An new U.S. intelligence assessment is claiming that Iran is now “undertaking activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so,” according to an Aug. 9 exclusive in the Wall Street Journal. While the Journal is not known for its journalistic honesty, the U.S. intelligence community is even worse, so the report should be taken for what it’s worth, given the current efforts by some to instigate an all-out war with Iran, using Israel’s actions as the trigger.
The new analysis, delivered as a report to Congress in July by the Director of National Intelligence, is a change from the previous assessment that has found Iran “isn’t currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.” While they are still saying that Iran is not working to develop a nuclear bomb, they are saying that Iran is conducting research and production that puts them in a better position to do so. They point to science and engineering research that could “shrink the knowledge gap.” The assessment also notes “there has been a notable increase this year in Iranian public statements about nuclear weapons, suggesting the topic is becoming less taboo.”
This report likely was connected in some way to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s comment last month that it would probably take Iran “one or two weeks” to produce enough weapons-grade enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.
In the same vein, Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center on Aug. 9 published a “threat intelligence” report, according to Newsweek, which claimed Iran has recently scaled up its efforts to “influence” the U.S. presidential elections. The report blamed all the usual bad actors, stating “foreign malign influence concerning the 2024 U.S. election started off slowly but has steadily picked up pace over the last six months due initially to Russian operations, but more recently from Iranian activity.”
There has been a recent “emergence of significant influence activity by Iranian actors” the report claimed.
