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When the Iran Threat Vanished Overnight
American Thinker ^ | 04/06/2026 | Brian C. Joondeph

Posted on 04/06/2026 10:23:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Not long ago, Iran was described as an imminent threat.

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Now we are told it wasn’t a threat at all.

What changed?

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Not the facts. The politics.

That shift is playing out in real time as the narrative around the Iran war evolves. A recent Rasmussen Reports poll found that a majority of likely U.S. voters believe the conflict has been successful so far. Under normal circumstances, that would invite a sober reassessment.

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Instead, it has produced something closer to denial.

Iran nuclear weapons graphic

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Image created by ChatGPT

 

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From the beginning, critics warned that confronting Iran would spark chaos across the Middle East, destabilize global markets, and drag the United States into another endless quagmire. Many insisted there was no urgent threat requiring action. Some in the intelligence community and Democratic leadership echoed that view once operations were underway.

But that position sits uneasily alongside years of prior statements.

For decades, Iran has been described in stark and consistent terms by policymakers in both parties. The world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. A regime intent on expanding its regional influence through proxies and militias. A government steadily advancing toward nuclear capability.

A recent X montage captures a former Secretary of State, White House Press Secretary, FBI Director, and Secretary of Defense all describing Iran as an imminent threat.

Those warnings were not subtle.

As one lawmaker cautioned, “If Iran chose to get a nuclear weapon, it could get one within weeks.”

That is not the language of ambiguity. It is the language of urgency.

So which is it?

Either Iran represented a serious and accelerating threat — or it didn’t. Both cannot be true at the same time, depending on political convenience.


(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Iran; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: americansphincter; briancjoondeph; iran; smellsliketds; tdsmeter

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What we are witnessing now is not a reassessment of intelligence. It is a reframing of outcomes.

Success, it seems, is the problem.

Rather than evaluating whether Iran’s capabilities have been degraded or its behavior constrained, critics have shifted the terms of the debate. The conversation now revolves around process, timing, and the precise definition of “imminent.” Was an attack hours away? Days away? Explicitly planned? 

Once missiles are in flight, debates over “imminence” become moot.

These are useful questions — if the goal is to avoid answering the larger one.

Because threats in the modern world do not arrive with a countdown clock.

They emerge from the intersection of capability and intent.

And by that standard, recent events speak for themselves.

1 posted on 04/06/2026 10:23:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

2 posted on 04/06/2026 10:29:43 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: SeekAndFind

The media cannot allow Trump any kind of successes, whether with the economy or foreign policy (certainly the Iranian arena). They did the same sorts of things with Reagan and his efforts to end and win the Cold War and bring economic successes.


3 posted on 04/06/2026 10:30:12 AM PDT by OttawaFreeper ("The Gardens was founded by men-sportsmen-who fought for their country" Conn Smythe, 1966 )
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To: SeekAndFind

“imminent”

The time to have stopped Hitler wasn’t August 30th, 1939.

The time that matters is when the kicking the can down the road can no longer be tolerated.


4 posted on 04/06/2026 10:30:48 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: SeekAndFind

5 posted on 04/06/2026 10:32:20 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: Brian Griffin

The time to have stopped Hitler wasn’t August 30th, 1939.


It was 1936, when he marched into The Rhineland. He gave orders to retreat if the French fired on them.


6 posted on 04/06/2026 10:32:58 AM PDT by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: SeekAndFind

7 posted on 04/06/2026 10:35:32 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I posted soon after most of the centrifuges were knocked out that Iran almost certainly had enough enriched uranium and remaining centrifuges to build about six bombs.

The actual number buildable would probably vary on how carefully further enrichment would get done and bomb design.

The facts don’t vary based on Trump’s mood and beliefs.

It takes a man prone to optimism to mentally survive in NYC’s dog-eat-dog business world.

My father thought New York State was no longer a good place to do large scale business by the late 1970s.


8 posted on 04/06/2026 10:40:54 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: SeekAndFind

“Now we are told it wasn’t a threat at all.”

Gotta love the passive voice here. Makes it easy to allege something, without providing any evidence.


9 posted on 04/06/2026 10:42:53 AM PDT by Theo (FReeping since 1997 ... drain the swamp.)
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To: BenLurkin

1.7 billion is nothing compared to the trillions in oil they sell. Even though obunghole is a traitor for returning their seized funds. It should have went to survivors of the IRGC’s terrorism.


10 posted on 04/06/2026 10:45:30 AM PDT by US_MilitaryRules (#PureBlood )
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To: SeekAndFind

This will always be a problem. If you act before a threat is fully mature, people will always question if it was necessary and you’ll be blamed for the messiness and chaos that follows. But if you wait until the threat has fully manifested, you have waited too long and in the confrontation that follows you may lose.


11 posted on 04/06/2026 10:49:51 AM PDT by marron
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To: SeekAndFind

In the current conflict we are learning the costs and consequences of confronting Iran. We do not know and can only estimate the costs and consequence of not acting. This is a war we’ve seen coming for decades and have dreaded because we knew it would be difficult and the outcome uncertain. But there hasn’t been until now a better time to bring down the IRGC.

Trump is the only president we’ve had with the nerve to confront them. If he is successful, they’ll be building statues to him in three countries at least. If he fails he’ll be blamed and no doubt hounded into prison by the Democrat regime that follows. Not many men have the nerve to risk it all the way he has done.


12 posted on 04/06/2026 11:01:53 AM PDT by marron
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To: Theo

“Gotta love the passive voice here. Makes it easy to allege something, without providing any evidence.”

Theo thinks Iran wasn’t a threat. Theo is a retard.


13 posted on 04/06/2026 11:04:58 AM PDT by wildcard_redneck ( Neocons in love with the Ukraine War hate how long the Iran War is taking..........)
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To: marron

Winning is always an option on the table if you’re willing to kill them all. I for one, I’m willing to kill them all.


14 posted on 04/06/2026 11:06:07 AM PDT by wildcard_redneck ( Neocons in love with the Ukraine War hate how long the Iran War is taking..........)
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To: wildcard_redneck

So, I think, is Trump. I think the trigger was when the regime slaughtered the protesters. He had told them he would have their back. And he told the ayatollahs that if they hanged the 800 prisoners they were threatening to hang, that he was coming for them. When they proceeded to kill instead tens of thousands, he acted like he was still interested in negotiating, but started assembling his huge fleet. Once the ships were all in place he proceeded to wipe them all out. And then wipe out their replacements. I don’t think he’s going to quit until he breaks their backs.


15 posted on 04/06/2026 11:24:53 AM PDT by marron
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To: wildcard_redneck

Holy cow, you totally misunderstood my point.

I was criticizing the author of this piece for alleging that Iran was not a threat.


16 posted on 04/06/2026 11:27:02 AM PDT by Theo (FReeping since 1997 ... drain the swamp.)
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To: SeekAndFind

The fact that Hormuz is closed to everyone proves it was a threat.


17 posted on 04/06/2026 11:28:23 AM PDT by AppyPappy (They don't call you a Nazi because they think you are one. They do it to justify violence. )
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To: Theo

My apologies. The are quite a few Bush-loving, GOPe, leftist trash posting right now and I am getting enraged by them.


18 posted on 04/06/2026 11:29:13 AM PDT by wildcard_redneck ( Neocons in love with the Ukraine War hate how long the Iran War is taking..........)
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To: marron

I have to assume that the other Persian Gulf countries knew the risks of war outweighed the risks of allowing Iran to continue down the path they were on.

I believe if they had been against this war they would now be screaming bloody murder in the media.


19 posted on 04/06/2026 11:31:09 AM PDT by jimtorr
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To: wildcard_redneck

“Theo thinks Iran wasn’t a threat. Theo is a retard.”

Iran was no threat to the US and was only a threat to Israel’s regional hegemony. We killed off the only Mullah who was a moderate and who had has issued a religious fatwa against building a nuke leaving only hardliners who might very well decide nukes are now necessary after being attacked. If Iran acquired nukes it would have just resulted in a nuclear standoff since neither country would survive a nuclear war. Now it looks like a worldwide depression will be forthcoming. It is the stupidest thing Trump could have done. A lot of the posters on this forum are totally clueless. The result of this war will catastrophic to America and even worse for Europe just wait and see.


20 posted on 04/06/2026 12:53:09 PM PDT by jimwatx
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