‘I may do it. I may not’: Trump’s position on the Iran-Israel conflict has shifted over the past week of violence.
As United States President Donald Trump made an early exit from the Group of Seven summit in Canada on Tuesday, he told reporters he believed Iran was “very close” to building nuclear weapons.
This contradicted US intelligence reports. On March 25, Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, unambiguously told members of the US Congress that Iran was not moving towards building nuclear weapons.
“The IC [intelligence community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader [Ali] Khamenei has not authorised the nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003,” she said, referring to a collection of US spy agencies that collaborate to make such assessments.
Trump’s latest remarks also mark a shift from his position on Iran last month when he said the US and Iran were close to securing a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme.
