The day before the war against Iran began, was Iran an imminent threat?
President Trump said so at the time. Many Democrats, including in the Colorado congressional delegation, disagreed.
The progress of the war has clarified the issue. Iran’s threat before the war was launched on Feb. 28 by the US and Israel is retrospectively clear. Iran has amply demonstrated the dimensions and the dangers of the threat it posed the day before the war began, but to see this, we must take the time and care to define what constitutes an “imminent threat.” A lot of talk has been tossed back and and forth by partisans on all sides of the question without precision of definition. We owe this to ourselves and to our soldiers.
The fulcrum in the debate over “imminent threat” is: What is it? There are three possibilities:
• The enemy is a “ticking bomb.” It intends to strike, is poised to do so forthwith, or its strike has already begun.
• The enemy intends to strike, and wants to strike, but is not yet sufficiently prepared to do so.
• The enemy intends to strike and is sufficiently prepared to do so, but it has not yet launched a strike.
Each definition includes the word “intend.” On this there should be no debate. Iran’s intentions are perfectly clear. Iran has declared American “the Great Satan” and Israel “the Little Satan” — and far more consequential, Iran has struck Americans, Israelis, Kurds, Saudis, Lebanese, Yemenis, Syrians, Jordanians, Iraqis and others for decades. Iran has targeted civilians directly or via its terrorist proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. Marines: killed. Civilians: massacred.
Iran is proud of this. It makes no bones about its intentions and its deeds. Whoever doubts this has not been paying attention.
That Iran has long been a threat is eminently clear. On this, it seems, there is no major no disagreement in Congress or in most of the country. But was the threat “imminent” on Feb. 27, the day before the war began? Was a full pledged war against Iran justified on the grounds that it posed an “imminent” threat?
Let us be precise. Return to the first definition —was Iran a “ticking bomb?” Perhaps President Trump has intelligence information that he has not shared — but to all appearances it does not seem that Iran was a ticking bomb requiring immediate action. If that is true —if Iran was not sufficiently prepared to strike — then Iran did not pose an imminent threat under the second definition, either.
But the third definition, if anything, is more pertinent and repercussive than the day the war began. “The enemy intends to strike and is sufficiently prepared to do so.” On this, the progress of the war has been revelatory.
“Sufficiently prepared to strike.” Wow. Look at the extent of Iran’s missile program. Look at the number of its missiles. Look at the number of its launchers. Look at their expansive distribution around a huge country. Look at Iran’s capacity to fire at upwards of seven countries simultaneously. Look at Iran’s capacity to incorporate cluster bombs into its war heads. No less important, look at the scale of Iran’s indifference to its own people — a scale exponentially larger that its willingness to put down protests. Look at Iran’s willingness to sacrifice the security and safety of its people, all in order to strike at the “Great Satan” and the “Little Satan.”
And all this is not even where one must mainly look.
Look at Diego Garcia.
It’s in the Indian Ocean. The US and UK have a major military base there.
Distance of Diego Garcia from Tehran: About 3,261 flight miles.
Distance from Tehran to Rome: About 2,643 miles.
Distance from Tehran to Paris: About 2,618 flight miles.
Distance from Tehran to London: About 2,754 miles.
Iran fired its longest-range missile at Diego Garcia — it did not necessarily fire from Tehran. But you get the idea. Rome, Paris and London are within Iran’s range.
The Wall Street Journal deadpans: “The Islamic Republic had longer-range missiles than many analysts had realized.”
It’s not just an analysts’ failure.
It’s Iran’s lie.
Before its missile firing on Diego Garcia, Iran’s leaders were “insisting they had limited their missile ranges to about half the distance to Diego Garcia” (WSJ).
Iran lies about its intentions and its capacities.
Lies must figure in as a critical factor in defining an imminent threat.
In evaluating whether Iran posed an immediate threat before the US and Israel attacked, Iran’s utter untrustworthiness had to be decisive. Simply put:
If Iran has the weapons, it will use them, no matter what it says, no matter what agreements it signs, no matter how limited it says its weapons are.
And not only use them, but use them at the earliest opportunity, as Hamas and Hezbollah testify.
And not only use them as they are, but develop them beyond any conceivable measure of self-defense.
Iran doesn’t need missiles that can strike Rome, Paris and London.
The US and Israel — and Europe —do not need an Iran powerful enough to build those missiles — and to build the nuclear weapons it wants to put on those missiles.
Intent.
Sufficiency.
Those two key words define an imminent threat. Yes, Iran posed an imminent threat the day before the war began.
Consider further.:
In 2023, the WSJ reports, Iran sent more than 300,000 artillery shells and a million rounds of ammunition to Russia —which is dramatically engaged in war on European soil. That’s besides what Iran was sending to Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.
These are more than “imminent” (immediately future) threats. These are current threats. What more could be needed to constitute an “imminent” threat than the evidence already in? What more could critics of Trump’s attack on Iran want?
One of the dangers of polarization is black-and-white thinking: this politician, or this political party, is entirely right, or entirely wrong. Not so. One may think through and critique other policies of President Trump. Readers of this page know that we have. But the issue in the attack on Iran isn’t Trump. It’s the acknowledgement that for the security and safety of the US, Israel, the Gulf states, Iraq and Europe, Iran has to be taken down before it is too late — too late for the countless civilians whom Iran would kill, too late for people who prefer to choose their own religion, whom Iran would enslave, too late for all who don’t want a government focused on weapons over water.
© IJN 2026
