‘Imminence’ Is the Wrong Standard for Iran

By Douglas J. Feith

Tuesday, March 24, 2026

 

On March 18, Senate Intelligence Committee members grilled National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard on a misguided question: Did Iran pose an imminent threat to the United States? Gabbard fumbled her response, saying that only the president can decide whether a threat is imminent. Her questioners contradicted her.

 

Both sides in this exchange, however, were chasing a red herring.

 

Gabbard did President Trump harm by failing to reframe the intelligence debate intelligently. She allowed his opponents to use a wrong concept to discredit his decision to use force against Iran.

 

“Imminence” is not the sensible standard. It is not a precise or objective term that presidents should employ only if intelligence experts endorse it. In national security affairs, it is almost always debatable and, besides, “imminence” is not the right concept for deciding whether and how to respond to a grave threat from abroad.

 

To grasp why it is not right, ask yourself: When did the September 11 attack become imminent? When did the attack on Pearl Harbor? When did Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? When did the Holocaust? When did the threat of British tyranny that justified the American Revolution? The concept of “imminence” offers no useful guidance for confronting complex threats of this kind.

 

Is a threat imminent when the enemy becomes hostile? When the enemy begins developing the means to attack us or only after they are perfected — or only after the enemy puts them in motion as part of an attack? Is it imminent if the enemy might still call off the attack, or only after the attack is launched and cannot be stopped? Does it matter if the enemy appears unstable or ideologically fanatical? Does it matter if the enemy’s means of attack are apocalyptic — nuclear weapons on long-range missiles, for example?

 

The relevant concept is unacceptable risk, not imminent threat. Presidents have the duty to decide whether a foreign threat poses risks that require a U.S. response. They have the responsibility to take all the relevant facts and circumstances into account and decide whether a threat is grave enough — and no means short of war can reduce the risk to an acceptable level — to make war necessary. That is not a judgment for intelligence experts to make. It is inherently political, and it falls on the president’s shoulders. Congress, of course, has a role to play, but it would be good if its members enlightened rather than confused the public debate.

 

If Gabbard had a firmer grasp on her responsibilities, she would have said that deciding how much risk is acceptable for the nation is the job of the president, not intelligence analysts. Instead, by entering into the “imminence” debate, she helped the president’s opponents muddy the waters.

 

Let’s dip back into history. In 1962, when President John F. Kennedy faced the threat of Soviet placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba, he did not argue that those missiles would pose an imminent threat. He said they would create unacceptable risks for the United States. His response — the naval quarantine, which international lawyers argue was an act of war — aimed to eliminate those risks before they matured. Does anyone believe that Kennedy would have been wiser to wait until the threat became imminent, after the missiles were fueled, targeted, and ready for launch?

 

The “imminence” standard produces paralysis in the face of increasing danger. One reason it gets attention is its role in domestic law enforcement. As a rule, only an imminent threat justifies police officers in using deadly force. But is it sensible to import that concept into national security affairs today — when a country like Iran calls over decades for “Death to America,” commits numerous murderous aggressions and devotes enormous resources to developing terrorist proxy networks, nuclear weapons, and long-range missiles?

 

International law never provides indisputable answers to such questions — and, anyway, it evolves over time. It was 200 years ago when an American secretary of state popularized concerns about “imminent threats” in world affairs. New technologies have changed the security picture. If scholars now argue that international law bars the United States from using military action against Iran’s nuclear and missile threats until those threats are “imminent” — that is, only moments away from implementation — they are consigning international law to irrelevance in the world of practical affairs. Can such law win adherence if its logic is patently self-defeating?

 

A pacifist may choose to argue that U.S. military action against Iran is unjustified because the Iranian nuclear threat is not imminent, and then argue, after the threat becomes imminent, that U.S. military action would be too risky because Iran has nuclear weapons. That makes sense, but only if one is a pacifist. As the saying goes, a pacifist is someone who believes that non-pacifists should run the show.

 

Americans should skeptically examine the decisions of their presidents, especially regarding war and peace. It is reasonable and patriotic to ask whether a decision to go to war was sound. But it is unreasonable and irresponsible to argue that President Trump should have refrained from action against Iran until its nuclear threats against the United States were “imminent.”