Free Republic

Hardline Iranian parliamentarian and member of Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Javad Karimi Ghodousi tweeted on April 22 implying that if granted permission, Iran could test its first nuclear weapon within one week.[17] Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Deputy Chairman Shahriar Heydari stated on April 22 in response to Karimi Ghodousi’s tweet that Iran has no ”intention” to build or use nuclear weapons.[18] Heydari cited Khamenei’s 2003 fatwa as the reason Iran is not seeking to acquire or use nuclear weapons. Heydari stated that Karimi Ghodousi's tweet may have been taken out of context.

In 2009, as the newly elected President, Obama made a move which enabled yesterdays attack by Iran. What Obama did was stop Iran’s Green Revolution, keeping the Mullahcracy in place. Additional actions by the Obama administration, most notably handing Iran pallets of money and negotiating the JCPOA set the stage for Iran to produce nukes. "Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium, cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98%, and reduce by about two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges for 13 years. For the next 15 years, Iran agreed to enrich uranium only...

Currently, Iran has a uranium stockpile to create 8 to ten nuclear bombs. But thanks to this nuclear deal, Iran must reduce its stockpile of uranium by 98%, and will keep its level of uranium enrichment at 3.67% — significantly below the enrichment level needed to create a bomb. On January 16, 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency verified that Iran has completed the necessary steps under the Iran deal that will ensure Iran's nuclear program is and remains exclusively peaceful. Before this agreement, Iran's breakout time -- or the time it would have taken for Iran to gather enough...

But even the Israelis have yet to absorb the full scope and magnitude of Biden’s accommodation of Iran. The problem is not that Sullivan and Blinken are failing to restrain Malley, but that they are marching in lockstep with him. A consensus reigns inside the administration, not just on the JCPOA but on every big question of Middle East strategy: Everyone from the president on down agrees about the need to complete what Obama started—which means that the worst is yet to come. If the control that Obama’s project exercises over every mind in the Biden administration is not already...

Oct 16 (Reuters) - Iran's top envoy said that a "preemptive action" could be expected in the coming hours, state TV reported on Monday, adding that Israel will not be allowed to take any action in the Gaza Strip without facing consequences. "Leaders of the Resistance will not allow the Zionist regime to take any action in Gaza. ... All options are open and we cannot be indifferent to the war crimes committed against the people of Gaza," Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, told state TV. "The resistance front is capable of waging a long-term war with the enemy (Israel)... in...

The Biden administration’s now-suspended Iran envoy Robert Malley helped to fund, support, and direct an Iranian intelligence operation designed to influence the United States and allied governments, according to a trove of purloined Iranian government emails. The emails, which were reported on by veteran Wall Street Journal correspondent Jay Solomon, writing in Semafor, and by Iran International, the London-based émigré opposition outlet which is the most widely read independent news source inside Iran, were published last week after being extensively verified over a period of several months by the two outlets. They showed that Malley had helped to infiltrate an...

In the spring of 2014, senior Iranian Foreign Ministry officials initiated a quiet effort to bolster Tehran’s image and positions on global security issues — particularly its nuclear program — by building ties with a network of influential overseas academics and researchers. They called it the Iran Experts Initiative. The scope and scale of the IEI project has emerged in a large cache of Iranian government correspondence and emails reported for the first time by Semafor and Iran International. The officials, working under the moderate President Hassan Rouhani, congratulated themselves on the impact of the initiative: At least three of...

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said Tuesday that his country will never give up its right “to have peaceful nuclear energy” and urged the United States “to demonstrate in a verifiable fashion” that it wants to return to the 2015 nuclear deal. Addressing the annual high-level meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, Raisi said the American withdrawal from the deal trampled on U.S. commitments and was “an inappropriate response” to Iran’s fulfillment of its commitments. […] Iran has long denied ever seeking nuclear weapons and continues to insist that its program is entirely for peaceful purposes – points Raisi reiterated Tuesday...

ANKARA (Reuters) - Iran’s foreign minister said on Thursday U.S. demands to change its 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers were unacceptable as a deadline set by President Donald Trump for Europeans to “fix” the deal loomed. [snip]“Iran will not renegotiate what was agreed years ago and has been implemented,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a video message posted on YouTube.

Milley, in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, flat-out rejected Trump’s claim on Iran. “I can assure you that not one time have I ever recommended to attack Iran,” Milley said. The nation’s highest-ranking military officer was referring to comments Trump made in a 2021 audio tape at his Bedminster, N.J., club. In the audio, Trump said he had a classified document proving his side of the story — that Milley told him to attack Iran during his administration.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said the $6 billion in funds the U.S. agreed to unfreeze in exchange for five U.S. prisoners will be spent “wherever we need it,” despite the Biden administration saying the funds are restricted to humanitarian use. When asked in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt about the funds, Raisi said Iran would have “authority” over how the funds will be spent. “This money belongs to the Iranian people, the Iranian government, so the Islamic Republic of Iran will decide what to do with this money,” he said, according to an Iranian government translator.

The Biden administration won’t say “Iran Deal,” apparently because they fear Congress. They’re negotiating “the deal that must not be named.” In the Harry Potter books, characters call the villain “He Who Must Not Be Named,” for fear that saying “Voldemort” will conjure up the evil villain. The Biden administration won’t say “Iran Deal,” apparently because they fear Congress. They’re negotiating “the deal that must not be named.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein have called it a “small agreement,” a “mini-deal” and a “memorandum of understanding,” but the State Department...

Iran could now produce “one bomb’s worth of fissile material” in “about 12 days,” a top US Defense Department official said Tuesday. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl offered one of the most striking US government assessments to date of Iran’s “breakout time” as efforts to try to restore the Iran nuclear agreement remain halted and Tehran continues to breach the restrictions set out by the deal. Kahl said that “Iran’s nuclear progress since” the Trump administration withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal “has been remarkable.” “Back in 2018, when the previous administration decided to...

During President Barack Obama’s administration, the State Department worked to negotiate and implement the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as a method of limiting Iran’s nuclear ambitions for at least a while. Both Saudi Arabia and Israel see Iran as a threat and opposed the deal. But Obama, along with Secretary of State John Kerry, pushed on with the deal and signed it in 2015.In 2018, President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the JCPOA and instituted heavy sanctions on Iran. Trump saw the JCPOA as a bad deal and was closer to Israel and Saudi Arabia than the Obama...

WASHINGTON — President Biden said last month that the Iran nuclear deal “is dead” but added that “we are not going to announce it — long story,” according to a video that resurfaced Tuesday. Biden made the remark Nov. 4 to Iranian American protesters who trailed him to an event in California. “President Biden, could you please announce that JCPOA is dead? Can you just announce that?” a woman asks, using the formal acronym for the 2015 agreement that softened US policy toward Iran in exchange for promises that Tehran wouldn’t seek a nuclear bomb. “No,” Biden replied. “No? Why...

Al Arabiya English Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to become the Prime Minister of Israel for the third time. He has until December 21 to form a government before taking office. In a wide-ranging interview with a group of print and television journalists at Al Arabiya, Mr. Netanyahu discussed Israel’s relations with Arab states, the US alliance structure in the Middle East, unrest in Iran, Israel’s new hard-right government, the future of the US-brokered maritime border agreement with Lebanon, and the Russia-Ukraine war. Mr. Netanyahu reiterated the paramount importance of normalization with Saudi Arabia, which would be a “quantum leap” toward...

The Islamic Republic could be faced with global snapback sanctions which would apply even to Russia and China. Iran is trying to maintain an uncompromising stance in every area, but is up against the wall more than it has been in prior years both regarding the IAEA nuclear standoff and in confronting domestic protests. Normally, when the Islamic Republic tries to govern its foreign and internal problems using an iron hand, those it is up against retreat or back down. What is unique now is that Tehran has pulled out the stops against both the IAEA and domestic protesters, and...

Iran has begun producing uranium enriched up to 60% in its underground Fordow nuclear facility, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said on Tuesday, bringing the country closer to weapons grade material. “Iran had started producing high enriched uranium – UF6 enriched up to 60% - using the existing two cascades of IR-6 centrifuge....

This is the point in the story when we should probably summon Dr. McCoy to say, ‘he’s dead, Jim.’ The “he” in question would be the Iran nuclear deal, known around the White House as the JCPOA. The secretive, four-party talks that have been going on for well over a year never really came close to producing a functional deal, though most of us never heard any of the details. But now, at least according to one Trump administration official who was privy to the process, the entire thing is shut down with “no path forward.” The culprit is supposedly...

A senior Israeli official representing Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Monday declared that Iran talks are “dead”.The official called on Europe and the US on Monday to begin talking about demands for a “longer, stronger” nuclear agreement with Iran, saying current talks aimed at reviving a 2015 pact were dead after Jerusalem provided proof that Tehran had not been forthright during negotiations.Lapid and his top aides were in Berlin Monday, where the Israeli Prime Minister says he passed German Chancellor Olaf Scholz “sensitive and relevant intelligence information” on Iran’s nuclear program.The day prior, Germany, France, and the UK issued a...