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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.
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.
"It is not possible anymore to stop the Iranian nuclear program with conventional means," the hardline Knesset member and former Israeli defense minister said.
A longtime Israeli lawmaker and former defense minister took to the airwaves and social media on Wednesday to suggest his country should do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
"It is not possible anymore to stop the Iranian nuclear program with conventional means," Avigdor Liberman of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party said during a Channel 12 interview. "And we will have to use all the means that are available to us."
"We will have to stop with the deliberate policy of ambiguity, and it needs to be clear what is at stake here," Liberman continued, apparently referring to Israel's refusal to say whether it has nuclear weapons. "What is at stake here is the future of this nation, the future of the state of Israel, and we will not take any risks."
Member of Knesset and former Minister of Defense, Avigdor Liberman, live on Channel 12, openly calls to use nuclear weapon against Iran, in order to prevent it from reaching weaponization of its nuclear program. What a fuckin' psycho. pic.twitter.com/NYGfQ1zqVp
— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) July 4, 2024
When pressed on what he meant by stopping Iran with non-conventional means, Liberman said, "I said it very clearly."
"Right now there is no time to stop the Iranian nuclear program, their weaponization, by using conventional means," he added.
Liberman made similar comments on social media, where his remarks sparked alarm and condemnation. The lawmaker's hardline call comes amid powder keg tensions between Tel Aviv and Tehran, which warned last week that any Israeli invasion of Lebanon—from which Iranian ally Hezbollah is resisting Israel's annihilation of Gaza—would trigger an "obliterating war."
According to the Arms Control Association (ACA), a U.S.-based advocacy group, Iran is a "threshold state," meaning "it has developed the necessary capacities to build nuclear weapons."
However, a February 2024 threat assessment report authored by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence stated that "Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device."
"Since 2020, however, Tehran has stated that it is no longer constrained by any JCPOA limits," the report says, a reference to so-called Iran Nuclear Deal from which the U.S. unilaterally withdrew in 2018 under former President Donald Trump. "Iran has greatly expanded its nuclear program, reduced [International Atomic Energy Agency] monitoring, and undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so."
Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, although Kamal Kharazi, a foreign policy advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
told the Financial Times earlier this week that his country would "have to change our doctrine" if faced with an existential threat.
The ACA and others estimate that Israel has around 90 nuclear warheads and fissile material for approximately 200 more.
Liberman isn't the first Israeli lawmaker to suggest nuclear war against Iran. Far-right Deputy Knesset Speaker Nissim Vaturi—who sparked outrage by saying Israeli forces are "too humane" in Gaza and should "burn" the Palestinian territory—said in April that "in the event of a conflict with Iran, if we do not receive American ammunition, we will have to use everything we have."
A total of 24,735,185 people voted, representing a turnout of around 40%—the lowest turnout in an Iranian election since the 1979 revolution.
Reformist legislator Masoud Pezeshkian and conservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili will face off in a second round of voting after neither candidate secured a majority of the votes in Iran's election Friday.
Surprise elections in Iran were called after conservative President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash on May 19, opening what one expert called a "void in the Islamic Republic's leadership."
"None of the candidates could garner the absolute majority of the votes, therefore, the first and second contenders who got the most votes will be referred to the Guardian Council," Interior Ministry spokesperson Mohsen Eslami announced on Saturday.
"Pezeshkian appears to have done well enough to turn out a core base of support that gives him a plausible path to victory, but he will likely need to secure support from Iranians who opted to stay home yesterday in order to triumph."
Pezeshkian and Jalili will now advance to the runoff election on July 5.
After Friday's voting, Pezeshkian took a slight lead with 10.45 million votes over Jalili's 9.47 million, according to an initial tally reported by The Guardian. Both of them edged out conservative parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf with 3.38 million votes and former Justice Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi with 206,000.
A total of 24,735,185 people voted, representing a turnout of around 40%. That is the lowest turnout in an Iranian election since the 1979 revolution, according to Middle East Eye.
"This demonstrates that a majority of the Iranian public remains disaffected from participation in the Islamic Republic's restricted elections, which are neither free nor fair," the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) wrote in a statement on Saturday. "The Iranian people have suffered manifold outrages from their government and circumstances, including the brutal crackdown on popular protests in 2022 and earlier and the failure of past moderate and reformist figures to deliver lasting change."
"As a result," NIAC continued, "a majority appear to have concluded for now that they would rather stay home than risk legitimizing a government they do not believe in. The inclusion of a reformist on the ticket in Masoud Pezeshkian may have boosted turnout in some quarters, but did little overall to arrest the slide in turnout in the first round."
Reform leader Abbas Akhoundi said: "About 60% of voters did not participate in the elections. Their message was clear. They object to the institutionalized discrimination in the existing governance and do not accept that they are second-class citizens and that a minority impose their will on the majority of Iranian society as first-class citizens."
The outcome on July 5 could depend on whether or not turnout increases.
NIAC observed that Pezeshkian's lead was surprising, given that low-turnout elections usually favor more conservative candidates.
"Typically, reformists have only triumphed when turnout reaches near record highs with a vast majority of public participation," the group wrote. "Pezeshkian appears to have done well enough to turn out a core base of support that gives him a plausible path to victory, but he will likely need to secure support from Iranians who opted to stay home yesterday in order to triumph."
Because power in Iran is ultimately held by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the winner of the presidential election is unlikely to substantially shift policies such as Iran's nuclear program or its support for militant groups in the Middle East, according to Reuters.
However, NIAC said the difference between the two candidates was "about as wide a difference as the Islamic Republic's restricted elections would allow."
Pezeshkian, a former health minister who represents Tabriz in Parliament, advocates for economic and social reform. He expressed regret over the death of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for allegedly wearing her hijab incorrectly—an event that sparked nationwide protests in 2022—and also criticized the Raisi government for lack of transparency during the protests.
"We will respect the hijab law, but there should never be any intrusive or inhumane behavior toward women," Pezeshkian said after voting on Friday.
In foreign policy, he supports direct diplomacy with the U.S. and has expressed interest in renegotiating the 2015 Iran nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Jalili, who represents Khamenei on the Supreme National Security Council, supports even stricter hijab laws, advocates for internet restrictions, and opposes the JCPOA or any negotiations with Western countries.
Because Pezeshkian was the only reformist in the first round of elections, he may struggle in a second round unless turnout increases, as supporters of the other conservative candidates would vote for Jalili, according to The Guardian.
However, a reformist newspaper editor told the Middle East Eye that many people who had sat out the first round of elections may vote in the second round to prevent a win by Jalili. The editor also predicted that many people who voted for Ghalibaf in the first round would back Pezeshkian in the second.
"At least 40% of his supporters, who are moderate and pragmatic conservatives, would vote for Pezeshkian as they fear Jalili's domestic policies and dead-end foreign policy," the editor said.
Ahead of the election, Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft predicted that voters would ultimately decide based on a desire to improve "their increasingly dire economic situation in the medium term."
"They are looking for the candidate who will most likely be able to reduce the price of meat," Parsi wrote.
He did predict the winner could make a difference in Iran-U.S. relations, but only up to a point.
"Expectations for an opening between the U.S. and Iran should be kept low, even if Pezeshkian wins," Parsi concluded. "The problems between the U.S. and Iran are deeper today than they were in 2013, the trust gap is wider, reversing Iran's nuclear advances is going to be more difficult and politically more costly. On top of all that, Iran has more options in today's increasingly multipolar world."