Intelligence First. War Second. What Justified the U.S. Attack on Iran, and What Comes Next?

The Steady State | by Jonathan M. Winer

The United States is at war with Iran.

American service members are dead. Iranian leaders are dead. Civilians, including Iranian schoolchildren, are dead. The region is destabilizing. Oil markets are rattled. The Strait of Hormuz is under threat. And now the President and his senior military advisors state that they are not ruling out sending in ground troops.

So far, the American public has not been shown the intelligence, if any, that may have provided the analytic foundation for President Trump’s unilateral decision to initiate this war.

Whatever Congress decides under the War Powers Resolution, one obligation precedes any vote: demand whatever intelligence was relied upon as a foundation for this war. And they should demand it in a form that allows the American people to understand why their country is fighting and what may come next.

This is not procedural. It is about whether the United States entered another major conflict in response to an imminent threat, to fulfill long term strategic goals, or on the basis of some other presidential rationale.

The Shifting Case for War

The administration’s explanations have not been consistent. At various points, the President has suggested the strikes were necessary to:

• prevent imminent danger, specifically, an Iranian first-strike against the U.S.;

• destroy Iran’s nuclear capability;

• remove control of Iran by “a vicious group of radical people;”

• force negotiations on Iranian nuclear enrichment;

• enable the Iranian people to rise up to remove the clerical regime;

• achieve other unspecified strategic goals of the United States.

These are not the same objective. Preempting an imminent attack is one thing. Degrading long-term capabilities is another. Coercing negotiations is different still. Regime change is something else entirely. Each rationale carries a distinct evidentiary threshold. Each implies a different scope, duration, and risk profile.

Congress must ask: what did the intelligence community assess before the strikes? Was there credible evidence of an imminent Iranian attack on U.S. forces? Was this a strategic escalation grounded in a broader assessment of a long-term threat? Or was it a war of choice?

The public deserves to know which it was.

Lessons from Iraq

In the run-up to the Iraq War, the George W. Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein maintained active weapons of mass destruction programs. Senior U.S. intelligence officials testified that intelligence assessments judged Iraq to possess chemical and biological weapons capabilities and to be pursuing nuclear weapons development. Congress relied on those formal intelligence assessments and the accompanying testimony when authorizing the use of force.

Some of the intelligence supporting these conclusions rested on reporting from an Iraqi defector known by the codename “Curve Ball,” who claimed that Iraq had mobile biological weapons laboratories capable of producing agents such as anthrax. His reporting, became an important element of the case presented publicly by the United States.

Yet the intelligence picture was not as settled as the public case suggested. Some CIA officers raised doubts about Curve Ball’s reliability. The Defense Intelligence Agency issued a warning that the source might be a fabricator. German intelligence reportedly cautioned U.S. officials that the source had credibility problems. Analysts at other agencies, including the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Department of Energy, disputed key elements of the broader intelligence picture used to justify the war. Those dissents appeared in classified intelligence assessments but were far less visible in the public presentation of the case for military action.

In the highly charged political environment preceding the war, intelligence judgments were interpreted, emphasized, and presented publicly in ways that masked these internal disputes. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations reflected that public case, advancing claims about weapons of mass destruction and alleged operational ties between Iraq and al Qaeda that were far more certain than the underlying intelligence justified. The episode left lasting questions about the credibility of the U.S. government’s public statements regarding its intelligence findings.

The consequences were catastrophic: thousands of American lives lost, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, trillions of dollars spent, and a lasting erosion of U.S. credibility.

The lesson is not to discount intelligence assessments but to examine them rigorously before a war begins, and in public where possible.

Here the sequence appears reversed.

Strikes came swiftly. Justifications followed. No comprehensive intelligence assessment has been released publicly framing the threat. There was no extended congressional deliberation before the first bombs fell.

Action first. Scrutiny later. That inversion is precisely what past failures were supposed to prevent.

A President at Odds with His Intelligence Community

Oversight is even more critical because President Trump has repeatedly questioned the competence and integrity of U.S. intelligence professionals. He has publicly contradicted their findings, dismissed their judgments, and suggested bias. When a President signals distrust of his own intelligence agencies, Congress must assess the extent to which formal analytic judgments, instinct, grievance, or perceived political opportunity shaped the decision to strike and continue to shape decisions now.

What intelligence was presented, and what did it conclude? Were analytic caveats respected? Were confidence levels clearly stated? Were they overridden?

In 2002 and 2003, intelligence was interpreted selectively – and over the objection of dedicated career professionals - to fit policy preferences. If that dynamic is repeating without robust public review, the risk is greater.

What Is the Objective?

Wars do not become strategic simply because they are bold. Congress must ask what constitutes success. If the conflict expands to include U.S. ground forces, the scale of risk, cost, and duration changes dramatically.

Is the objective the permanent destruction of Iran’s nuclear capabilities? If so, what evidence supports the claim they have been destroyed? What follows if they have not?

Is the objective regime change? If so, what replaces the current system, and how would that transition occur without prolonged instability?

Is the objective coercive leverage in pursuit of a negotiated settlement? If so, where is the diplomatic channel?

If economic assumptions are intertwined with military action, including expectations regarding energy access or sanctions leverage, those assumptions must be examined openly. Americans were once told Iraq’s oil would finance reconstruction and that “the war would pay for itself.” Instead, that war has cost the U.S. roughly $2 trillion.

Absent defined objectives grounded in intelligence, military operations risk being driven by momentum rather than strategy.

The Public’s Right to Justification

When American troops die, the burden of explanation shifts. The public is not entitled to operational secrets. But it is entitled to know:

• whether this war was unavoidable;

• whether alternatives were exhausted;

• whether the intelligence justified the risk; and

• what comes next.

If the evidence supports the President’s decision, it should be shown. If it does not, that fact is more consequential still. The emerging discussion within the Administration of sending U.S. ground troops into Iran highlights the importance of sharing solid analytic assessments with the Congress and the public before any such decision is made.

The country has already begun to pay the price, with American lives lost in uniform. The American people deserve clarity before the price climbs higher. And before the remaining off-ramps narrow and escalation hardens into a lengthy and dangerous conflict. Intelligence First. War Second.

Jonathan M. Winer is the former Special Envoy for Libya and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Law Enforcement and a Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow at MEI. He is a member of The Steady State.

Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 390 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines, including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs, and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.