CNN and other media are dishonest about Iran

The narrative spins so fast it's hard to keep up. Plus, New York's choice is no choice at all.

Jun 25, 2025

Join me for an amuse-bouche.

I have to chuckle when Donald Trump flexes his superpower. He got the New York Times to print an unprintable expletive, the F-bomb, in full, in its news section. Do you even comprehend how difficult it is to get NYT editors to allow that? At first, they printed “expletive-laced remarks,” then when the C-SPAN video had gone all over the Internet, they just gave up and quoted his cussing self. And you know what? Trump is right. Blood feuds over religion are a whole different category of “they don’t know what the **** they’re doing.” But indeed, both Israel and Iran are very analytical, rational players in the Middle East. They know exactly what they’re doing, so we have to wonder if Trump knows too. But man, he’s great at making the media dance to his tune, even if it’s marked “explicit.”

Now, on to the main course. Just a week ago, when Israel was bombing the daylights out of Iran, but unable to penetrate the deep-buried sites like Fordo, CNN was questioning Israel’s motives, because, they claimed, Iran had no nuclear weapons program.

The network used leaked U.S. intelligence assessments to make this claim, despite the fact that Israel had been warning for years that Iran was cheating on the JCPOA, fooling inspectors, and marching clearly toward a bomb.

US intelligence assessments had reached a different conclusion – not only was Iran not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, it was also up to three years away from being able to produce and deliver one to a target of its choosing, according to four people familiar with the assessment. [Editor: Bold mine]

If Iran was three years away from a bomb, there was clearly no urgent need to risk hundreds of aircraft and pilots to bomb the nuclear enrichment sites. The story suggests, even implies, that Israel had a different motive than simply avoiding extermination. It hints that Israel used the opportunity of Iran’s period of weakness to press its advantage to “win” this round of a war that lacks any clear end or goal other than punishment of its enemies.

It follows, a week ago, if the narrative is true, that U.S. intelligence believes Iran wasn’t just weeks away from a bomb, which was echoed by DNI Tulsi Gabbard, then the U.S. had no overriding reason to drop 14 bunker-busters on Iran. Iran was not directly threatening the United States, but we did commit a clear act of war against them, and did it unilaterally (not counting Israel’s cooperation in that context). By the way, Gabbard has since changed her tune after being defenestrated from the Situation Room by Trump. She blames a “dishonest media” for quoting her out of context. Meh. She said it, and I believe some in our intelligence community believe it.

But Gabbard is also right, because many in the media are playing this dishonestly.

There’s room to disagree about Iran’s intentions and capabilities. Part of that calculus is how much one believes Israel. If you’re inclined to think Israel lies about everything, commits genocide, and is in general a criminal state, then you probably don’t believe Israel when they say Iran was very close to a bomb.

I enjoyed reading the New York Times debate with David Leonhardt, Bret Stephens and Rosemary Kelanic, to discuss the question “Is Iran Really a Threat to the United States?” It was an honest discussion. Stephens summed up his thoughts nicely:

Look, the Israelis had a very different assessment of the state of Iran’s nuclear program, owing partly, I think, to superior collection methods, which they’ve demonstrated again and again that they have the state of Iran’s nuclear program. Their assessments were that Iran was much closer, that they had been, in fact, working on elements of bomb designs. But I think there’s also a kind of a confusion about the way in which bombs get made and the timetable. It’s not like you pass a finish line, so to speak, like a trinity test in the New Mexico desert.

Well, so to speak, yeah it is like that, because if Iran tests a nuclear weapon, that kind of ends the debate, doesn’t it? Stephens more or less agrees with Israel’s motive of opportunity, but also believes that bombing Iran’s nuclear program was the right move. How close was Iran, really? It’s hard to know, but I do believe that Israel has a definite edge on knowing over U.S. intelligence, because we abandoned Iran decades ago and they developed a highly sophisticated, deep penetration of Iran’s government, military and society over that same period. Iran was close enough that Israel thought it wise to strike now.

Kelanic’s view is a bit more cynical.

But I think that we need to be critical of the claims that Israel made about intelligence. I don’t think we can just take them at face value because Israel has a dog in the fight. They have a political agenda here. They clearly have wanted to bring the United States into war against Iran and to use U.S. firepower to target these sites for a very long time.

If Kelanic is right, then Trump’s big push on both sides to end the short war, after committing U.S. assets against Iran, seems counter to Israel’s intentions.

This was an honest debate, where both sides acknowledged the other where they were clearly right, or agreed, and disagreed without rancor. But CNN has not played honestly, because first they pushed the narrative that Iran was three years away from a bomb, and now, magically, the narrative has changed.

Apparently, the intelligence that the network cited, and Tulsi Gabbard endorsed, was totally wrong, and now, Iran is just months away from putting Fordo back together and proceeding to make its bomb. They base this claim on…U.S. intelligence assessments. CNN isn’t the only media source reporting the latest leak, that apparently shows Fordo isn’t as damaged as the president said on television—he used the word “obliterated.”

The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.

One note here is that the assessment is preliminary, based on satellite data, and not boots on the ground, and is considered “low” confidence because of that. Also, the Senate and House have not received their classified briefings, because both Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are at the NATO meeting.

This leak to me seems very political in nature. For example, we don’t know the rationale behind the aim points used for the bunker-busters. It would seem perfectly reasonable to collapse the entrances and infrastructure supporting the halls containing the centrifuges, without directly collapsing the areas where the radioactive U-235 is stored. We don’t need radiation leaking from the facility, and we don’t want other bad actors to obtain access to bomb-grade materials. We want to “obliterate” Iran’s ability to make more bomb-grade uranium, and prevent them from freely accessing the site or operating it.

Maybe a couple of months is all it would take to clear the rubble, I don’t know. But until Congress is briefed, all we have is political conjecture and speculation. Our military says we completed the mission given to it, and Israel seems satisfied with the results.

But the big dishonesty here is that just a week ago, CNN and others were claiming that there is no threat from Iran, and there’s no nuclear bomb program to obliterate. And now, after we struck, they’re saying that the non-existent program was barely scratched. And they base both these narratives on U.S. intelligence reports, one of which must be wrong, and possibly, both are wrong.

It’s not ridiculous for the White House to say that the intelligence report leaked to the media is “flat-out wrong,” as spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said. That doesn’t mean the observations were invalid. It means it’s dishonest to take a low confidence initial assessment and use it to support a story diametrically opposed to the story last week that was also supported by leaked U.S. intelligence reports.

The new narrative, that Iran’s bomb program was not obliterated, is now beginning to morph into Iran didn’t have a nuclear program, but bombing their enrichment sites will now force them to have one. That’s what Mark Landler, a reporter who covered the White House under President Obama, suggests.

Whether Mr. Trump’s pre-emptive strike will succeed in doing that is hard to predict, so soon after the attack and the fragile cease-fire that has followed. But already it is stirring fears that Iran, and other countries, will draw a very different conclusion than the one the White House intended: that having a bomb is the only protection in a threatening world.

In other words, poor Iran needs a nuke to defend itself from existential threats like Israel and the United States.

I do believe there’s some merit to the argument, first advanced by J. Robert Oppenheimer, that the best solution to nuclear stalemate is for everyone to have the bomb. I don’t think it’s particularly good policy, in fact, it’s sort of nuts. But in reality, eventually this emerges as nation after nation fails the non-proliferation test and nukes spread.

Now it’s just a formality to claim that if Israel possesses nuclear weapons—a claim they have never confirmed or denied—then Israel’s biggest foes should have them, for stability’s sake. This is wrong, and not just because we like Israel more than Iran. The current Iranian regime has vowed, over and over again, to “wipe Israel from the map.” If we are to believe their words and intentions, then having a nuclear weapon would give them the tools to do it. And Israel believes them. The “Twelver” Shiite religious order believes that Israel must face justice, and this has nothing to do with rational geopolitics. It’s eschatology.

Which leads me back to what Trump said so crudely. They know exactly what they’re doing, and the Iranians are bat-guano crazy by any rational standard other than their desire to bring back the Twelfth imam, the Mahdi. If that, in their reading, requires nuking Tel Aviv, they’ll do it. Israel can’t survive a nuclear weapon of any kind detonated over its biggest city. Iran can survive Israel’s nuclear deterrent, so it’s not much of a deterrent.

Whether Iran was weeks, or months, away from having a nuclear bomb is rather a moot point, given that they had the key element—bomb-grade 90% enriched U-235, and the ability to make a lot more from a large stock of 60% enriched U-235. Whatever the U.S. bunker-busters did, they did degrade that capability, likely very significantly.

Going from claiming Iran had no intention to make a bomb, or wasn’t pursuing one, to they had the capability, but we didn’t damage it severely, to “it’s a dangerous world” and bombing Iran proves that they need a nuclear bomb, in just a week’s time, is dishonest and ignores the heart of the issue entirely. We can discuss the issue honestly, even if we disagree.

New Yorkers had a non-choice for mayor.

I don’t care who is the mayor of New York City. I don’t live there. I rarely even visit. It doesn’t affect me in the least. But I will note that a city where the Democratic primary is the entire race doesn’t offer voters much of a choice. It’s kind of like the Republican primary in Georgia’s 12th Congressional District (represented by Marjorie Taylor-Greene); the other party doesn’t even exist.

Let me also note that the winner of the primary, and I suppose the de facto choice to be mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, is not a Democrat. He’s a member of the Democratic Socialist Party. His positions include capping rent increases, creation of more draconian nanny-state agencies like the Social Housing Development Agency, increasing housing density in an already crowded city, making bus fares completely free, subsidizing free universal pre-K, raising the city’s minimum wage to $30/hour, defunding the NYPD in favor of a Department of Community Safety, and throwing $65 million of tax dollars to fund an Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs.

If you live in New York and you’re on board with those things, then by all means, you’ll get them.

The biggest problem is that the alternative to Mamdani was Andrew Cuomo, who is such a hateful character for his mishandling of COVID-19, his corruption, and his smug demeanor that a panderer and socialist can beat him.

Also, Mamdani, as it’s been well covered, is not a fan of Israel. He will administrate a city of five boroughs that is home to the world’s largest population of Jews outside Israel, but supports BDS.

My prediction is that Mamdani, if he becomes mayor, which seems like a foregone conclusion, unless a black swan event happens, will end up embroiled in a lot of violence. Then this guy who wanted to defund the NYPD will turn into a tyrant. But New Yorkers are going to get the guy they were forced to choose.

I’m sorry for them.

CNN and other media are dishonest about Iran

The narrative spins so fast it's hard to keep up. Plus, New York's choice is no choice at all.

New Yorkers had a non-choice for mayor.

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