Israel launched its war with Iran last week with what it called a “preemptive strike.”

Iran — according to the Israeli government — was dangerously close to producing a nuclear weapon, and Israel needed to carry out a series of assassinations of military leadership, bombings in residential neighborhoods, and attacks on nuclear production sites to stop them.

The U.S. has been providing direct military support in the days since, using its defensive weapons systems to shoot down ballistic missiles that Iran launched in retaliation for Israel’s surprise attack.

Israel wants more. Only the U.S. is in possession of the 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs that Israel says can punch through and destroy Iran’s underground nuclear enrichment facility in Fordow. Israel is calling on the U.S. to join the war and launch a series of attacks end Iran’s nuclear threat.

But according to the U.S. intelligence community, that threat is not real.

“We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that [Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so,” reads the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, the intelligence community’s official evaluation of threats to U.S. citizens, “the Homeland,” and U.S. interests which was published in March.

On Saturday, Susan Miller, the former CIA station chief in Israel who retired from the agency in 2024, told SpyTalk that current officials maintained that assessment.

Iran has repeatedly said it does not intend to build a nuclear weapon but insists on being allowed to develop nuclear power for the country’s needs. Israel is estimated to possess 90 nuclear warheads and may have the ability to launch attacks with them by land, sea,........

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