Will Israel attack Iran soon? CBS News reported the possibility Wednesday, just a few short days before the next U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations are set to take place in Oman on Sunday.
America’s diplomats and its top military officer in the Middle East seem to suspect an attack is possible, “with the State Department authorizing the evacuation of some personnel in Iraq and the Pentagon green-lighting the departure of military family members across the Middle East,” the Washington Post reported Wednesday evening.
Central Command’s Gen. Erik Kurilla even postponed congressional testimony set for Thursday, citing new tensions in the Middle East, according to Reuters.
Background: The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a May 31 report it found three locations inside Iran that “were part of an undeclared structured nuclear programme carried out by Iran until the early 2000s and that some activities used undeclared nuclear material.”
Israel’s POV: “Iran has consistently obstructed IAEA’s verification and monitoring, it removed inspectors, and it sanitized and concealed suspected undeclared locations in Iran. These actions undermine the global non-proliferation regime and pose an imminent threat to regional and international security and stability,” the country’s Foreign Ministry said on social media.
Latest: On Thursday, Iran’s atomic-agency chief announced the country would “accelerate its production of near-weapons-grade uranium and would open a previously unrevealed [third] enrichment site in what he said is a secure location,” the Wall Street Journal reports, citing state-run media.
Notable: “Iran currently has two main enrichment sites. One is underground, at Natanz, and another is built deep into a mountainside, near the holy city of Qom, at Fordow,” the Journal’s Lawrence Norman writes. “Iran kept the construction of Fordow secret for years before it was revealed by Western officials in 2009. Both are built in a way to protect them from strikes by Israel or the U.S.”
Iran’s POV: If “a conflict is imposed on us,” Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said Wednesday that Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “will target all U.S. bases in the host countries.”
Rewind: “Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel last year [October 1] after Israeli forces bombed Tehran’s consulate in Damascus,” Reuters reminds readers. “Israel replied with missile strikes in Iran and Syria—the first such direct attacks between the region’s most entrenched enemies.”
From the region:
- “Senate OKs arms sales to Qatar and UAE despite deals that benefit Trump,” Politico reported Wednesday from Capitol Hill;
- “Oil prices fall as traders watch Israel-Iran conflict,” CNBC reported Thursday;
- “Israel Is Putting More Women on the Front Line to Help Fix Its Manpower Problem,” the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday;
- “Israeli strikes kill at least 42 across Gaza as UN eyes ceasefire vote,” al-Jazeera reported Thursday;
- “Trump tells Netanyahu to end Gaza war and stop Iran threats, source says, as US ramps up pressure on Israel,” CNN reported Wednesday;
- “Israel’s Least Bad Option Is a Trump Deal With Iran,” Arash Azizi argues in The Atlantic;
- “Islamic State reactivating fighters, eying comeback in Syria and Iraq,” Reuters reported Thursday from Damascus.
Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1987, President Ronald Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.
Around the Defense Department
Developing: 700 or so Marines are expected on the streets of Los Angeles beginning today and into Friday, the U.S. military’s Northern Command announced Wednesday as the Trump administration continues plans to accelerate its masked immigration raids across the country.
“We are expecting a ramp-up,” said Army Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, commander of the troops sent to protect immigration officials from protestors. “I’m focused right here in LA, what’s going on right here. But you know, I think we’re, we’re very concerned.”
Notable: “There are now more U.S. troops deployed to Los Angeles than serving in Syria and Iraq, a fact the chief Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell, promoted on social media on Wednesday,” the New York Times reports in an analysis piece assessing the likelihood of an expanded troop presence on U.S. streets in the coming weeks.
Trump told troops Wednesday that LA is being “invaded by a foreign nation.” But his top military officer disagreed in remarks to senate appropriators Wednesday. “At this point in time, I don’t see any foreign, state-sponsored folks invading,” Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said. He also disagreed with Trump’s view of Vladimir Putin’s ambitions in Europe. The Washington Post has more.
California’s view: “There is no invasion or rebellion in Los Angeles; there is civil unrest that is no different from episodes that regularly occur in communities throughout the country, and that is capable of being contained by state and local authorities working together,” the state’s attorney general writes in a legal brief that goes before a judge today in San Francisco.
Update: Fort Bragg’s 82nd Airborne Division “handpicked” soldiers “based on political leanings and physical appearance” for Trump’s speech at the Army base Tuesday, Military-dot-com reported Wednesday, following up a claim previously reported by Jane Coaston.
Notes included, “No fat soldiers,” and “If soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don’t want to be in the audience then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out.”
Reax: “This has been a bad week for the Army for anyone who cares about us being a neutral institution,” one commander on Bragg told Military.com. The alleged controversies don’t end there; read on, here. DOD reax: “This is a complete & total fabrication. It absolutely did not happen. Fake news never stops,” said combative public affairs assistant Sean Parnell on social media.
Commentary: “The military must remain nonpartisan. America depends on it,” Heidi Urben, a retired Army colonel-turned-Georgetown University professor, wrote Wednesday for Defense One.
Budget testimony
USAF slashes F-35 buy, boosts next-gen fighter in unconventional 2026 budget proposal. The Pentagon is proposing to halve its planned F-35 buy and boost funding for the sixth-gen F-47 fighter jet—but many of its 2026 budget-proposal details hinge on the reconciliation legislation still being debated on Capitol Hill. The budget proposal was quietly delivered to Congress on Tuesday—an unorthodox rollout without the typical public release and background briefings for press.
Even more unconventional: documents sent to Capitol Hill include not just the usual defense appropriations, but also money they are seeking in the reconciliation package.
And another oddity: the proposal arrived one day after the House Appropriations Committee, frustrated by the Trump administration’s tardiness, moved ahead with its own draft of the 2026 defense budget.
For the Air Force, total procurement in 2026 would reach $54.2 billion, plus another $9.7 billion in the reconciliation bill. The baseline request is down for the 2025 enacted budget, which allocated $55.8 billion for service procurement. Defense One’s Audrey Decker has more details, here.
SecDef Hegseth’s week on Capitol Hill continues with testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning.
Yesterday, lawmakers ripped into the defense secretary over the flat Pentagon budget. At a Senate appropriations defense subcommittee hearing, Hegseth described a $961.6 billion defense-spending proposal for next year, but that number includes more than $100 billion in the reconciliation bill, an infusion the Pentagon is counting on to cover investments in shipbuilding and missile defense.
“Reconciliation, Mr. Secretary, was meant to provide one-time supplemental funds to augment the defense budget, not to supplant the investments that should be in the base budget,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. The $831.5 billion proposed for the discretionary Defense Department budget is the same amount authorized for the current fiscal year, and therefore a slight decline in real terms. Defense One’s Meghann Myers reports, here.
Extra reading: “McConnell Tells Hegseth America’s Reputation Is at Stake in Ukraine War,” the New York Times reported Wednesday from Hegseth’s hearings. “Will we defend democratic allies against authoritarian aggressors?” Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former Senate majority leader who leads the Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee, asked the SecDef.
AUKUS review
Pentagon may push to scrap AUKUS. Defense Undersecretary for Policy Elbridge Colby is reportedly leading a policy review to determine whether the U.S. should withdraw from the 2021 technology-sharing pact between Australia, the UK, and the United States. Colby has long expressed skepticism about the deal, whose centerpiece is Australia’s planned acquisition of three to five Virginia-class nuclear submarines, then a new SSN-AUKUS class built with Britain.
Financial Times: “Ending the submarine and advanced technology development agreement would destroy a pillar of security co-operation between the allies. The review has triggered anxiety in London and Canberra.”
Lastly today: DHS wants Americans to report on their neighbors. A June 11 social media post evokes WWII and the migrants-as-“invaders” theme.
Another DHS post from June 11 takes aim at “liberals,” reposting a meme that says they are “driven by the consumption of fiction.”
Additional reading:
Read the full article here