Number of the day

4.5% 

That’s still the US headline interest rate after the Fed decided to leave things unchanged. Fed chair Jerome Powell said he expects “meaningful” inflation ahead, citing consumer and business surveys that see tariffs as a key driver.

The Israel-Iran war

If you’ve been waist-deep doomscrolling monitoring the situation, we feel you. Six months into Trump 2.0’s pledge to bring peace to the Middle East, another war now rages.

In the last few hours

• Israel has struck ~40 more sites across Iran, including the Arak heavy water reactor and the Natanz uranium enrichment plant

• Meanwhile, Iran's own dwindling launches have still hit several sites across Israel, including a hospital in Beersheba (dozens reported injured)

• Iran has lodged a complaint at the UN's nuclear watchdog claiming Israel's strikes are "contrary to international laws that prohibit attacks on nuclear facilities"

• And Yemen’s Houthis say they’ll help their Iranian sponsors, while Putin (who just signed a security pact with Iran in January) is instead implausibly offering to mediate, even as his latest attacks on Ukrainian cities leave dozens more dead.

But the big question is… will the US get involved? 

Why that question?

Israel’s rationale has always been that Iran is developing nukes, and Bibi pulled this latest trigger barely hours after the UN’s nuclear watchdog called foul on a) Iran’s secret activities, and b) its rapid build-up of uranium enriched way beyond civilian needs.

But while Israeli strikes have now ruptured Iran’s nuclear production line, Iran’s vast underground nuclear bunker at Fordow still seems untouched (and little is known about the other fortified facility Iran’s been building over at Pickaxe Mountain).

Israel has no known weapon capable of hitting targets that deep, though it feels implausible a) not to have been working on something over the decades, and/or b) to kick off this latest round of conflict without a way to destroy Fordow.

So Bibi is either hiding something up his sleeve (rumours abound in either direction), or he was always banking on the US delivering the coup de grace once Iran’s air defences fell.

So that’s where the US comes in (at least theoretically) with its purpose-built GBU-57 bunker buster, each weighing ~13,600kg (30,000lb), measuring 6m (20ft), and portable only by the US B-2 stealth bomber.

So… will Trump use America’s GBU-57 for the first time in history?

On the military front, imagery and air-scanners make clear the US Air Force is ready if he does pull the trigger, and word is he’s approved the Pentagon’s plan, just hasn’t given the order. But that could all still just be posturing to force the ayatollah to give up.

On the intelligence front, Trump’s own spymaster assessed in March that Iran “is not building a nuclear weapon”, though that was a) public, b) three months ago, c) caveated that Iran could change its mind, and yet also d) released by an intelligence community with a history not only of false positives (Iraq) but also false negatives (Syria’s Al-Kibar).

Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign ministry is tweeting that, while the UN’s watchdog raised the alarm, those UN findings didn’t conclude that Iran was actually now building nukes.

But on the political front, big rifts are emerging within Trump’s base as we wait, like

• Yesterday’s yelling match between a hawkish senator (Cruz) and an isolationist influencer (Carlson, who Trump then called “kooky”), or

• The president’s rift with his own spymaster after she dropped a video dunking on US elites and warmongers (before the Israelis hit Iran).

And that all kinda reflects the tensions at the heart of the president’s own statements, which have spanned everything from classic US isolationism (let’s avoid foreign entanglements) to classic US primacism (we’ll never allow a nuclear-armed Iran).

As for the ayatollah? The 86-year-old is still talking tough, but while that’s been his brand for decades, his ability to back any of that up now looks limited, and his foreign ministry seems to be sending signals that Tehran is willing to talk.

But that feels a stretch now that his latest missile has wasted a major Israeli hospital.

Intrigue’s Take

One of the few common threads across US public opinion and political manoeuvring right now is that just about nobody seems comfortable with a nuclear-armed Iran. The debate is more around how imminent that risk might be, and what to do about it.

Against that backdrop, it’s been interesting to see different voices appeal to history:

• There’s a mash-up doing the rounds showing three decades of Bibi warning Iran is close to getting nukes, the implication being he’s crying wolf — though Iran was also caught nuclear-handed in 2002 (Natanz and Arak) and 2009 (Fordow).

• France’s President Macron has also been doing the rounds reminding us what happens when foreign powers attempt to go beyond military aims and impose any kind of regime change (whether in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, or beyond), and

• You might add another mash-up of the way Murphy’s Law injects mistakes, miscalculations, and malfunctions right as the stakes are highest — Trump won’t want to own the next Operation Eagle Claw or Black Hawk Down, and even if a B-2 run goes smoothly, there are no guarantees his GBU-57 can end Fordow.

So maybe that brings us back to the Iranians themselves. There’s been enough unrest over the years to expose a real lack of popular legitimacy for the mullahs. The thing is, that kind of sentiment can quickly shift if folks’ immediate concern becomes less about Iran’s morality police on the streets, and more about Israel’s drones overhead.

Sound even smarter:

• The E3 (France, Germany and the UK) will reportedly hold nuclear talks with Iran tomorrow (Friday).

• Iran’s cyber command has instructed security officials to avoid using tech connected to telecom networks, likely worried about another pager-style hit.

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Meanwhile, elsewhere…

Extra Intrigue

In other worlds…

• Tech: OpenAI has accused Meta of trying to poach its employees by offering sign-up bonuses to the tune of $100M each. 

• Environment: China is planning to build the world’s largest national park system by 2035, with an area bigger than Texas. 

• Science: The Begong moth may be using the Milky Way to navigate its way across Australia.

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Rarity of the day

Need an easy $14k? You’ll just need a wetsuit, a camera, and a ticket to China’s Yangtze River.

That’s because last month, a local NGO offered a $14k cash reward in exchange for visual proof of a wild Yangtze giant softshell turtle, the world’s largest freshwater turtle. The species is so rare, there’s now only one known specimen (Susu) who lives in captivity.

Of course, the internet being the internet, chaos and levity ensued, with folks sending in pictures of their pet turtles and the odd AI-enhanced whopper.

Today’s poll

Yesterday’s poll: Do you think the US will join the Israel-Iran war?

 🔥 Yes, Trump is going all in (62%)
⛔ No, he campaigned on the opposite (32%)
✍️ Other (write in!) (6%)

Your two cents:

• 🔥 W.H: “Trump smells an easy win at low cost (no US casualties). He’ll pile on and then claim a won war was all his idea.”

• ✍️ C.S: “If he goes to war, it will be the whole world that pays, as Iran could block the Strait of Hormuz, preventing 1/5 of oil consumed in the world from reaching its destination.”

• ⛔ J.S: “The US will do everything except direct involvement. They will supply Israel with equipment, training, intel, etc. That way Trump can claim to have defeated Iran and also claim that US troops were not involved.”

• ✍️ E.H: “Who can predict Trump's decisions!”

• ⛔ A.P: “There will be mass protests if he sends Americans to die in a war we very clearly do not want.”