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“Israel Hits Iran with Strikes on Persian New Year as War Jolts Energy Markets,” “In Nearly 90 Truth Social Posts, Trump Narrates the War in Iran,” and “Iran is Defiant Nearly 3 Weeks into the War, Hitting Oil Facilities Around the Gulf,” are a few of the thousands of headlines in our feeds and across the airwaves 20 days into the war with Iran. Yet, rather than enhanced clarity about the reasons for the attacks, the explanations are even murkier. The opaqueness of the rationale was on full display this week when Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Gabbard, whose 2020 Presidential campaign sold t-shirts with the words, “NO WAR WITH IRAN,” tweeted in 2024,

“A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for Dick Cheney and a vote for war, war and more war. A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to end wars, not start them. We are at a historic crossroads. Our God-given rights are under attack.

Now is the time for us to stand together, for love of country, and for Donald Trump to get us back on the path to peace, freedom, and prosperity.”

In a reversal of her past adamant anti-war rhetoric, Gabbard did her level best to back the President by refusing to say that the intelligence community did not believe there was an imminent threat from Iran. In a tense exchange with Senator John Ossoff (D-Georgia), Gabbard stumbled and bumbled her way to non-answer.

Here’s the exchange:

OSSOFF:           So it is the assessment of the intelligence community that Iran’s nuclear program was obliterated by last summer’s airstrikes?

GABBARD         Yes.

OSSOFF:           In the opening statement you submitted to the committee last night also stated quote, ‘there has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability,’ end quote, correct?

GABBARD:       That’s right.

OSSOFF:           And that’s the assessment of the intelligence community?

GABBARD:       Yes.

OSSOFF:           The White House stated March 1^st of this year that this war was launched and was “a military campaign to eliminate the imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime,” end quote. That’s a statement from the White House. Quote, ‘the imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime.’ Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was an imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime?

GABBARD:       The intelligence community assessed that Iran maintained the intention [emphasis added] to rebuild and to continue to grow their enrichment capabilities.

Knowing that none of the 18 intelligence agencies under the direction of the Director of National Intelligence determined that Iran was an imminent threat based on its nuclear capabilities, Gabbard essentially argues, “but they wanted to.”

Gabbard goes on to say that determining whether a threat is imminent is the decision of the President, but Ossoff was having none of it. He reminded Director Gabbard that in her opening testimony she said that the DNI represents the intelligence community’s “assessment of threats.” In other words, the intelligence community determines if there is an imminent threat. The President decides whether to go to war. This President decided to go to war, but not because of an imminent nuclear threat from Iran.