At 6:01 pm on the evening of May 20th, CNN published a story reporting that, “The US has obtained intelligence suggesting that Israel is preparing to strike Iranian nuclear facilities.” The story, says CNN, came from “multiple us officials familiar with the latest intelligence.” And what was their data source? “Private messaging from senior Israeli officials, …intercepted Israeli communications,” and the Israeli “movement of air munitions and the completion of an [Israeli] air exercise.”
Warns CNN, an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, “could… risk tipping off a broader regional conflict in the Middle East.”
On the other hand, CNN points out that, “Whether and how Israel strikes will likely depend on what it thinks of the US negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program. … the prospect of a Trump-negotiated US-Iran deal that doesn’t remove all of Iran’s uranium makes the chance of a strike more likely.” Plus CNN points out that an Israeli strike on Iran “would be a brazen break with President Donald Trump.”
CNN’s report made waves. It appeared in newspapers as far away as Turkey and Pakistan.
But the fact is that Israel has been preparing for an attack on Iran’s deeply dug underground nuclear facilities for over twenty years. Iran has stockpiled 605.8 pounds of uranium enriched to 60%, enough to make at least five nuclear bombs. Just three nuclear bombs could wipe out all of Israel’s major cities. So preventing more Iranian enrichment of uranium to weapons grade is urgent. It’s a matter of Israel’s very survival.
Remember, Iran has made eradicating Israel one of its top priorities since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Iran even paints its missiles with slogans like “death to Israel” and “wipe Israel off the map.” The same slogans appear on banners during Iranian rallies, at government-sponsored events, on public murals, and even at a yearly Iranian holiday devoted to the destruction of Israel, Quds Day.
Iran has over ten thousand centrifuges enriching uranium day and night. So, every 24 hours of delay increases Israel’s danger.
But the release of the CNN story yesterday raises questions. Why have government officials leaked this information and why now? Why have they revealed to Israel and to the world that we are treating Israel like an enemy, not an ally? Why reveal that we are tapping into the private conversations of Israel’s leaders? Why reveal that we are spying on Israel?
One aim may be to stop an Israeli attack. After all, the Israelis could pull off an attack on their own, without the United States. Israel has fourteen refueling tankers that allowed the Israelis to counter attack Iran in 2024 after Iran attacked Israel with 300 missiles and drones in one night.
But Israel does have a drawback if it attacks on its own. Israel’s biggest bunker busting bombs are only 5,000 pounds. They are only able to reach 100 feet below the surface or to penetrated twenty feet of concrete. America, on the other hand, has 30,000 pound bunker busters that can penetrate 200 feet of soil or sixty feet of concrete. So, it pays to include America.
But as CNN reported, what Israel is forced to do depends on the success of our president’s negotiation with Iran, a success that depends on stopping uranium enrichment in Iran’s two known nuclear enrichment facilities and in whatever other nuclear facilities the Iranians may be hiding. And success requires destroying Iran’s ten thousand uranium-enriching centrifuges.
Are the talks between America and Iran likely to succeed? Judge for yourself. Here’s how the Iranians regard them. Says Iran’s government-owned Press TV, “Iran will never relinquish its nuclear rights,… particularly its right to uranium enrichment.” And the Iranian Parliament declares:
“We, the members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, in response to these delusional and absurd [American] claims, declare that the United States regime is on the path of decline and is in a weak and fragile condition.”
Points out the Iranian parliament, we Americans have alienated a hundred other nations with our tariffs. We have vowed to “annihilate” what the Iranian Parliament calls “the resilient and valiant” Houthis in Yemen then have “disgracefully” turned tail and run. And despite threats that Hamas would be “hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States,” we have only managed to free one American-Israeli hostage. And now we’re calling for a quick peace that would leave Hamas standing.
But there’s more. Declares the Iranian Parliament,
“The only regime in the world that has used nuclear weapons to massacre people in other countries is the United States, a regime that was established through land occupation and the killing and displacement of hundreds of thousands of indigenous people,”
“A regime so deeply gripped by internal crises and repeated external failures is in no position to dictate terms to any nation, especially not to the great and independent nation of Iran. The officials of the US regime are far too insignificant to issue imperatives to the ever-triumphant and dignified Iranian nation.”
References:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/20/politics/intelligence-israel-possible-strike-iran-nuclear-facilities
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/05/21/748375/round-5-iran-u-s–talks
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/05/21/748364/iran-nuclear-rights-parliament
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/irans-supreme-leader-rejects-u-s-criticism-of-nuclear-program
https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-missiles-rouhani-quds-day/28575908.html
https://www.ucs.org/resources/earth-penetrating-weapons
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About the author: Howard Bloom of the Howard Bloom Institute has been called the Einstein, Newton, Darwin, and Freud of the 21st century by Britain’s Channel 4 TV. Bloom’s new book is The Case of the Sexual Cosmos: Everything You Know About Nature is Wrong. Says Harvard’s Ellen Langer of The Case of the Sexual Cosmos, Bloom “argues that we are not savaging the earth as some would have it, but instead are growing the cosmos. A fascinating read.” One of Bloom’s eight previous books–Global Brain—was the subject of a symposium thrown by the Office of the Secretary of Defense including representatives from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom’s work has been published in scientific journals and in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Psychology Today, and the Scientific American. Says Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of Evolution’s End and The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, “I have finished Howard Bloom’s [first two] books, The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain, in that order, and am seriously awed, near overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he has done. I never expected to see, in any form, from any sector, such an accomplishment. I doubt there is a stronger intellect than Bloom’s on the planet.” For more, see http://howardbloom.net or http://howardbloom.institute