussed."
What follows are screenshots of the detailed war plans discussed on the Signal group chat by Trump's top officials, as reported by The Atlantic:
After this portion, Goldberg notes: "If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests—or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media—the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds. The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic."
More details:
And then these paragraphs:
While The Atlantic's new reporting on Wednesday sits behind a paywall, reaction to it was immediate and widespread.
"Hegseth repeatedly lied to the American people and should be fired—along with all the others in the chat," said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) in response to Goldberg's latest revelations. "These are strike plans. There must be a broad investigation of how compromised our national security is because of their shocking incompetence."
On Wednesday, two Democratic House members—Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs—launched a congressional probe into whether or not war plans were discussed in the group chat and called on every official involved to preserve all related documents and communications.
"This incident raises grave concerns about the misuse of unsecured communication platforms for classified discussions and the potential that American military and intelligence professionals may have been compromised by the reckless dissemination of such classified material,” Connolly and Frost wrote in a letter addressed to all the officials involved.
Given their testimony before the Senate on Tuesday, Ratcliffe and Gabbard may come under specific scrutiny by members of that committee and other lawmakers.
"A reminder that various administration officials lied under oath in the Senate yesterday," said former Democratic congressman Mondaire Jones, "which is a crime punishable by imprisonment."
Reactions included: "Dangerous." "Gross incompetence." "Unfathomable."
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration came under fire Monday after a journalist revealed that he was added to a group on a commercial messaging application in which top officials discussed secret plans for the recent bombing of Yemen.
"I have never seen a breach quite like this," Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, wrote of his experience in the group, which began with a March 11 connection request on the app Signal from "Michael Waltz," the name of Trump's national security adviser. The journalist—who has faced public attacks from the president—figured "someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me."
However, in the days that followed, Goldberg saw messages from accounts with names or initials of top officials—including Vice President JD Vance, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. On March 15, Trump bombed Yemen, citing the Houthis' interference with global shipping over Israel's U.S.-backed assault on the Gaza Strip.
"Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting in The Atlantic calls for a prompt and thorough investigation...There needs to be an oversight hearing and accountability for these actions."
Goldberg published quotes and screenshots from the group but withheld some details due to security risks for U.S. personnel. Noting a March 15 message from the Pentagon chief, he wrote, "What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets."
The journalist also highlighted how—according to lawyers interviewed by his colleague Shane Harris—Waltz "may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act," as well as federal records laws, given that he set some messages to eventually disappear.
After Goldberg formally inquired about the Signal group on Monday, Brian Hughes, the spokesperson for the National Security Council, told him: "This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain... The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security."
Political figures and observers swiftly weighed in and shared the article on social media, with reporters calling it "unfathomable" and "the must-read of the week," and saying that "this story almost seems too wild to be real, but no one involved is disputing it."
CNN's Christiane Amanpour said: "Amateur hour? Is the president, is America, being properly served? Dangerous."
The group VoteVets took aim at the defense secretary—a former Fox News host—saying: "Gross incompetence. The Trump admin accidentally texted a journalist our war plans. This proves what we always knew: Hegseth was never qualified to be SecDef—now his recklessness is putting troops' lives at risk. This is deadly serious."
Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz—who was former Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate—pointed to the Department of Government Efficiency's attacks on the federal bureaucracy, including the Department of Veterans Affairs: "You know where DOGE should take a closer look? Trump's Cabinet. None of the 83,000 caregivers Trump fired from the VA leaked classified information."
Congressman Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) said: "If you read one article today, make it this one. Total incompetence, yet again. And putting our national security at great risk."
U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) declared that "this administration is playing fast and loose with our nation's most classified info, and it makes all Americans less safe."
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said: "Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting in The Atlantic calls for a prompt and thorough investigation. If senior advisers to President Trump in fact used nonsecure, nongovernment systems to discuss and convey detailed war plans, it's a shocking breach of the standards for sharing classified information that could have put American servicemembers at risk. There needs to be an oversight hearing and accountability for these actions."
When asked about the reporting on Monday, Trump—a serial liar—said: "I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. It's, to me, it's a magazine that's going out of business. I think it's not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it."
"You're saying that they had what?" Trump asked the inquiring journalist, who explained that top officials were using Signal to coordinate on sensitive materials related to the U.S. attack targeting the Houthis.
Trump then added: "Well, it couldn't have been very effective, because the attack was very effective, I can tell you that. I don't know anything about it. You're telling me about it for the first time."
Responding to a clip of Trump's remarks, David Badash, founder and editor of The New Civil Rights Movement, said: "1. 100% incompetence if his comms staff did not brief him on this before he got in front of a camera. 2. This is the commander-in-chief admitting that he is unaware of what his top NatSec officials are doing. This is bad."
As Common Dreams has reported, Trump has also faced criticism for the assault on Yemen—which killed more than 50 people, mostly women and children, according to the Yemeni Health Ministry. Critics, including U.S. lawmakers, have long argued that airstrikes on the Middle Eastern country are illegal because Congress has not declared war.