Israel and Iran

Mediate -    President Donald Trump appeared to offer confirmation that the United States is now participating in Israel’s attack on Iran in a Tuesday social media post.

Amid escalating tensions and the exchange of bombings after Israel attacked Iranian nuclear facilities last week, Trump has faced questions about the extent of U.S. involvement in the conflict. In a new post on Truth Social using the term “We,” Trump wrote: “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured “stuff.”  Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.”

Politico White House reporter Jake Traylor confirmed with a White House official that “we” in Trump’s post is indeed referring to the United States.

Time -   Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Wednesday in a post on X that his country does not fear President Donald Trump’s threats and “absurd rhetoric.” In a separate television address, he vowed that Iran “will not surrender” and said any U.S. military intervention in the conflict would bring “irreparable damage.” Trump is weighing whether to strike Iran, and the Pentagon has built up U.S. military forces in the Middle East in recent days. On social media Tuesday, Trump demanded “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” from Tehran without detailing what that would mean, and he described the supreme leader as an “easy target.” Israel and Iran continued to trade fire on Wednesday, the sixth day of the direct conflict.

NPR -    Iran has several nuclear facilities underground, specifically south of Tehran in Natanz and Fordo, the latter of which is built deep inside a mountain. That poses a serious challenge for Israel's air-to-ground capability.

The facilities – and the centrifuges they contain – can be used to enrich uranium to a purity that could be used either in a nuclear reactor to generate electricity or to build an atomic weapon, experts say.

Speaking to the BBC on Monday, the International Atomic Energy Agency's Director, General Rafael Grossi, said it was likely that all of the 15,000 centrifuges at Natanz, Iran's largest such facility, had been severely damaged by Israeli airstrikes. He said there was "very limited, if any, damage" visible at the underground Fordo enrichment plant.

Fordo, "is deeply buried," says Daniel Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, a non-partisan think thank in Washington, D.C. "[Only] the United States has the kind of bunker busting capabilities that can actually destroy that facility. But I don't rule out that Israel has some surprises up its sleeve."

NBC- Iranian opponents of the regime have mixed reactions to the Israeli strikes. Given the country's bitter experience with foreign meddling, distrust of outside powers is pervasive. Several days into the conflict, "we still see no sign of a popular uprising against the government," one expert said. Another noted, "Iranians are very well understood to resent their government... but they are also fiercely nationalistic."

While a popular uprising is unlikely, "it is possible that Iran witnesses an elite coup," an associate fellow at the London think tank Chatham House said. The Israeli assault has exposed widespread vulnerabilities in Iran's security and military establishment, which could fuel power struggles and possible defections. A coup from within the regime might produce an even more authoritarian result, experts said.

Israel said it struck uranium enrichment sites in Iran early Wednesday, and Iran plunged into a near-total internet blackout the day before. Follow our live blog for updates.

Iranians are desperate to flee Tehran amid Israeli bombardments, but with roads and highways jammed, some are unsure if they’ll be able to make it out.

An emerging coalition that includes some of Trump's most fervent supporters and progressive Democrats is raising alarm about the possibility of the U.S. taking an active role in the conflict.

The Guardian - Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, delivered a concise verdict during congressional testimony this March: the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and supreme leader Khomeini [sic] has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003”.

As he rushed back to Washington on Tuesday morning, Donald Trump swatted aside the assessment from the official that he handpicked to deliver him information from 18 US intelligence agencies. “I don’t care what she said,” said Trump. “I think they were very close to having one.”

Trump’s assessment aligned him with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who has warned that Iran’s “imminent” plans to produce nuclear weapons required a pre-emptive strike from Israel – and, he hopes, from the United States – in order to shut down the Iranian uranium enrichment program for good.

It also isolates Trump’s spy chief, whom he nominated specifically because of her skepticism for past US interventions in the Middle East and of the broader intelligence community, which he has described as a “deep state”.