WASHINGTON, D.C. – As the U.S. and Israeli militaries escalate their attacks on Iran, President Donald Trump’s administration has alternated the legitimacy of the war between deterring immediate attacks and countering Iran’s long-term nuclear existential threat.
This was on full display Monday, when President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth appeared to argue that the culmination of Iran’s regional policy over the 47 years since the Islamic Revolution and the future of the country’s ballistic and nuclear programs pose an immediate threat to the United States.
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Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed that Israel, a close US ally, was planning an attack on Iran. In that case, the administration said it expected Iran to attack U.S. assets, thus justifying launching a pre-emptive strike.
So far, the administration has provided little hard evidence to back up its claims, according to supporters, analysts and Democratic lawmakers who attended a recent classified briefing.
“The reality is they’ve shown very little evidence and that’s a big problem,” Emma Belcher, president of the denuclearization group Plowshares, told Al Jazeera.
“There’s one. They don’t think they need to (claim) about the war. They can’t necessarily be held responsible for the war,” Belcher said. “But it’s also possible that the evidence doesn’t exist and they want to avoid extra scrutiny.”
Republicans are largely united around the administration’s message, even as Democrats have vowed to force a vote on the war powers bill to assert the president’s constitutional authority for military action.
Still, the administration remains in a precarious political position as President Trump’s Republican Party looks ahead to November’s midterm elections. Early polls show that Trump has little overt support from the American public, despite a lukewarm reaction among his Make America Great Again (MAGA) base.
But as each day passes and more U.S. service members are killed, it becomes more likely that President Trump will face a contradiction to his past anti-interventionist pledges.
“The longer this goes on, the greater the cost in human life…The lack of evidence becomes an albatross around the regime’s neck, and it will be held accountable in November,” said Benjamin Rudd, a senior fellow at UCLA’s Burkle Center for International Affairs.
kaleidoscope of claims
Speaking at the White House on Monday, President Trump praised the U.S. strike last June for “annihilating Iran’s nuclear program.” But shortly thereafter, he argued that efforts to rebuild Iran’s ballistic missile program, coupled with its program, were a threat to the United States.
“The Iranian regime, armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons, would pose an intolerable threat not only to the Middle East but also to the American people,” President Trump said. “Our country itself would be under threat, and we were on the verge of being under threat.”
President Trump also said that if it weren’t for the U.S. and Israeli attacks, Iran “would have missiles that could reach our beautiful United States in no time.”
Darryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Arms Control Association (ACA), said claims that Iran poses an immediate or medium-term threat with respect to its ballistic or nuclear capabilities are not supported by available evidence.
This is important because such an “imminent threat” is required by the president to justify an attack on a foreign country under both U.S. domestic law and international law, short of Congressional authorization.
“Prior to this attack, Iran did not have the ability to rapidly enrich high-grade uranium to bomb grade and convert it into bomb-making metal,” Kimball told Al Jazeera.
“At the earliest, which could have taken many months to materialize, Iran cannot obtain 60 percent highly enriched uranium. Its conversion facilities are damaged and are not in use. Its main uranium enrichment facility was severely damaged in the 2025 U.S. attack.”
He said that although Iran has “substantial conventional short- and intermediate-range ballistic missile capabilities,” it imposes a 2,000 km (1,200 mile) limit on the range of its ballistic missiles and is far from possessing an intercontinental ballistic missile capability.
“The latest (US intelligence) assessment is that if a decision is made, Iran could have intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability by 2035,” he said, referring to intercontinental ballistic missiles with a range of at least 5,000 kilometers (3,400 miles). “Therefore, Iran is far from an imminent ICBM threat.”
Democrats insist they will not provide new information
Secretary of State Rubio said Monday that “there was definitely an imminent threat” from Iran.
“We knew there would be action on the part of Israel,” he said. “We knew it would provoke an attack on U.S. forces. We also knew there would be more casualties if we didn’t pre-emptively pursue before U.S. forces launched an attack.”
But Democratic leaders briefed on classified information in recent days said no evidence had been provided to justify the attack.
Sen. Tim Kaine, who serves on both the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, told CNN on Saturday, “I sit on two committees that have access to a lot of classified information. There was no immediate threat from Iran to the United States that would send our sons and daughters into another war in the Middle East.”
Last week, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, who was briefed on classified information related to Iran as part of the Group of Eight, a group of leading members of both parties in Congress, told the network: “We have not found any information that Iran is attempting to launch any sort of pre-emptive strike against the United States.”
Sources who spoke to both Reuters and The Associated Press after a closed-door conference with Congressional staff on Sunday said the administration had shown no evidence that Iran was planning a first strike and was instead focused on the more general threat that Iran and its allies pose to U.S. forces and assets in the region.
President Trump aims for quick success
Overall, the Trump administration appears to be arguing that “Iran has been a national security threat to the United States since 1979…Iran is responsible for more American lives killed than any other state or non-state actor, and Iran has never been held accountable,” said Rudd of the Burkle Center.
Therefore, President Trump appears to be taking the position that given Iran’s overall actions, including during recent indirect nuclear negotiations, the United States “has no choice but to recognize Iran as an imminent threat.”
Oman’s foreign minister, who brokered the talks, rejected the regime’s characterization, insisting that “significant progress” had been made before the U.S. and Israeli attacks.
Rudd noted that under the War Powers Act of 1973, the U.S. president has 60 to 90 days to withdraw troops deployed without Congressional approval. So President Trump seems to be saying, “If we can get this operation up and running within 60 to 90 days, we don’t have to prove it to Congress.”
Meanwhile, Plowshare’s Belcher said the administration’s own actions led to the current situation with Iran.
He noted that President Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, the United States imposed maximum sanctions on Iran, and Iran began enriching uranium beyond the levels set out in the agreement. President Trump also launched an attack on Iran last year, derailing nuclear negotiations.
“We’re in this situation precisely because President Trump abandoned the deal his predecessor put together,” Belcher said. “He gave up on diplomacy.”
An “America First” war?
In Monday’s speech, Hegseth in particular appeared to try to frame the war within President Trump’s political worldview, promising to “end this on America-first terms.”
He compared the attack on Iran to the US invasion of Iraq, describing it as a “clear, destructive and decisive mission.”
“Destroy the missile threat, destroy the navy. No nuclear weapons,” he said.
He also sought to distinguish between “so-called regime change wars” and U.S. attacks that happen to result in regime change. As of Monday, U.S. airstrikes had killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and several senior government officials, but the ruling government remained intact.
Hegseth said the United States is attacking with “full powers, no stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercises, no politically correct wars, all on our terms.”
It remains to be seen how this message will resonate with the American public.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sunday suggested dire support for President Trump’s attack, but also showed that most Americans are unsure about the conflict.
That could create opportunities for those who challenge President Trump’s actions and his justifications for them.
“It seems like the story is still in its infancy,” Belcher said.
