Just Get Out! Now!
As is becoming clearer from President Trump’s own statements and those of his staff, along with press reporting, the US has launched a major war without the input of the experts we pay to advise the President on such matters. The State Department, Pentagon, National Security Council Staff, Defense Intelligence Agency, and NSA were simply bypassed because, as White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said, President Trump “had a feeling” Iran would attack.
The President’s real estate developer son-in-law and friend reinforced that “feeling” when they returned from the second round of talks with the Iranian foreign minister and his team. However, as the news outlet Responsible Statecraft (RS) reported over the weekend, both son-in-law Jared Kushner and friend Steve Witkoff appear to have mis-represented those talks in a way that helped push President Trump toward war. No State Department officials were on hand to ensure the reporting was accurate.
Also, arms control experts at home, according to the RS report, believe that “the duo appeared to have fatally misunderstood a series of basic technical and historical matters” regarding Iran’s nuclear program leading to inaccurate information conveyed to the President.
As is becoming clearer from President Trump’s own statements and those of his staff, along with press reporting, the US has launched a major war without the input of the experts we pay to advise the President on such matters. The State Department, Pentagon, National Security Council Staff...
ronpaulinstitute.org
Iran was nowhere close to a nuclear bomb, experts say
Confusion on whether Iran truly needed only “two weeks to four weeks” to make a nuclear weapon, as President Donald Trump suggested on Monday, hangs over the ongoing U.S. and Israeli war on the Persian Gulf nation. Nuclear experts call this claim unlikely—but the confusion may stem from some basics of atomic chemistry.
“There was no evidence that Iran was close to a nuclear weapon,” says Jeffrey Lewis of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. His comment echoed those of other experts after the war’s start, as well as statements from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi at that time and in 2025 and last year’s “threat assessment” report by U.S. intelligence agencies.
According to an IAEA estimate, as of June 2025, Iran possessed 441 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium, where the percentage refers to the share of the isotope uranium 235 (U 235) found in the material. That would be enough for 10 nuclear weapons if the material could be enriched further to full 90 percent weapons-grade concentrations, according to the IAEA. That further enrichment would take a matter of weeks in a fully functioning Iranian nuclear complex, perhaps explaining the time line within Trump’s declaration.
That step alone doesn’t equal a bomb, however. And Iran’s main enrichment capabilities were “completely and totally obliterated,” according to Trump himself in June, after the U.S. bombed three underground Iranian facilities. The administration’s special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff nonetheless claimed on March 3, after the start of the current war, that Iran had the capability to make 11 nuclear bombs. Trump administration officials reportedly failed to include nuclear technical experts in their negotiation teams with Iran prior to the war, adding to the uncertainty. If Iran really had rebuilt these facilities, that might have led—over months and not weeks—to the nation resuming its uranium enrichment, Lewis says. “But this is all ‘if,’ ‘maybe’ and ‘later,’” he adds.
Although President Trump has claimed Iran was weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon, much more work was needed for the country to do so
www.scientificamerican.com
Never send a boy to do a man's job. In the sense of engaging in complex negotiations about Iran's uranium enrichment program, Steve and Jared were infants.
Nuclear experts undercut White House claims about Iran reactor at heart of case for war
The Trump administration sent negotiators without nuclear expertise to lead talks on Iran’s enrichment program. Now, its public case for war centers on a facility that experts say cannot do what officials claim.
The Trump administration sent negotiators without nuclear expertise to lead talks on Iran’s enrichment program. Now, its public case for war centers on a facility that experts say cannot do what officials claim.
www.ms.now
If Steve Witkoff is one of Don's good golfing buddies and Jared is a swell husband to Ivanka that's all fine and dandy. But friendship and familial relations aren't the necessary qualifications needed to negotiate on important, technical matters with war in the balance. The question I would want answered if I were the parents of one of the dead US soldiers is why were Witkoff and Kushner even in the room while negotiations were being held? Negotiations that nonetheless produced a positive result.
Iran agreed to ‘zero stockpiling’ of nuclear material in US talks: Omani foreign minister
Oman’s foreign minister said Friday that Iran is offering to give up stockpiling enriched uranium as part of a deal with the U.S. related to its nuclear program.
Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi is serving as the mediator between U.S. and Iranian officials in Geneva.
“Now we are talking about zero stockpiling and that is very, very important because if you cannot stockpile material that is enriched, then there is no way you can actually create a bomb,” al-Busaidi told Margaret Brennan of CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
But that offer wasn't good enough for Bebe. I would argue he preferred war to a negotiated agreement on the enrichment program. So he convinced trump to come along for the ride.
