James Acton | The New York Times
In deciding whether to conduct an attack, Mr. Trump should judge the efficacy of any military action by the same standards against which he previously assessed diplomacy… Neither can guarantee that Iran will never obtain the bomb. But even at this late stage, Iran has indicated a willingness to negotiate. Given its current weakness, Mr. Trump really might be able to secure a better deal than the previous one. Mr. Trump was right to start talking with Iran in April. He should not give up now.
Nicole Grajewski and Ankit Panda | The Boston Globe
Days into this war, Trump continues to consider US direct involvement, weighing the benefits of military involvement against the costs of pulling a war-weary American public into a conflict entirely of Israel’s making… Up until this point, the United States had carefully maintained a position of measured acquiescence — providing defensive support to Israel through intelligence sharing and missile defense coordination while refusing to participate in offensive operations against Iran. However, merely days into the war, the United States appears to have shifted toward a position that would exacerbate the conflict.
Lowell Schwartz and Anthony Wier | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Last month, President Donald Trump’s administration released its plan to reorganize the State Department and reduce the department’s workforce. Many aspects of these plans are concerning—especially the proposed reductions to the department’s highly skilled and dedicated workforce—but the organizational reforms proposed for the Office of the Under Secretary of International Security and Arms Control (whose under secretary, in the department’s organizational naming system, goes by the initial “T”) are not among them.
Reuters
The Israeli military said on Thursday it had targeted the Arak nuclear reactor in Iran overnight and struck what it said was a nuclear weapons development site in the area of Natanz. Among its nuclear sites, Iran had a partially built heavy-water research reactor originally called Arak and now Khondab. Iranian media reported on Thursday morning that air defences were activated in the area of the Khondab nuclear facility, with two projectiles hitting an area close to it.
Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo | Axios
One key question is on President Trump's mind these days, his advisers say: If the U.S. joins Israel's war and drops its massive bunker busters, will they actually destroy Iran's most heavily fortified nuclear facility?... Trump wants to make sure such an attack is really needed, wouldn't drag the U.S. into a prolonged war in the Middle East — and most of all, would actually achieve the objective of destroying Iran's nuclear program, U.S. officials say.
Dan De Luce | NBC News
The U.S. assessment of Iran’s nuclear program has not changed since March, when the director of national intelligence told lawmakers that Tehran has large amounts of enriched uranium but has not made a decision to rush toward building an atomic bomb, according to the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and a source with knowledge of the matter. Comments by President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have painted a different picture, suggesting that Iran is racing toward creating a nuclear weapon.
Vladimir Soldatkin, Andrew Osborn, and Dmitry Antonov | Reuters
The head of Russia's nuclear energy corporation warned on Thursday that an Israeli attack on Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant could lead to a "Chernobyl-style catastrophe". An Israeli military spokesperson said Israel had struck the site, but an Israeli military official later called this statement "a mistake" and said he could neither confirm nor deny that the Bushehr site on the cost of the Gulf had been hit… The head of Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom warned on Thursday that the situation around the plant was fraught with risk.
Nell Greenfieldboyce and Geoff Brumfiel | NPR
If the U.S. does drop a powerful "bunker buster" bomb on a suspected underground nuclear weapons site in Iran, experts in radiation hazards see little risk of widespread contamination. The site in question, Iran's mysterious Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, is built into a mountainside and seems to be in the business of processing uranium isotopes. That means it would mostly be working with uranium in the form of a gas called uranium hexafluoride.