https://www.newsweek.com/trump-administration-iran-israel-reports-1428048
As The New York Times previously reported Thursday and confirmed by Newsweek, the Trump administration’s recent escalation was rooted in intelligence suggesting Iran was arming its fast attack fleet with missiles, an apparent sign of potential attacks to come in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the world’s top oil traffic chokepoint. Newsweek has further learned from one Pentagon official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, that this evidence was based on satellite imagery provided to U.S. officials by Israel, an avowed foe of the Islamic Republic.
Much of the information regarding alleged Iranian threats has also been streamed from the National Security Council (NSC), whose hawkish chief—John Bolton—has similarly hyped up the threat posed by Tehran for years. A second source, a U.S. military official who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, cautioned that the council’s warnings of heightened threats posed by Iran-aligned Iraqi militias such as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) did not appear to match the Pentagon’s own observations.
“The threat stream I’ve seen doesn’t line up with what the NSC is leaking, let me put it that way,” the second official told Newsweek. “The PMF is no more or less a threat than before all this bullshit began.”
With Bolton leading the charge against Iran at home and Israel feeding information from abroad, concerns have been raised that the U.S. was once again on its way to war against a Middle Eastern adversary based on a questionable pretext, as it did in 2003 against Iraq.
“Be on the lookout for Iraq 2.0 justifications. I’m not even kidding,” the second official told Newsweek. “Think about the intel indicators prior to the Iraq invasion. Compare. Then get really uneasy.”
