Intel has become the first of the 18 American companies named on the IRGC's target list to issue a public statement, saying the company is "monitoring the situation" and "taking steps to ensure the safety of our employees." [1] The response came four days after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps designated 18 U.S. firms as military targets on March 31. [2]

As this paper reported yesterday, forty-eight hours of collective silence from the named companies -- Apple, Google, Microsoft, Tesla, Boeing, and the rest -- was itself the story. Intel's statement, while minimal, breaks that silence. The company operates fabrication facilities in Israel, including its Fab 28 in Kiryat Gat, one of the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing plants outside of Taiwan. [3] Those facilities are not abstract geopolitical risk factors. They are physical structures within range of Iranian ballistic missiles.

Intel did not disclose whether it had filed an 8-K material event disclosure with the SEC. It did not say whether operations at its Israeli facilities had been modified. It said it was monitoring. The other 17 companies, as of publication, have said nothing at all. [2]

-- DAVID CHEN, Beijing