Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) will soon introduce new legislation that aims to dismantle the remaining portions of the Iran nuclear deal by revoking the nuclear sanctions waivers that the Trump administration approved last week. Those sanctions waivers allow Iran to work on the country&#8217;s nuclear weapons program while talks continue between Tehran and Washington, D.C.
The Washington Free Beacon&#8217;s Adam Kredo <a href="https://freebeacon.com/national-security/trump-admin-again-gives-iran-green-light-to-conduct-sensitive-nuclear-work/">reported</a> last week that the sanctions waivers &#8220;permit the Islamic Republic to engage in sensitive nuclear work, including at a clandestine military location that has housed the country’s weapons program&#8221; and allow &#8220;China and Russia to continue performing work at Iranian nuclear facilities, some of which have drawn concerns from the international community for potentially helping Iran gain the know-how to build a functional nuclear weapon.&#8221;
In a new <a href="https://freebeacon.com/national-security/rep-cheney-to-introduce-legislation-mandating-full-dismantling-of-iran-nuclear-deal/">report</a> by Kredo on Monday, Cheney told the Free Beacon that the waivers have legitimized Iran&#8217;s illicit nuclear weapons program.
&#8220;These &#8216;civil nuclear&#8217; waivers legitimize Iran&#8217;s illicit nuclear infrastructure and help sustain President Obama&#8217;s disastrous nuclear deal,&#8221; Cheney said. &#8220;Congress is determined to support President Donald Trump&#8217;s rightful exit from that deal and his successful maximum pressure campaign against Tehran.&#8221;
Cheney continued, &#8220;That is why I will soon be introducing legislation that revokes these exceptions and ensures that the nuclear deal is totally and completely dismantled.&#8221;
The Trump administration&#8217;s shift in policy toward Iran has caused concerned among Trump&#8217;s top allies in Washington, as it is a break from his promised &#8220;maximum pressure&#8221; campaign against the Iran, which is the world&#8217;s leading state sponsor of terrorism.
Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) expressed their frustration with the administration last week over the decision to give Iran its latest waivers.
In a joint statement, the senators <a href="https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&amp;id=4740">wrote</a>:
<blockquote>This is disappointing and another lost opportunity to tear up the catastrophic Obama-Iran nuclear deal once and for all. President Trump should immediately order his administration to stop issuing civil nuclear waivers. These waivers allow Iran to build up its nuclear program, including at their Fordow nuclear bunker, which they dug out of the side of a mountain to build nuclear weapons. Iran is now openly violating the nuclear deal and stockpiling dangerous nuclear material. There is no justification for letting them continue to build up their program. We intend to work with our Congressional colleagues to advance legislation to reverse this misguided decision.</blockquote>
U.S. State Department Spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement last week that the decision would &#8220;help preserve oversight of Iran’s civil nuclear program, reduce proliferation risks, constrain Iran’s ability to shorten its &#8216;breakout time&#8217; to a nuclear weapon, and prevent the regime from reconstituting sites for proliferation-sensitive purposes.&#8221;
Kredo further noted that Iran announced today it is moving forward with installing key components that will allow it to quickly enrich uranium — which is a violation of the nuclear deal.
Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran&#8217;s Atomic Energy Organization, reportedly told Iranian state media, &#8220;We have installed 15 new-generation centrifuges in the past two months which is a very big achievement.&#8221;
Meanwhile, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated this week that Iran &#8220;must not engage in negotiations&#8221; in order to &#8220;prevent and block America from entering [Iran] again.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: We must Not Engage in Negotiations with America in Order to Prevent It from Entering Iran Again <a href="https://t.co/0MXlge3ma9">pic.twitter.com/0MXlge3ma9</a>
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) <a href="https://twitter.com/MEMRIReports/status/1191316220672385024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 4, 2019</a></blockquote>

Liz Cheney

Republicans To Introduce Legislation To Dismantle Entire Iran Nuclear Deal

Iran

Nuclear Weapons

It is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51924/mike-pence-warns-iran-were-locked-and-loaded-jacob-airey">increasingly likely</a> that Saudi Arabia and Iran, longtime regional foes and proxies for the broader Sunni/Shiite theological divide in the Islamic world, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-aramco-iran-rouhani/irans-rouhani-says-aramco-attacks-were-a-reciprocal-response-by-yemen-idUSKBN1W12AE">could be heading for war</a>. Both nations are governed by sharia-based legal regimes, and each has a troubled history when it comes to promoting, financing, and exporting Islamist extremism over the course of the past century. At first glance, one might be inclined to look at this internecine Islamic spat and conclude as Sarah Palin <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/sarah-palin-let-allah-sort-it-out-096128">once did</a>: &#8220;Let Allah sort it out.&#8221;
But cynicism of this magnitude is not actually warranted. The United States has a clear and strategically unmistakable interest in any potential armed conflict that were to escalate between the Saudis and the Iranians. That interest, put simply, is to stand firmly with our <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/10/media-war-saudi-arabia/">Saudi allies</a>.
For decades, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was the preeminent funder and exporter of radical Sunni jihadism. The hardline Wahhabist- and Salafist-inspired brand of Sunni Islam that dominated the Saudi clerisy resulted in tangible detrimental outcomes for the liberal West. The Saudis funded more radical Sunni madrasas the world over than any other Arab nation and were oftentimes the leading miscreants in the Arab world&#8217;s decades-long (technically, still ongoing) <a href="http://www.sixdaywar.org/content/khartoum.asp">diplomatic</a> campaign against the legitimacy of Israel. Concomitantly, the Saudis were long viewed as the leading Arab cheerleaders for Yasser Arafat and his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46068/hammer-yes-united-states-was-right-deny-entry-bds-josh-hammer">inherently jihadist</a> &#8220;Palestinian liberation&#8221; cause. The Kingdom funded and promoted the global <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46714/hammer-designating-muslim-brotherhood-terrorist-josh-hammer">Muslim Brotherhood</a>, the 20th-century progenitor of contemporary Sunni jihadism and the over-arching organization for which the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44732/hammer-israel-must-destroy-hamas-once-and-all-josh-hammer">genocidal death cult</a> of Hamas merely serves as the Palestinian-Arab branch. Many Saudi elites and clerics famously <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/documents/evidence-of-financial-links-between-saudi-royal-family-and-al-qaeda">mollycoddled</a> al-Qaeda in the years leading up to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/27/us/september-11th-hijackers-fast-facts/index.html">September 11, 2001</a>. And so forth.
That is all undoubtedly very, very, very bad. But it is crucial to recognize that much has changed in the Islamic world over the past decade or two.
Over the past ten to fifteen years, and rapidly accelerating under the recent leadership of the more forward-thinking and realpolitik-inclined Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), the Kingdom has taken tremendous steps to diminish the influence of the Wahhabist clerics, to cease the funding and exportation of radical madrasas abroad, and to unequivocally distance itself from the Muslim Brotherhood. MBS has even gone so far as to (accurately) <a href="http://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/46574/Bin-Salman-Muslim-Brotherhood-incubator-for-terrorists">dub</a> the Brotherhood an &#8220;incubator for all terrorists.&#8221; Jared Kushner and other Trump administration officials, seeing a natural anti-Islamist ally in the crown prince, have <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/03/jared-kushner-saudi-arabia-mbs-meeting">cultivated and nourished</a> a reinvigorated bilateral relationship. The Saudis have also <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Palestinians-in-bid-to-avert-real-crisis-with-Saudi-Arabia-597538">all but completely forsaken</a> the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48018/hammer-jared-kushner-right-palestinians-do-not-josh-hammer">noxious</a>, anti-Jewish Palestinian-Arab &#8220;liberation&#8221; cause, preferring instead to dramatically warm up to Israel in hitherto unimaginable ways. The Saudis, while still prone to military and strategic crassness, are more so than ever before manifestly allied with the United States on our key geopolitical interests and priorities in the Middle East.
The elephant in the room for much of the Middle East&#8217;s broader realignment is, of course, the so-called &#8220;Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action&#8221; — then-President Barack Obama&#8217;s harrowing nuclear deal capitulation to the mullahs of the world&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">number one state sponsor of jihadism</a>, Iran. Obama, under the cataclysmic &#8220;guidance&#8221; of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-aspiring-novelist-who-became-obamas-foreign-policy-guru.html">failed novelist</a> Ben Rhodes, sought to reorient America&#8217;s interests in the Middle East away from Israel and its historic Sunni allies — namely, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt — and toward Iran and the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/mohamed-morsi-who-brought-the-muslim-brotherhood-to-the-egyptian-presidency">Muslim Brotherhood</a>. In addition to empowering the terrorist, jihad-exporting mullocracy in Tehran, Obama&#8217;s disastrous shift strategic also unshackled the region&#8217;s preeminent funders of the Brotherhood and Hamas: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47456/hammer-al-jazeeras-disgraceful-holocaust-denying-josh-hammer">Qatar</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44954/report-ilhan-omar-met-2017-infamous-islamist-josh-hammer">Turkey</a>. The increasingly public thawing of tensions between the Saudis and the Emiratis — each of whom considers Iran to be something akin to an existential hegemonic threat — and Israel, in addition to the still-ongoing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017–2019_Qatar_diplomatic_crisis">embargo</a> implemented (primarily) by the Saudis and Emiratis against the <a href="https://www.meforum.org/57690/ensconced-doha-islamists">Brotherhood-funding</a> Qataris, can only be <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2019-08-05/friends-caveats">understood through this broader prism</a>.
Iran, furthermore, is as malevolent and vicious a global actor as ever before. The mullahs still seek nuclear weapons, routinely preach &#8220;death to America&#8221; and &#8220;death to Israel,&#8221; fund Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthi rebels, and all sorts of other jihadist outfits the world over, plot <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190109-eu-sanctions-iran-over-assassinations-peoples-mujahedeen-france-bomb-plot">targeted assassinations</a> across Europe and the broader West, and engage in deeply hostile and destructive acts of <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2019/09/16/iran-seizes-oil-tanker-allegedly-smuggling-diesel-fuel-to-uae-isna">aggression</a> and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-tells-saudi-arabia-oil-attacks-were-launched-from-iran-11568644126">war</a> against regional foes. The Islamic Revolutionary Iranian regime has been in a state of war against the West ever since the ayatollahs&#8217; takeover in 1979, and Iran today remains one of the world&#8217;s two most rogue geopolitical actors, along with North Korea. It is a deeply hostile and repressive theocracy that has never missed an opportunity to fund jihadism against the West. Countering and thwarting Iran, in addition to the Brotherhood, is <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/43151/hammer-ted-cruzs-non-interventionist-hawk-foreign-josh-hammer">very much</a> in America&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51661/hammer-never-forget-911-we-need-rethink-how-we-josh-hammer">strategic interest</a>.
Fundamentally, the bipartisan Wilsonian foreign policy ruling class must be tempered. There is a role for morality in foreign policy, but that role is minuscule when compared with the foremost goal of a nation narrowly pursuing its own self-interest. Yes, the Saudi regime is sharia-based and is oppressive in many ways. But no, that ultimately should not deter our pursuit and defense of an indispensable strategic alliance. As I <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45699/hammer-america-needs-re-think-its-global-alliances-josh-hammer">wrote</a> in April:
<blockquote>[C]onservatives must articulate a hard-headed foreign policy that, if need be, subordinates amorphous &#8220;values&#8221;-based concerns in favor of much more tangible — and much more legitimate — concerns about prioritizing and maximizing America&#8217;s national security. And in so doing, American foreign policy hands ought not to elevate the interests and clout of unaccountable transnational institutions. &#8230;
America ought to ally with self-sufficient nation-states who care about their sovereignty and share our core national security interests in deterring Russian hegemony, Chinese ambitions, and/or Islamist aggression. &#8230; [I]n the Islamic world, that means focusing more on nations like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates than it does on Islamist-exporting, Muslim Brotherhood-cozy states like Turkey and Qatar.</blockquote>
Americans should not be duped by <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/10/media-war-saudi-arabia/">well-oiled Qatari duplicity</a> or the Iran nuclear deal&#8217;s subversive <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2017/10/13/iran-deal-supporters-willing-sell-u-s-jihadists/">Obama bro echo chamber</a>. With Saudi-Iranian tensions flaring, America has an unambiguous interest in standing firmly with MBS and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Trump MBS Oval Office.jpg

HAMMER: The U.S. Must Side With Saudi Arabia Against Iranian Aggression

Barack Obama

Foreign Policy

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps

Islam

Israel

Middle East

Saudi Arabia

United Arab Emirates (UAE)

In 2016, We the People were promised &#8220;America First&#8221; — not &#8220;America&#8217;s Enemies First.&#8221;
Well.
Today, President Donald Trump, in what can only be described as a woefully myopic move straight out of the Barack Obama-John Kerry-Ben Rhodes axis of capitulation playbook, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51591/breaking-trump-boots-national-security-adviser-ryan-saavedra">effectively fired</a> longtime Iran hawk John Bolton from his lofty perch of national security advisor. The boneheaded move, which closely follows the fallout of the president&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51504/trump-reveals-secret-meeting-planned-taliban-heres-ryan-saavedra">aborted Camp David dalliance</a> with Taliban jihadist thugs, comes at a time when the Trump administration has been publicly doubling down in its alleged commitment to the goal of <a href="https://www.apnews.com/e6bd6334ff4148f2985de059f93dc390">&#8220;maximum pressure&#8221;</a> on the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">terrorist</a> Iranian regime. Evincing the message discipline of a woebegone high-schooler, though, the president has combined such purported commitment to &#8220;maximum pressure&#8221; with his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/08/28/if-trump-wants-meet-irans-rouhani-both-allies-enemies-will-stand-his-way/">ceaseless</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-usa-trump/trump-says-he-could-meet-with-iranian-president-rouhani-idUSKCN1VU25N">sycophancy</a> toward and expressed desire to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
Bolton, who is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49313/hammer-inter-agency-fight-white-house-closes-door-josh-hammer">infamously hawkish</a> on the issue of jihadism and radical Islamic terror, strongly opposed the president&#8217;s dovish overtures on the Taliban and Rouhani alike. Such opposition, even amidst the purported &#8220;maximum pressure&#8221; campaign, appears to have cost Bolton his job.
Talk about cutting off one&#8217;s nose to spite the face. But hey — at least <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-aspiring-novelist-who-became-obamas-foreign-policy-guru.html">failed novelist</a> and Iran nuclear deal architect Ben Rhodes is happy, right?
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Bolton’s legacy is a wasteland of shattered US credibility, disorder, and abandoned democratic values. And a lot of people around the world suffered because of it. <a href="https://t.co/EAI6IOfZdw">https://t.co/EAI6IOfZdw</a>
— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) <a href="https://twitter.com/brhodes/status/1171459608877006848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Today is a sad day for those firm opponents of the genocidal brand of Islamist jihadism that has been in a state of war against the West for <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/egypts-muslim-brotherhood">at least a century</a>. Today will be remembered as a shattering blow struck in the years-long cold civil war on the foreign policy — that between those hawks (even if <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43151/hammer-ted-cruzs-non-interventionist-hawk-foreign-josh-hammer">&#8220;non-interventionist&#8221; hawks</a>) who soberly assess the threat of radical Islamism, and those whose quixotic predilections toward ideological isolationism at any and all costs leads them to effectively shill for Russia, China, Iran, Syria, and so many other of the world&#8217;s unabashedly despotic regimes. Today is a loss for &#8220;maximum pressure&#8221; on Iran, a loss for Israel, a loss for Saudi Arabia and all of America&#8217;s other Sunni allies, and a loss for a free and secure West. Today is a victory for the increasingly ascendant Tucker Carlson wing of the foreign policy — an adamantly isolationist wing whose proper negative reaction to the excesses of Bush-era interventionist neoconservatism gone awry has led them to such extremes so as to make <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tulsi-gabbard-homophobic-history-defended-tucker-carlson-glenn-greenwald-2019-1">common cause with America-hating leftists</a> in their joint pursuit of an emboldened Moscow-Tehran-Damascus axis of evil. Today is a victory for the fifth column Deep State lackeys who have so effectively helped derail &#8220;maximum pressure&#8221;:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">The Deep State is hard at work, working to prevent this admin from dismantling the Iran nuclear deal completely &#8230; The Obama-Iran deal was a disaster when Obama implemented this policy &amp; if the Deep State prevails they will have deceived POTUS into making the same mistakes. <a href="https://t.co/jrGTRdWCKK">pic.twitter.com/jrGTRdWCKK</a>
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/1169009668691320833?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">I sincerely hope his leaving the White House does not mean that the deep-state forces at State and Treasury — who have been fighting tooth and nail to preserve the Obama Iran nuclear deal — have finally convinced the president to go soft on Iran.
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/1171489429321437189?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The ramifications of Bolton&#8217;s ouster are potentially tragic. The jihadist regime in Tehran, augmented as it now is, will feel <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-iaea-exclusive/exclusive-iaea-found-uranium-traces-at-iran-atomic-warehouse-diplomats-idUSKCN1VT0L8">even more unrestrained to violate</a> the symbolic tatters of the Iran nuclear deal. Turkey and Saudi Arabia will expedite their nuclear bombmaking processes as part of their efforts to deter these newly unrestrained hegemonic ambitions of the world&#8217;s number one state sponsor of terrorism. Israel will feel increasingly isolated and increasingly willing to take unilateral action against Iranian nuclear facilities. Perhaps most distressingly, the United States has now once again shown — in true Obama-esque fashion — that it is less willing to protect its allies and is less willing to stand manifestly athwart its arch-foes.
Capitulations to genocidal tyrants have a long historical pedigree of working out precisely against the capitulators&#8217; expressed interests. Just ask Neville Chamberlain.
A U.S. official with direct knowledge of the situation was exasperated by Bolton&#8217;s firing, exclusively telling The Daily Wire: &#8220;Trump is so thirsty for a meeting with Iran. It&#8217;s embarrassing. He was told that Iran will meet with him, but only if he throws Bolton under the bus. Bolton found out first and resigned so he could go out on his own terms. The worry is that now Trump has no one to save him from himself.&#8221;
Spot-on. Bad, bad, bad Trump.

Rouhani&#8217;s photo set behind image of weapons in Iran

HAMMER: BAD TRUMP: President’s Dismissal Of John Bolton Is A Capitulation To Terrorist Iranian Regime

Conservatism

Donald Trump

John Bolton

Radical Islam

Radical Islamic Terror

Republican Party

On Tuesday, Iranian officials asserted that the theocratic terror-supporting regime in Iran could produce 20% uranium in two days or less.
Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, boasted, &#8220;If Iran decides, it can have 20% enriched fuel within one to two days.&#8221; He added, &#8220;If the signatory states to the nuclear deal delay selling the 20% (enriched nuclear) fuel, it is Iran&#8217;s right to provide its needed fuel,&#8221; according to the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-says-it-can-resume-20-uranium-enrichment-in-days-if-no-economic-relief/">Times of Israel,</a> which added, &#8220;Uranium needs to be enriched to 90% to be used in a nuclear weapon and 20% purity is considered an important benchmark toward reaching weapons grade level.&#8221;
On Monday, Kamalvandi stated, &#8220;Iran&#8217;s uranium stockpile is on the rise and its heavy water equipment are working with full capacity,&#8221; according to <a href="https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-threatens-to-further-reduce-its-commitments-under-nuclear-deal/30093623.html">Radio Farda</a>. He added, &#8220;With the continuation of the inaction of the Europeans in carrying out their commitments [to the nuclear deal] &#8230; Iran will take a third step [in reducing commitments] in approximately one month,&#8221; as <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/456232-iran-warns-of-more-nuclear-steps-if-europeans-dont-act">The Hill</a> reported. The Hill noted, &#8220;Kamalvandi did not specify what Iran&#8217;s next violation would be, but Tehran warned last month it could reactivate centrifuge machines and ramp up enrichment of uranium even further.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7421775/Irans-Rouhani-rules-bilateral-talks-US.html">The Daily Mail</a> noted that the 2015 nuclear deal that Great Britain, China, France, Russia, Germany and the United States reached with Iran which President Trump exited in 2018 stated that Iran is permitted to enrich fuel by 3.67%, but a U.N. watchdog warned that Iran is already enriching uranium up to 4.5%.
Also on Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blustered, &#8220;In principle, we don&#8217;t want bilateral talks with the United States. If the United States lifts all sanctions, it would be possible to talk (with them) during 5+1 meetings as in the past.&#8221;
Last May, according to the Iranian state-run IRNA news agency, Kamalvandi <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47504/iran-quadruples-its-uranium-enrichment-capacity-hank-berrien">announced</a> that Iran had quadrupled its uranium-enrichment production capacity, saying, &#8220;We will soon be crossing the 300-kg limit in several weeks.&#8221; He added, &#8220;Iran can resume 20 percent enrichment within four days. Whether to conduct the 20-percent enrichment in Natanz or in Fordow is a question that needs to be considered by the Committee to Monitor and Supervise Implementation of the JCPOA at the Iranian Supreme National Security Council.&#8221;
Richard Nephew, a senior research scholar at Columbia University&#8217;s Center on Global Energy Policy, said, &#8220;The comparison here is they were already going 55 miles per hour and heading towards a busted bridge. And so what the AEOI is saying is that they threw a brick on the accelerator. They would have eventually breached the threshold. What they&#8217;re saying today is they are deliberately and intentionally trying to breach the threshold faster.&#8221;
Two weeks before that, The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/us/politics/iran-nuclear-deal.html?smid=tw-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur">New York Times </a>reported:
<blockquote>Mr. Rouhani said that starting on Wednesday, Iran would begin to build up its stockpiles of low enriched uranium and of heavy water, which is used in nuclear reactors — including a reactor that could give Iran a source of bomb-grade plutonium. If the Europeans fail to compensate for the unilateral American sanctions, he said, Iran will resume construction of the Arak nuclear reactor, a facility that was shut down, and its key components dismantled, under the deal. Mr. Rouhani then threatened a potentially more severe step. If the Europeans do not find a way to help Iran &#8220;reap our benefits,&#8221; especially in petroleum exports and banking transactions, in 60 days Iran will end the limits on the enrichment of uranium, he said.</blockquote>

NUCLEAR-IRAN-US-SANCTIONS-ECONOMY-DIPLOMACY

Iran Threatens: We Can Produce 20% Uranium In Two Days Or Less

Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election on Nov. 8, 2016. Badly. In the Electoral College count, the final tally was 304-227 in favor of President Donald Trump.
But she just won&#8217;t go away. Worse, the mainstream media just won&#8217;t stop covering every silly word that comes out of her mouth.
On Monday, Axios, a liberal online publication, headlined a story &#8220;Scoop: Trump suggested nuking hurricanes to stop them from hitting U.S.&#8221; The &#8220;scoop&#8221; said Trump wanted to use nuclear bombs &#8220;to stop hurricanes from hitting the United States, according to sources who have heard the president&#8217;s private remarks and been briefed on a National Security Council memorandum that recorded those comments.&#8221;
It wasn&#8217;t long before Clinton weighed in.
“We should not nuke hurricanes,” the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee wrote on Twitter.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">We should not nuke hurricanes.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1165995811806879750?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 26, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Clinton&#8217;s comment gave mainstream media more opportunity to run the Axios story, which has not a single named source or document to support the claim that Trump wanted to nuke hurricanes.
<blockquote>During one hurricane briefing at the White House, Trump said, &#8220;I got it. I got it. Why don&#8217;t we nuke them?&#8221; according to one source who was there. &#8220;They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they&#8217;re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can&#8217;t we do that?&#8221; the source added, paraphrasing the president&#8217;s remarks.</blockquote>
Then Axios added this quote, again from the unnamed source: &#8220;The briefer &#8216;was knocked back on his heels,&#8217; the source in the room added. &#8216;You could hear a gnat fart in that meeting. People were astonished. After the meeting ended, we thought, &#8216;What the f&#8212;? What do we do with this?&#8217; &#8221;
Axios cites another source (unnamed, of course) saying at another time, Trump asked about bombing hurricanes to break up their rotation but didn&#8217;t mention nukes that time.
Trump, in France attending the G7 summit, dismissed the story as &#8220;FAKE NEWS!&#8221;
“The story by Axios that President Trump wanted to blow up large hurricanes with nuclear weapons prior to reaching shore is ridiculous,” Trump tweeted from the Group of Seven summit in France. “I never said this. Just more FAKE NEWS!”
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">The story by Axios that President Trump wanted to blow up large hurricanes with nuclear weapons prior to reaching shore is ridiculous. I never said this. Just more FAKE NEWS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1165918301932916736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 26, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
In the article&#8217;s final five paragraphs, the writers say &#8220;the notion that detonating a nuclear bomb over the eye of a hurricane could be used to counteract convection currents dates to the Eisenhower era, when it was floated by a government scientist.&#8221;
They also note that detonating a nuclear bomb anywhere would be in violation of the terms of the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union.

Hillary Clinton

Clinton Takes Powerful Stance: &#8216;We Should Not Nuke Hurricanes&#8217;

On Sunday, the news outlet Axios <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes-97231f38-2394-4120-a3fa-8c9cf0e3f51c.html">reported</a> that President Donald Trump had allegedly asked aides why a hurricane couldn’t be stopped with a nuclear bomb.
Using anonymous sources, Axios reporters Jonathan Swan and Margaret Talev reported that Trump made the suggestion during a hurricane briefing at the White House:
<blockquote>Trump said, &#8220;I got it. I got it. Why don&#8217;t we nuke them?&#8221; according to one source who was there. &#8220;They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they&#8217;re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can&#8217;t we do that?&#8221; the source added, paraphrasing the president&#8217;s remarks.</blockquote>
This source also claimed the person briefing Trump on hurricanes suggested he’d look into that and that he was “knocked back on his heels.” This source also said people in the room were shocked at the president’s alleged suggestion.
“You could hear a gnat fart in that meeting. People were astonished. After the meeting ended, we thought, &#8216;What the f&#8212;? What do we do with this?'&#8221; the source told Axios.
A 2017 National Security Council memo also suggested such a conversation took place, according to Axios. That memo talked about multiple topics but included a note about Trump talking about bombing hurricanes.
Axios included a statement from another anonymous senior administration official that told the outlet, “We don&#8217;t comment on private discussions that the president may or may not have had with his national security team.&#8221; Another anonymous official told the outlet that “alarm bells weren&#8217;t going off when I heard about it, but I did think somebody is going to use this to feed into &#8216;the president is crazy&#8217; narrative.&#8221;
On Monday morning, Trump tweeted that the story was “fake news.”
“The story by Axios that President Trump wanted to blow up large hurricanes with nuclear weapons prior to reaching shore is ridiculous. I never said this. Just more FAKE NEWS!” Trump wrote.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">The story by Axios that President Trump wanted to blow up large hurricanes with nuclear weapons prior to reaching shore is ridiculous. I never said this. Just more FAKE NEWS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1165918301932916736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 26, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Axios’ article also included a section stating that nuking hurricanes is not a novel idea and that National Geographic published <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/11/hurricanes-weather-history-nuclear-weapons/">an article</a> about the idea shortly after Trump won the 2016 election. The NatGeo article laid out the history of why the idea was a bad one, including the fact that it would be banned under the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty.
NatGeo also wrote that the idea dated back to 1961 and that “every year for the past six decades, government agencies have received missives from concerned citizens, urging preemptive attacks against hurricanes using nuclear weapons.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration even has a web page <a href="http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html">debunking the idea</a>, which is apparently another one of those myths that just won’t die. The page states that exploding a nuke in a hurricane “might not even alter the storm,” and that the bomb would release “radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems.”
Likewise, nuking tropical waves or depressions to stop them from becoming hurricanes would not work either, since there is no way to tell which ones will form into a hurricane.

Nuclear Bomb

Report Claims Trump Suggested Sending Nukes Into Hurricanes. Trump Responds.

Sometimes, there are mild caves. Sometimes, there are moderate caves. And sometimes, there are full-on capitulations. This is the latter-most.
By reportedly <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/trump-hold-tightening-limits-iran-s-nuclear-work-n1037026">preparing</a> — <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/03/politics/us-iran-nuclear-waivers/index.html">yet again</a> — to issue waivers for foreign nations to collaborate in the solidification of Iran&#8217;s ostensibly &#8220;civil&#8221; nuclear program, the Trump administration is now set to fully capitulate to the forces of fundamentalist, genocidal jihadist evil. Deep state lackeys within the infamously anti-Israel/pro-Arabist Foggy Bottom bureaucracy have apparently <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/30/trump-iran-nuclear-waivers-1441065">teamed up with</a> Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to deny National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a signature victory — and, in so doing, have laid the groundwork for the Trump administration to catastrophically walk back its erstwhile hardline anti-waiver rhetoric and embarrass the White House&#8217;s counter-jihadism deterrence credibility. The result of the continuation of nuclear waivers for Iran, over a year after the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/30392/watch-trump-just-shredded-iran-deal-here-are-5-ben-shapiro">United States &#8220;exited&#8221;</a> President Obama&#8217;s harrowing Iran nuclear deal, is the de facto continuation of that deal for all intents and purposes. That is truly not an exaggeration.
Opposing a nuclear Iran was once a unifying issue on the Right — in March 2015, even more dovish senators such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) signed onto Sen. Tom Cotton&#8217;s (R-AR) <a href="https://www.cotton.senate.gov/?p=press_release&amp;id=120">infamous letter to Ayatollah Khamenei</a> that warned about the non-binding nature of Obama&#8217;s nuclear accord. Now, barely over four years later, a Republican president is set to de facto continue the Iran deal and, for the time being, <a href="https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&amp;id=4610">only one U.S. senator</a> has thus far exhibited the courage to call out the administration&#8217;s perfidy.
Why do Republicans even bother to win elections? At this point, is the sole purpose of the Republican Party — and the conservative movement, at-large — to confirm black-robed denizens to the <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed78.asp">&#8220;least dangerous&#8221; branch</a> in a hopeless attempt to win the Left&#8217;s rigged <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49913/hammer-conservatives-how-much-longer-are-you-josh-hammer">judicial supremacist con</a>?
The Trump administration&#8217;s addiction to the continual doling out of &#8220;civil&#8221; nuclear waivers is utterly indefensible. Iran has one of the most abundant hydrocarbon reserves of any nation in the world. It is gullible in the extreme to believe, as the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">terrorist</a> Iranian mullocracy has posited, that the regime needs &#8220;civil&#8221; nuclear power to supply domestic energy for the <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/07/why-the-iranian-uprising-wont-die-216255">beleaguered</a> Iranian populace. Instead, as Sen. Cruz laudably notes in his <a href="https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&amp;id=4610">condemnatory press release today</a>, &#8220;[t]hese waivers &#8230; allow the Ayatollahs to build up their nuclear program, including at Fordow, a bunker they dug into the side of a mountain so they could build nuclear weapons.&#8221; The entire existence of Iran&#8217;s menacing <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-fordow/iran-says-will-begin-uranium-enrichment-at-fordow-if-nuclear-deal-unravels-idUSKBN1J91KN">facility at Fordow</a>, in addition to its infamous <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/28/iran-restart-activities-arak-nuclear-facility-says-official/">heavy water reactor facility at Arak</a>, belie the notion that Iran&#8217;s nuclear program is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/30045/iran-lied-netanyahu-reveals-israel-smuggled-100000-ben-shapiro">anything other than violent, hegemonic, and (ultimately) genocidal</a> in its jihadist-inspired aims.
Proponents of extending the waivers further <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/trump-hold-tightening-limits-iran-s-nuclear-work-n1037026">argue</a> that the need for diplomatic niceties with the <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2019/03/08/caroline-glick-germanys-love-affair-with-iran-about-more-than-greed/">sycophantic pro-Iran</a> Europeans, coupled with the fear of imposing sanctions on European, Russian, and Chinese firms for their cooperation with Iran on its &#8220;civil&#8221; nuclear program, ought to caution in favor of at least one additional round of a 90-day waiver extension. But this is sophistry hiding itself under a thin veneer of pragmatism. Did the Trump administration actually extricate itself from Obama&#8217;s Iranian nuclear accord? Does the Trump administration wish to affirmatively, beyond any doubt, ensure that the Iranian ayatollahs do not acquire the most lethal forms of weapons known to humanity? If the answers to these questions are &#8220;yes,&#8221; then this is not a particularly close call. Stop empowering jihadist-inspired Shiite fundamentalists <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/iranians-chant-death-to-israel-on-anniversary-of-us-embassy-takeover/">hellbent on committing a second Holocaust</a>. Bolton and Pompeo are right. Mnuchin and the subversive State Department underlings are wrong.
A U.S. official with knowledge of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49313/hammer-inter-agency-fight-white-house-closes-door-josh-hammer">administration&#8217;s internal Iran battle</a> provided the following comment to The Daily Wire: &#8220;The president and Pompeo got left high and dry by their own staffs. For the last month, they&#8217;ve been saying that Iran doesn&#8217;t have any right to nuclear technology — then, the people around them flipped the script at the very last minute. Now they look like they don&#8217;t know what they&#8217;re talking about and aren&#8217;t in control. It&#8217;d be funnier if it weren&#8217;t about Iran building a nuke.&#8221;
The reality is that the Trump administration actually does seem to listen to the voices of conservatives and conservative activists when we raise our voices and attempt to steer the administration in the right direction. Here, the administration&#8217;s reported intention to capitulate yet again to Iran is one perfect example of when a unified and focused conservative movement would be extraordinarily helpful to help keep the White House in line.
But for now, if the reports are true, then shame on the Trump administration.

HAMMER: BAD TRUMP: Administration Would Be Dead Wrong To Once Again Cave On Iran Nuclear Waivers

Mike Pompeo

Steve Mnuchin

Terrorism

According to sources who spoke to The Daily Wire from both inside and outside the administration, the Trump administration will not implement any policy that allows countries to import Iranian oil — thus apparently closing the door on a <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/03/trump-china-iran-oil-1396052">proposal being circulated among State Department hands</a> that would have allowed China to use an obscure legal loophole to avoid U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil imports.
Last Wednesday, Eliana Johnson of Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/03/trump-china-iran-oil-1396052">reported a very interesting scoop</a>: &#8220;The State Department is seriously considering using an Obama-era loophole to allow China to import oil from Iran,&#8221; which would &#8220;violat[e] the Trump administration’s pledge to bring Iranian oil exports to zero.&#8221; Specifically, Johnson cited &#8220;three U.S. officials&#8221; who claimed that the U.S. is considering &#8220;granting China a waiver to a 2012 law [the Iran Freedom and Counterproliferation Act] intended to kneecap the Iranian oil industry.&#8221; The proposal would have effectively allowed China to avoid paying directly for Iranian oil while nonetheless still acquiring it.
For close observers of the Trump administration&#8217;s foreign policy and national security apparatus, this might have seemed more than a little strange. Why would this administration, which famously removed the U.S. from the harrowing capitulation to fundamentalist jihadist evil that was President Barack Obama&#8217;s Iran nuclear deal and has infamous Iran hawk John Bolton as its national security advisor, undercut the thrust of its own <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2019/04/29/trump-ends-waiver-grace-period-for-irans-oil-customers/">hardline Iran oil waivers policy</a> by granting an obscure legal loophole to the U.S.&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47057/hammer-china-americas-greatest-21st-century-threat-josh-hammer">number one 21st century geopolitical threat</a>?
To be sure, Politico almost assuredly did not get the story wrong. Rather, leakers in the famously Arabist/anti-Israel State Department bureaucracy were likely candid about internal deliberations in Foggy Bottom.
But reading Johnson&#8217;s scoop, one is forced to ponder the distinct possibility that the State Department could be wildly out of line with administration officials in and around the White House national security apparatus. Sure enough, a senior Trump administration official contacted by The Daily Wire categorically ruled out implementation of any proposal that would grant the Chinese such a waiver for Iranian oil imports.
&#8220;There will be no waivers issued to any country for the import of Iranian oil, in accordance with the President’s direction,&#8221; the senior administration official stated. &#8220;Importing Iranian oil is a sanctionable activity under U.S. law. U.S. secondary sanctions will be fully enforced.&#8221;
Well.
This is what a brutal inter-agency fight looks like. Hawkish Iran hardliners in the administration are battling — quite publicly now, as of this writing&#8217;s publication — with dovish State Department mandarins.
Contacted by The Daily Wire, a U.S. official familiar with the inter-agency Trump administration battle over Iranian oil waivers put it bluntly: &#8220;The president is under enormous pressure to give Iran a face-saving off-ramp and look the other way at sanctions busting. The Europeans and their friends inside the administration are selling him the delusion that the ayatollah is ready to make a deal, if only he&#8217;ll bribe Iran with a few hundred million dollars. It hasn&#8217;t worked yet. They&#8217;re still trying.&#8221;
This will be a fascinating inter-agency fight to watch unfold. Iran hawks have a very clear rooting interest — and it is surely not with the State Department. Suffice it to say there is no world whatsoever in which China ought to be granted any waivers at all for importing Iranian oil.

HAMMER: INTER-AGENCY FIGHT: White House Closes Door On Plan To Give China ‘Get-Out-Of-Jail’ Free Card For Iran Oil

National Security

Politico

State Department

Trump Administration

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), arguably the single most authentically pro-Israel elected politician in America, has long been hard-nosed and hawkish on the uniquely evil threat posed by the radical terror mullocracy governing the Islamic Republic of Iran. As I <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43151/hammer-ted-cruzs-non-interventionist-hawk-foreign-josh-hammer">noted</a> back in February, here is how Cruz recently put it in an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jR2DTXJKVo">important foreign policy address</a> delivered to the American Enterprise Institute:
<blockquote>
If we ever discover the Ayatollah is on the verge of getting nuclear weapons, and I believe his ambitions will continue to be doing just that, we should be prepared to use crushing military force to make sure that doesn&#8217;t happen. Military force to destroy their nuclear capacity &#8212; that should be our objective. Why? Because that is what our national interest is. To prevent an Ayatollah who chants &#8220;death to America&#8221; and &#8220;death to Israel&#8221; from ever having weapons capable of murdering in a flash of light millions of American souls.
</blockquote>
Cruz&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43151/hammer-ted-cruzs-non-interventionist-hawk-foreign-josh-hammer">&#8220;non-interventionist hawk&#8221;</a> foreign policy profile prioritizes the blistering aggression of counter-jihadism when need be &#8212; while also prudently resisting American resources getting sucked into sharia tribal warfare in third-world backwaters, so that our military and social capital may be conserved for truly necessary military exercises.
The threat posed by Iran, which is the world&#8217;s number one state sponsor of cultivated and exported jihadism, meets any definition of a serious geopolitical threat posed to American interests. And as The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45883/senate-hawks-push-white-house-stop-extending-josh-hammer">reported</a> in April, Cruz recently found himself allied with fellow Iran hawks Tom Cotton (R-AR), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and a small handful of other Republican senators, as well as National Security Advisor John Bolton, on the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-11/fresh-u-s-divide-on-iran-emerges-over-expiring-nuclear-waivers">issue of fully ending waivers</a> for Iran&#8217;s allegedly &#8220;civil&#8221; nuclear research program. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, at the time, was opposed to the Cruz-led push to once and for all end waivers for Iran&#8217;s civil-nuclear research program.
At the time, Cruz helped craft a letter, a copy of which The Daily Wire obtained from a Republican staffer, that urged the Trump administration to take four concrete steps: (1) once and for all end all U.S. implementation of the Iran deal by refusing to reissue waivers permitting civil nuclear work, (2) urge the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to reopen its file on the possible military dimensions of Iran&#8217;s nuclear program, (3) properly designate all Iranian entities named in the Israeli government&#8217;s previously seized nuclear archive from Tehran, and (4) explicitly reference the <a href="http://urges the Trump Administration to take four concrete steps: (1) once and for all end all U.S. implementation of the Iran deal by refusing to reissue waivers permitting civil nuclear work, (2) urge the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to reopen its file on the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program, (3) properly designate all Iranian entities named in the Israeli government's previously seized nuclear archive from Tehran, and (4) explicitly reference the aforementioned nuclear archive in the Trump Administration's upcoming report to Congress on &quot;Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments.&quot;">aforementioned nuclear archive</a> in the Trump administration&#8217;s upcoming report to Congress on &#8220;Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments.&#8221;
Now, Cruz has a new proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would codify this termination of Iran&#8217;s civil-nuclear waivers into law. The proposed amendment, a copy of which The Daily Wire has also obtained, would formally amend the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act of 2012 to end waivers and finally impose sanctions on Iran&#8217;s &#8220;civil&#8221; nuclear sector.
This is common sense policy, pure and simple. Iran, which has one of the world&#8217;s largest oil reserves, has no need whatsoever for a &#8220;civil&#8221; nuclear program. Instead, it is far more likely that the &#8220;civil&#8221; program is being used to hoodwink and bamboozle easily duped Westerners into inadvertently supporting the terrorist regime&#8217;s nuclear weapon ambitions.
&#8220;Sen. Cruz believes that it&#8217;s long past time to fully tear up the catastrophic Obama Iran nuclear deal, including by making Iran&#8217;s nuclear program off-limits to the international community through the sector-based designation described in his amendment,&#8221; a Cruz spokesman told The Daily Wire. &#8220;He has also called upon the Trump administration to take steps that would reinforce this measure, including ending civil-nuclear waivers that allow Iran to build up its program and invoking the snapback provision in United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 to restore international sanctions.&#8221;
While the amendment&#8217;s chances of being adopted into the NDAA may be slim, this is nonetheless a move that ought to be unambiguously applauded. Conservative Iran hawks ought to be thankful, yet again, for Cruz&#8217;s leadership on the issue of preventing a nuclear Iran.

Ted Cruz Proposes Important Amendment To Finally End Iran’s Civil-Nuclear Waivers

Marco Rubio

Ted Cruz

Tom Cotton

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again sounded the alarm on the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47905/hamas-admits-it-receives-arms-and-money-irans-josh-hammer">uniquely venomous</a> threat posed by the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">terrorist mullocracy</a> that governs Iran. In sharp and overt language that stands in pointed contrast to the ham-handed obfuscations of many less morally righteous figures of the political Left, Netanyahu spoke of how Iran seeks to build an &#8220;arsenal of nuclear bombs.&#8221;
Per <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-tehran-working-toward-arsenal-of-nuclear-bombs/">The Times of Israel</a>:
<blockquote>
Iran is actively trying to obtain an &#8220;arsenal of nuclear bombs,&#8221; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday, amid ongoing tensions between the Islamic Republic and the US after the unraveling of the 2015 landmark nuclear deal.
&#8220;It&#8217;s very clear Iran is lying. Iran is continuing to work toward an arsenal of nuclear bombs, and we&#8217;re committed to stop it,&#8221; he said during a meeting with Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director-general at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Heinonen, in a series of interviews and lectures this week, repeatedly accused Iran of violating its commitments under the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The Islamic Republic would be theoretically be able to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon within six to eight months, he said, though building an actual bomb would take longer.
&#8220;Thank you for your forthright analysis and your clear-cut conclusion. I thank you for pointing out what Iran is doing,&#8221; Netanyahu told the Finnish-born scientist at the Prime Minister&#8217;s Office in Jerusalem.
</blockquote>
As the Times further notes, last year Netanyahu, on the eve of President Donald Trump&#8217;s ultimate removal of the United States from the harrowing capitulation to fundamentalist jihadist evil known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (i.e., Iran nuclear deal), unveiled a stunning Israeli Mossad intelligence operation that revealed the depths of Tehran&#8217;s decade-long commitment to assembling nuclear weaponry. &#8220;Last year, Mossad agents smuggled out some 100,000 documents on 55,000 pages on 183 CDs from an unmarked Tehran warehouse,&#8221; the outlet stated. &#8220;According to Israeli officials, the documents proved that the Islamic Republic had actively worked on building a nuclear weapon, something Tehran has always denied and continues to deny.&#8221;
Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/30045/iran-lied-netanyahu-reveals-israel-smuggled-100000-ben-shapiro">opined</a>, at the time, on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu&#8217;s dramatic revelation of the Mossad intelligence:
<blockquote>
According to Netanyahu, Iran had a comprehensive program, Project Amad, to design and develop nuclear weapons, and they have now disassembled the program for later reassembly. The specific goal of Project Amad: designing nuclear weapons; developing nuclear cores; preparing nuclear implosions; preparing nuclear tests; integrating nuclear warheads on missiles. Iran devised a plan after the beginning of the Second Gulf War to further develop its nuclear weapons program in secret &#8212; and to form new organizations to continue the work of Project Amad. Today, Netanyahu said, the work was carried out inside the Iranian Defense Ministry, and many of Amad&#8217;s key personnel continued to work on the project. The Iranians did not declare their program to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran instead denied the existence of a program and specifically denied the Amad plan.
This presentation was undoubtedly carried out with the knowledge of the United States; Netanyahu said that the information had been shared with the United States.
</blockquote>
Netanyahu&#8217;s moral clarity is a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45868/hammer-after-much-electoral-fanfare-israelis-once-josh-hammer">unique hallmark</a> of his statesmanship.

Iran Is Seeking An ‘Arsenal Of Nuclear Bombs,’ Netanyahu Says

Benjamin Netanyahu

As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42632/iranian-nuclear-chief-again-confirms-iran-josh-hammer">reported</a> back in January, the Iranian nuclear chief confirmed that the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">terrorist mullocracy that rules Iran</a> flagrantly violated the terms of the harrowing capitulation to fundamentalist jihadist evil known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (i.e., the &#8220;Iran nuclear deal&#8221;). As the Middle East Media Research Institute, which is committed to translating into English otherwise-hidden primary source material from the Arab and Muslim world, <a href="https://www.memri.org/tv/iranian-atomic-energy-chief-ali-akbar-salehi-secret-purchase-nuclear-tubes-jcpoa-destroy-yellowcake-propulsion-arak-reactor/transcript">reported</a> at the time:
<blockquote>
Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, was interviewed on Channel 4 TV (Iran) on January 22, 2019. He said that the negotiations surrounding the JCPOA had required Iran to destroy the Arak reactor&#8217;s calandria by filling it with cement, but that Iran had secretly acquired replacement tubes ahead of time so that the reactor&#8217;s functionality would not be ultimately affected. He also said that pictures that had circulated that showed the Arak reactor&#8217;s pit filled with cement had been photoshopped. He explained that Iran has no intention to build a nuclear weapon, and that the Arak reactor is nonetheless incapable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. In addition, Salehi said that the yellowcake production facilities in Ardakan are operational and that Iran has been authorized to produce two additional IR-8 centrifuges. Salehi added that Iran has advanced rapidly in the field of nuclear propulsion.
</blockquote>
Now, a former deputy head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is the United Nations&#8217; nuclear watchdog agency, is sounding the alarm by stating that Iran &#8212; even four years after the U.S., under then-President Barack Obama, entered into the purportedly tension-defusing nuclear agreement with Tehran &#8212; has a nuclear breakout time today of only six to eight months. Per <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-could-make-nuclear-weapon-in-6-8-months-says-former-iaea-deputy/">The Times of Israel</a>:
<blockquote>
A former deputy head of the UN&#8217;s atomic watchdog said Wednesday that Iran is capable of producing a nuclear bomb in six to eight months.
In an interview with Israel&#8217;s Army Radio, Olli Heinonen said that Israel and the Gulf states &#8220;have a reason to worry.&#8221;
Heinonen said that despite assertions to the contrary by the current leadership of the UN&#8217;s International Atomic Energy Agency, which he left in 2010, Tehran has not been adhering to the 2015 nuclear deal.
&#8220;Iran is actually weaponizing uranium enrichment without making a weapon,&#8221; he claimed.
</blockquote>
President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, shortly after Israel&#8217;s stunning revelation of a Mossad intelligence operation that revealed the extent of Iran&#8217;s decades-long commitment to acquiring nuclear weapons. Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/30045/iran-lied-netanyahu-reveals-israel-smuggled-100000-ben-shapiro">opined</a>, at the time, on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu&#8217;s revelation of the intelligence:
<blockquote>
According to Netanyahu, Iran had a comprehensive program, Project Amad, to design and develop nuclear weapons, and they have now disassembled the program for later reassembly. The specific goal of Project Amad: designing nuclear weapons; developing nuclear cores; preparing nuclear implosions; preparing nuclear tests; integrating nuclear warheads on missiles. Iran devised a plan after the beginning of the Second Gulf War to further develop its nuclear weapons program in secret &#8212; and to form new organizations to continue the work of Project Amad. Today, Netanyahu said, the work was carried out inside the Iranian Defense Ministry, and many of Amad&#8217;s key personnel continued to work on the project. The Iranians did not declare their program to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran instead denied the existence of a program and specifically denied the Amad plan.
This presentation was undoubtedly carried out with the knowledge of the United States; Netanyahu said that the information had been shared with the United States.
</blockquote>

Former U.N. Deputy: Iran Could Make Nuclear Bomb In Six To Eight Months

United Nations

Today, a stunning <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-obama-tells-iran-dont-escalate-dont-take-trumps-bait">report</a> in the Daily Beast reveals the depths to which the sycophantic pro-Iran capitulators of the Barack Obama foreign policy apparatus continue to sink to support the terrorist regime that remains the world&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">number one state sponsor</a> of jihadist exportation.
In unusual journalistic fashion, the Daily Beast anonymously quotes many former Obama administration officials throughout the piece &#8212; thus lending cover to those who would openly collude with a brazen American geopolitical foe against the interests of the American people.
Per the Daily Beast:
<blockquote>
As the Trump administration sent warplanes and an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, a small group of former Obama administration officials reached out to their contacts in the Iranian government, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Their message to Iran: Don&#8217;t take Trump&#8217;s bait. Stay calm.
Conversations between former Obama officials and Iranian government officials have been ongoing since November 2016. Zarif, who visits the U.S. every year for the U.N. General Assembly in New York, usually meets with lawmakers, think tanks, journalists, and former officials when he is in town.
But the recent round of conversations, which took place over the phone and in person over the last two months, came as lines of communication between the U.S. and Iran, through intermediaries in Europe and elsewhere, deteriorated.
</blockquote>
The Daily Beast further noted how the Obama officials seem to have a clear motive: Discerning whether the possibility exists of the U.S. re-entering a new Iran nuclear deal in a post-President Donald Trump world. &#8220;Separately, some former Obama officials are trying to keep the roots of the Iran nuclear deal alive by taking the pulse of lawmakers on Capitol Hill to gauge whether they are in favor of restarting talks in the future,&#8221; the outlet stated.
Conservative, anti-Iran national security hands had a field day with the report.
Omri Ceren, national security advisor for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), tweeted: &#8220;Former Obama officials have been working with Iran and friends on the Hill to isolate the Trump admin. Their most recent contacts were a couple weeks ago. They told [the Daily Beast] that them secretly talking to Iran is &#8216;normal.'&#8221;
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Former Obama officials have been working with Iran and friends on the Hill to isolate the Trump admin. Their most recent contacts were a couple weeks ago. They told <a href="https://twitter.com/thedailybeast?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@thedailybeast</a> that them secretly talking to Iran is &#8220;normal&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/OcenW1KuMq">https://t.co/OcenW1KuMq</a>
&#8212; Omri Ceren (@omriceren) <a href="https://twitter.com/omriceren/status/1134431729983328259?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 31, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Foreign policy consultant Jason Epstein tweeted: &#8220;I&#8217;m old enough to remember when war veteran Tom Cotton and his GOP colleagues were cursed as &#8216;traitors&#8217; for merely penning a letter to Khamenei explaining how the Senate worked.&#8221;
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I&#8217;m old enough to remember when war veteran Tom Cotton and his GOP colleagues were cursed as &#8220;traitors&#8221; for merely penning a letter to Khamenei explaining how the Senate worked. <a href="https://t.co/fmfh0mBpH2">https://t.co/fmfh0mBpH2</a>
&#8212; (((Jason Epstein))) (@Southfive) <a href="https://twitter.com/Southfive/status/1134435072176734208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 31, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Epstein was referring to Cotton&#8217;s decision to spearhead a <a href="https://www.cotton.senate.gov/?p=press_release&amp;id=120">March 2015 letter</a> sent, on behalf of 47 total U.S. senators, to the terrorist-supporting ruling mullahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Quite presciently, the letter noted how the Iran nuclear deal, structured as it was as an &#8220;executive agreement,&#8221; could easily be altered or terminated in the future.
&#8220;The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time,&#8221; the letter read. &#8220;We hope this letter enriches your knowledge of our constitutional system and promotes mutual understanding and clarity as nuclear negotiations progress,&#8221; it concluded.

Obama’s Pro-Iran Echo Chamber Still Secretly Talks With Terrorist Regime And Insists It’s ‘Normal’

Washington, D.C. is a town not exactly known for its common sense. So when a notable political figure in the nation&#8217;s capital takes it upon himself to defy the mealy-mouthed bipartisan consensus and bluntly state the unvarnished truth, it can be refreshing.
The most recent instance of this phenomenon is National Security Advisor John Bolton, who just this week made headlines for a seemingly non-headline-worthy event: Confirming that the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">terrorist regime</a> that governs the Islamic Republic of Iran is, despite <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/obama-official-says-he-pushed-a-narrative-to-media-to-sell-the-iran-nuclear-deal/2016/05/06/5b90d984-13a1-11e6-8967-7ac733c56f12_story.html">willful leftist obfuscations</a> to the contrary, in the pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Per <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/05/29/john-bolton-accuses-iran-seeking-nuclear-arms/1268126001/">USA Today</a>:
<blockquote>
Donald Trump&#8217;s national security adviser said Wednesday there was &#8220;no reason&#8221; for Iran to back out of its nuclear deal with world powers other than to seek atomic weapons, a year after the U.S. president unilaterally withdrew America from the accord &#8230;
Bolton said that without more nuclear power plants, it made no sense for Iran to stockpile more low-enriched uranium as it now plans to do. But the U.S. also earlier cut off Iran&#8217;s ability to sell its uranium to Russia in exchange for unprocessed yellow-cake uranium.
Iran has set a July 7 deadline for Europe to offer better terms to the unraveling nuclear deal, otherwise it will resume enrichment closer to weapons level.
Bolton declined to say what the U.S. would do in response to that but he criticized Iran&#8217;s actions.
&#8220;There&#8217;s no reason for them to do any of that unless that&#8217;s part of an effort to reduce the breakout time to produce nuclear weapons,&#8221; Bolton said. &#8220;That&#8217;s a very serious issue if they continue to do that.&#8221; &#8230;
&#8220;This is just more graphic evidence that it hasn&#8217;t constrained their continuing desire to have nuclear weapons,&#8221; Bolton added. &#8220;It certainly hasn&#8217;t reduced their terrorist activities in the region that we just discussed or their other malign behavior in their use of conventional forces.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Omri Ceren, national security advisor to Bolton&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43151/hammer-ted-cruzs-non-interventionist-hawk-foreign-josh-hammer">fellow Iran hawk</a> Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), sarcastically tweeted: &#8220;Take a moment and ponder how dumb our foreign policy debate has become. Iran got caught with blueprints for nuclear weapons and the response from DC&#8217;s best &amp; brightest continues to be &#8216;well, we can&#8217;t really tell if they want nukes []!.'&#8221;
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Take a moment and ponder how dumb our foreign policy debate has become. Iran got caught with blueprints for nuclear weapons and the response from DC&#8217;s best &amp; brightest continues to be &#8220;well, we can&#8217;t really tell if they want nukes []!&#8221;
Clarity &#8211;&gt; <a href="https://t.co/28M44CAecn">https://t.co/28M44CAecn</a>
&#8212; Omri Ceren (@omriceren) <a href="https://twitter.com/omriceren/status/1133713542924906496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 29, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Although many foreign policy doves may look askance at Bolton, Washington Free Beacon Editor in Chief Matthew Continetti recently <a href="https://freebeacon.com/columns/peace-fever/">made a persuasive argument</a> that Bolton&#8217;s recent anti-Iran rhetoric and posturing is actually exactly what those in the pro-peace camp ought to hope for:
<blockquote>
[Iran&#8217;s recent behavior] isn&#8217;t diplomacy. It&#8217;s nuclear blackmail. And it&#8217;s a sign of desperation. The Iranians are in a box. U.S. sanctions are crushing the economy, but if they leave the agreement with Europe they will be back to square one. To escape the box you try to punch your way out. That&#8217;s why Iran has assumed a threatening posture: Provoking an American attack could bolster waning domestic support for the regime and divide the Western alliance.
America faces a challenging international environment, with trouble spots in Venezuela, North Korea, China, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. The breadth and depth of the crises requires dispassionate analysis and prudent judgment. It also requires us to remember the differences between deterrence, retaliatory strikes, and regime change and ground invasion. Only the first two things are under consideration, as Iran&#8217;s behavior in the Middle East grows worse. Guess what: We&#8217;ve got a peace fever. And the only prescription is more Bolton.
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As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/30045/iran-lied-netanyahu-reveals-israel-smuggled-100000-ben-shapiro">dramatically unveiled last year</a> by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, following a staggering Israeli Mossad intelligence operation in Tehran, it has been confirmed that Iran has long had an illicit nuclear weapons program.

John Bolton: Yes, Obviously Iran Is Seeking Nuclear Weapons

The United States may be on the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46807/trump-sends-clear-and-unmistakable-message-iran-ryan-saavedra">seeming precipice of war</a> with the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">jihad-exporting</a> terrorist regime that has governed the Islamic Republic of Iran since the fateful Islamic Revolution of 1979, but apparently that hasn&#8217;t stopped the notoriously <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2018/08/08/sen-dianne-feinsteins-ties-china-go-way-deeper-alleged-office-spy/">authoritarian regime-friendly</a> Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) from recently meeting with infamous Iranian regime mouthpiece Mohammad Javad Zarif &#8212; foreign minister for the terrorist mullocracy.
Per <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2019/05/23/dianne-feinsteins-dinner-with-the-foreign-minister-of-iran-439276">Politico</a>&#8216;s &#8220;Playbook&#8221;:
<blockquote>
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CALIF.) had dinner with IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER JAVAD ZARIF when he was in the United States a few weeks ago, several sources told us. Last week, Playbook reported that Feinstein was walking around the Capitol with Zarif&#8217;s contact information pulled up on her iPhone &#8212; we spotted it in an elevator. 
FEINSTEIN&#8217;S team tells us that the dinner was &#8220;arranged in consultation with the State Department.&#8221; &#8220;The office was in touch with State in advance of the meeting to let them know it was happening and to get an update on U.S.-Iran activity,&#8221; Feinstein&#8217;s office said. A State Department official told us that they did not ask Feinstein to go to the dinner with Zarif, a smooth-talking, American-educated Iranian diplomat who worked on the nuclear deal with John Kerry.
OF COURSE, the United States and Iran are in the middle of a high-wire diplomatic and military staring contest. The United States has moved additional military resources into the region, and has indicated it has intelligence that the Iranians were readying to attack American interests in the region.
</blockquote>
Politico also casually referred to Feinstein&#8217;s &#8220;dining with the foreign minister of an adversary&#8221; as &#8220;a bit unusual.&#8221;
As the Washington Examiner <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/dianne-feinstein-met-with-iranian-foreign-minister-as-us-iran-feud-escalated">notes</a>, Zarif was one of the preeminent public-facing Iranian regime figureheads during the Obama administration&#8217;s negotiations that led to the United States&#8217; entrance in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (i.e., the Iran nuclear deal):
<blockquote>
Zarif was also one of the Iranian officials who met with former Secretary of State John Kerry about salvaging the Iran nuclear deal. This led to accusations by the Trump administration that Kerry violated the Logan Act, a more than 200-year-old law that prohibits unauthorized private citizens from acting on behalf of the U.S. in disputes with foreign governments but has never been used to prosecute anyone.
</blockquote>
The Logan Act routinely comes up in discussions regarding non-presidential governmental figures and foreign government officials, but it is never actually invoked. Conservative commentator and radio host Erick Erickson actually once <a href="https://www.redstate.com/erick/2015/03/10/the-logan-act-is-the-talking-point-of-hacks-and-morons/">referred</a> to it, during the context of the Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)-led Republican senator pushback against the Iran deal, as a &#8220;talking point of hacks and morons&#8221;:
<blockquote>
The Logan Act originated in 1799. Not a single person has ever been convicted under the Logan Act. Ironically, the namesake of the law, George Logan, after compelling John Adams to get the act passed, became a United States Senator. The Logan Act serves mostly as a partisan tool to throw at opponents who dare to contradict a sitting President&#8217;s foreign policy. &#8230;
It&#8217;s a stupid talking point used by unserious people who want to avoid having to deal with the fact that the President of the United States is giving away the farm to Iranians who, given the chance, would gladly kill him, you, me, and everyone complaining about a Logan Act violation.
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Dianne Feinstein Recently Dined With Top Official From Terrorist Iranian Regime, Report Says

Dianne Feinstein

President Trump has <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-biden-iran-nuclear-weapons-fox-news-steve-hilton">warned</a> about Iran&#8217;s determination to pursue nuclear capacity, and it appears he was right on the mark. According to the Iranian state-run IRNA news agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, announced that Iran has quadrupled its uranium-enrichment production capacity, saying, &#8220;We will soon be crossing the 300-kg limit in several weeks.&#8221;
Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/20/iran-ramps-up-uranium-production-throwing-brick-on-the-accelerator.html">told CNBC</a>, &#8220;We are woefully underappreciating the seriousness of this crisis.&#8221; Richard Nephew, a senior research scholar at Columbia University&#8217;s Center on Global Energy Policy, said, &#8220;The comparison here is they were already going 55 miles per hour and heading towards a busted bridge. And so what the AEOI is saying is that they threw a brick on the accelerator. They would have eventually breached the threshold. What they&#8217;re saying today is they are deliberately and intentionally trying to breach the threshold faster.&#8221;
<a href="https://ifpnews.com/exclusive/iran-increases-production-of-low-enriched-uranium-fourfold/">IFP News</a> reported, &#8220;Iran made a nuclear announcement recently in reaction to the United States withdrawal from the nuclear deal on 8 May, 2018. The statement of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran said that the country would reduce nuclear commitments under the framework of 2015 nuclear deal, by evading 300-kg limit on the amount of low-enriched uranium, and also 130-tonne limit for storage of heavy water produced at its Arak facility.&#8221;
Kamalvandi added, &#8220;Iran can resume 20 percent enrichment within four days. Whether to conduct the 20-percent enrichment in Natanz or in Fordow is a question that needs to be considered by the Committee to Monitor and Supervise Implementation of the JCPOA at the Iranian Supreme National Security Council.&#8221;
CNBC noted, &#8220;Though uranium must be enriched to 90% to make weapons, much of the work to reach that tipping point has already been done once uranium is enriched within a range of 3% to 4%.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7052575/Iran-quadruples-production-enriched-uranium.html">The Daily Mail</a> reports that Kamalvandi said Iran enriched its uranium because the Trump administration had eliminated waivers allowing Iran to trade enriched uranium to Russia in return for unprocessed yellowcake uranium, and also derailed Iran selling heavy water to Oman. As the Daily Mail notes, &#8220;Heavy water helps cool reactors producing plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons.
At the rate that Iran is enriching its uranium, the country will soon violate the stockpile limitations set by the Iran nuclear deal, which Europe still clings to but President Trump exited.
With tensions simmering between Iran and the U.S., British Defense Secretary Penny Mordaunt <a href="https://www.thenational.scot/news/17652718.uk-ready-to-help-its-allies-against-iran-defence-secretary-says/">indicated</a> that if a conflict breaks out, the U.K. will stand with the U.S. She noted that the U.K. was &#8220;already deployed in the region, &#8220; adding, &#8220;This is a region where we have a huge stake and a huge amount invested and we are working with our allies and partners to firstly try to de-escalate things in the region but also to truly understand the facts behind recent events.&#8221; Mordaunt also said, &#8220;The United Kingdom shares the United States&#8217;, European and Gulf partners&#8217; concerns about Iran&#8217;s destabilizing activities. We continue to work closely with our allies and partners to mitigate the threats to regional security.&#8221;

New Move By Iran: Accelerating Uranium Enrichment Capacity

As The Daily Wire&#8217;s Kassy Dillon has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46296/trump-administration-seeks-stop-all-countries-kassy-dillon">reported</a>, the Trump administration recently decided to formally end its program of granting sanctions waivers for certain countries to import Iranian oil:
<blockquote>
&#8220;Our goal has been to get countries to cease importing Iranian oil entirely,&#8221; [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo said. &#8220;Last November, we granted exemptions from our sanctions to seven countries and to Taiwan. We did this to give our allies and partners to wean themselves off of Iranian oil, and to assure a well-supplied oil market.&#8221;
Pompeo then announced that no more exemptions would be granted.
&#8220;Today I am announcing that we will no longer grant any exemptions. We&#8217;re going to zero. We&#8217;re going to zero across the board. We will continue to enforce sanctions and monitor compliance, any nation or entity interacting with Iran should do its diligence and air on the side of caution. The risks are simply not going to be worth the benefits.&#8221;
</blockquote>
The ostensible goal of the U.S.&#8217;s doled out oil sanctions waivers had been to stabilize international energy markets. But as The Daily Wire has also reported, many <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45883/senate-hawks-push-white-house-stop-extending-josh-hammer">Iran hawks</a> viewed the waivers as merely a backhanded way of propping up the fanatical anti-American, anti-Israeli regime that oppressively rules Iran.
Pompeo tweeted at the time that the decision was made to phase out the waivers: &#8220;Maximum pressure on the Iranian regime means maximum pressure. That&#8217;s why the U.S. will not issue any exceptions to Iranian oil importers. The global oil market remains well-supplied. We&#8217;re confident it will remain stable as jurisdictions transition away from Iranian crude.&#8221;
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Maximum pressure on the Iranian regime means maximum pressure. That&#8217;s why the U.S. will not issue any exceptions to Iranian oil importers. The global oil market remains well-supplied. We&#8217;re confident it will remain stable as jurisdictions transition away from Iranian crude.
&#8212; Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1120308601913073666?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 22, 2019</a></blockquote>
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But the waivers, which indeed do <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/03/27/ted-cruz-right-united-states-axe-irans-oil-waivers/">merely boost</a> the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/iranians-chant-death-to-israel-on-anniversary-of-us-embassy-takeover/">genocidal</a> <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">jihadist</a> mullocracy that governs Tehran, will still take 90 days to officially phase out. And this morning, noted <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43151/hammer-ted-cruzs-non-interventionist-hawk-foreign-josh-hammer">Iran hawk</a> Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) found himself in a fiery Foreign Relations Committee exchange on the subject with State Department official Andrea Thompson, who serves as undersecretary for arms control and international security.
Jordan Schachtel of Conservative Review neatly <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/watch-sen-ted-cruz-spars-state-dept-bureaucrat-iran-nuke-program/">summarizes</a> the exchange:
<blockquote>
&#8220;How is it possibly in our best interest to allow Iran to continue doing nuclear research in the Fordow bunker that was built into the side of a mountain to be able to develop nuclear weapons to use to murder Americans? How is that in our best interest?&#8221; Cruz asked.
Failing to answer the question, the unelected State Department official responded that &#8220;everyone in this administration will stand for what&#8217;s right for the safety and security of the American people, bar none.&#8221;
Sen. Cruz repeated his question:
&#8220;Is it in our interest to allow Iran to continue to do nuclear research in the Fordow facility?&#8221;
He then received the shocking response from the unelected bureaucrat that the decisions made by the State Department are &#8220;always in the interest of the American people,&#8221; which Sen. Cruz called an &#8220;Orwellian position.&#8221;
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For decades, the State Department has been known as a particularly restive den of anti-Western, pro-Islamist sympathizing. But what is perhaps even more revealing is the supercilious nature of Thompson, who seems to feel that she is too morally enlightened to feel any accountability for her bureaucracy&#8217;s actions &#8212; no matter how deleterious those actions may be to the national interest.
WATCH:
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The <a href="https://twitter.com/StateDept?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@StateDept</a> is allowing <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Iran?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Iran</a> to continue doing research in their nuclear bunker at Fordow, which Iran dug into the side of a mountain to build nuclear weapons. They are unwilling to explain to the American people why they&#8217;re doing it. <a href="https://t.co/j8L2YvPAgI">pic.twitter.com/j8L2YvPAgI</a>
&#8212; Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/1128702255513907201?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Ted Cruz Eviscerates State Department Bureaucrat Over Waivers For Terrorist Iranian Regime

U.S. Senate

On Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani threatened that Iran would start increasing its stock of low enriched uranium and of heavy water, warning that if Europe didn&#8217;t undercut American efforts to isolate Iran, Iran would end limiting its enrichment of uranium.
The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/us/politics/iran-nuclear-deal.html?smid=tw-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur">New York Times </a>reported:
<blockquote>
Mr. Rouhani said that starting on Wednesday, Iran would begin to build up its stockpiles of low enriched uranium and of heavy water, which is used in nuclear reactors &#8212; including a reactor that could give Iran a source of bomb-grade plutonium. If the Europeans fail to compensate for the unilateral American sanctions, he said, Iran will resume construction of the Arak nuclear reactor, a facility that was shut down, and its key components dismantled, under the deal. Mr. Rouhani then threatened a potentially more severe step. If the Europeans do not find a way to help Iran &#8220;reap our benefits,&#8221; especially in petroleum exports and banking transactions, in 60 days Iran will end the limits on the enrichment of uranium, he said.
</blockquote>
Rouhani tweeted on Thursday, &#8220;Starting today, Iran does not keep its enriched uranium and produced heavy water limited. The EU/E3+2 will face Iran&#8217;s further actions if they can not fulfill their obligations within the next 60 days and secure Iran&#8217;s interests. Win-Win conditions will be accepted.&#8221;
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Starting today, Iran does not keep its enriched uranium and produced heavy water limited. The EU/E3+2 will face Iran&#8217;s further actions if they can not fulfill their obligations within the next 60 days and secure Iran&#8217;s interests. Win-Win conditions will be accepted.
&#8212; Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) <a href="https://twitter.com/HassanRouhani/status/1126018907502936065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
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As <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iran-to-take-steps-to-reduce-its-commitment-to-landmark-nuclear-deal/2019/05/07/90cc3b1c-70fe-11e9-9331-30bc5836f48e_story.html?utm_term=.562eb087be35">The Washington Post</a> noted, &#8220;Uranium used as fuel in power plants needs to be enriched only to a low level. However, when it is enriched to much higher levels, it can be used as fissile material in nuclear weapons.&#8221;
Mark Dubowitz, CEO of Foundation for Defense of Democracies, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/07/politics/iran-nuclear-deal-reduce-commitments/index.html">stated</a>, &#8220;The regime in Iran remains committed to nuclear weapons capability. Any Iranian move to expand their nuclear program should be met with the most severe sanctions &#8212; and an unambiguous warning from Washington that all other instruments of American power are available to stop the ayatollahs&#8217; atomic drive.&#8221;
Great Britain&#8217;s junior foreign minister, Mark Field, called the Iranian announcement an &#8220;unwelcome step.&#8221; French Defense Minister Florence Parly <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-sanctions-france/france-wants-to-keep-iran-nuclear-deal-alive-warns-tehran-over-negative-actions-idUSKCN1SE0NP">echoed</a>, &#8220;Today, nothing would be worse than Iran, itself, leaving this accord.&#8221;
Yet European countries have been undermining the United States&#8217; determination to weaken the despotic Iranian regime using sanctions; European and Iranian officials are pushing the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), which undercuts America&#8217;s desire to isolate Iran. Sen. Ted Cruz blistered the Europeans in a <a href="https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&amp;id=4461">statement</a> reading:
<blockquote>
It is unfortunate that our European partners are spending their diplomatic and material capital creating mechanisms that break up American sanctions, rather than siding with us and the Iranian people against the Ayatollahs&#8217; regime. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps dominates entire sectors of the Iranian economy, and there is no such thing as a safe transaction. The United States should be prepared to use all relevant measures, including visa denials and asset forfeitures, to protect the integrity of our sanctions and the maximum pressure campaign, and I will continue to work with the Trump administration and my colleagues to ensure that we do.
</blockquote>
Olli Heinonen, former Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA ) and head of its Department of Safeguards, <a href="https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2019/05/07/iran-faces-difficult-choice-after-u-s-narrows-nuclear-sanctions-waivers/">explained</a> the necessity of the U.S. revoking waivers (which it has done) enabling Iran to ship abroad excess supplies of enriched uranium and heavy water:
<blockquote>
Under the <a href="https://www.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/iran/jcpoa/">terms</a> of what is formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran may stockpile no more than 300 kilograms of low-enriched uranium (LEU), i.e. uranium hexafluoride enriched up to a 3.67 percent concentration of the U-235 isotope, and no more than 130 metric tons of heavy water. Thanks to a waiver that allowed it to export excess LEU to Russia, Iran maintained the option to continue enriching uranium under the JCPOA. A waiver also enabled Iran to ship excess heavy water to Oman for storage, from where it could be sold to foreign customers.
By revoking the waivers, the U.S. is <a href="https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2019/05/291482.htm">pressuring</a> Iran to stop the production of LEU and heavy water. Currently, there is an oversupply of LEU and heavy water in the global marketplace, which means that Iran would be unlikely to find customers even if it were allowed to export these items.
</blockquote>
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has been consulting with Iranian ally Russian President Vladimir Putin; Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin saw &#8220;no alternative&#8221; to the Iran nuclear deal.

Iranian President Warns Europe: Undercut U.S. Or We&#8217;ll Stop Limiting Enrichment Of Uranium

According to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47971164">BBC</a>, the hermit kingdom of North Korea has a somewhat unusual demand for all future denuclearization talks with the United States &#8212; namely, that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not be a part of them. The demand issued from the world&#8217;s last truly <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-korea/north-korean-gulags-terrible-or-even-worse-nazi-camps-auschwitz-n828751">Stalinist gulag state</a> follows Pompeo&#8217;s (accurately) describing North Korean madman dictator last week as a &#8220;tyrant.&#8221;
Per the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47971164">BBC</a>:
<blockquote>
North Korea has demanded the removal of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from nuclear talks, accusing him of &#8220;talking nonsense&#8221; and being &#8220;reckless.&#8221;
A senior foreign ministry official said that further talks would be &#8220;lousy&#8221; if Mr. Pompeo was involved, asking that he be replaced by someone &#8220;more careful.&#8221; &#8230;
Mr. Pompeo visited North Korea four times last year &#8212; including for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Last week, during a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing, Mr. Pompeo was asked if he would agree with descriptions of Mr. Kim as a &#8220;tyrant,&#8221; he then responded: &#8220;Sure, I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;ve said that.&#8221;
This was met with a strong reaction from North Korean foreign ministry official Kwon Jong-gun, who said that Mr. Pompeo &#8220;spouted reckless remarks, hurting the dignity of our supreme leadership&#8230; to unveil his mean character.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Alas, apparently this is too much to handle for the easily aggrieved North Korean dictatorship. According to the BBC report, North Korean foreign ministry official Kwon Jong-gun told Korean Central News Agency that &#8220;[e]ven in the case of possible resumption of dialogue with the U.S., I wish our dialogue counterpart would not be Pompeo but&#8230; [another] person who is more careful and mature in communicating with us.&#8221;
As part of the initial Trump-Kim denuclearization <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/31734/trump-jong-un-sign-document-historic-summit-heres-ryan-saavedra">summit last summer</a> in Singapore, Kim vowed to cease nuclear testing and the launching of new intercontinental ballistic missiles. Alas, The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/world/asia/north-korea-weapons-test.html">reported</a> just this week that Kim defied this vow and tested a new missile.
In February, Trump and Kim met for a second denuclearization summit in Vietnam. As The Daily Wire&#8217;s Ryan Saavedra <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44048/north-korea-summit-falls-apart-heres-what-happened-ryan-saavedra">reported</a> at the time, it did not go according to plan:
<blockquote>
President Donald Trump walked away from the negotiating table with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un on Thursday in Vietnam after Kim reportedly demanded that the U.S. lift all economic sanctions on North Korea without first agreeing to any kind of serious commitment to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
&#8220;Trump said the summit fell through after the North demanded a full removal of U.S.-led international sanctions in exchange for the shuttering of the North&#8217;s Yongbyon nuclear facility,&#8221; Fox News&#8217; Gregg Re reported. &#8220;Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters that the United States wasn&#8217;t willing to make a deal without the North committing to giving up its secretive nuclear facilities outside Yongbyon as well as its missile and warheads program.&#8221; &#8230;
When pressed for details about why the talks fell through at the post-summit news conference, Trump said: &#8220;Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety and we couldn&#8217;t do that. They were willing to de-nuke a large portion of the areas that we wanted, but we couldn&#8217;t give up all of the sanctions for that. So we continue to work and we&#8217;ll see, but we had to walk away from that particular suggestion. We had to walk away from that.&#8221;
</blockquote>

Comical: North Korea Demands Mike Pompeo Be Sidelined From Any Future Nuclear Talks

Kim Jong Un

North Korea

Vietnam

There appears to be an increasingly wide rift developing in Washington between conservative Iran hawks and Iran lesser-hawks. The issue is whether the United States should fully let expire the next batch of oil waivers for the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">fanatical</a> jihadist regime that governs the Islamic Republic of Iran. The rift exposes Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and a small handful of other Republican senators, alongside National Security Advisor John Bolton, on one side, and the institutional U.S. State Department &#8212; embodied by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo &#8212; on the other side.
Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-11/fresh-u-s-divide-on-iran-emerges-over-expiring-nuclear-waivers">reports</a>:
<blockquote>
In a letter to President Donald Trump this week, a group of Republican senators demanded that Secretary of State Michael Pompeo stop letting Iran continue its limited civilian nuclear research program.
At issue are three waivers the Trump administration granted after it withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal last year. They allow Iran to work with nations that remain in the deal at three sites &#8212; Fordow, Bushehr and Arak &#8212; to ensure it doesn&#8217;t seek to enrich uranium to high levels. It&#8217;s part of an effort to limit the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.
In their April 9 letter to Trump, six Republican senators including Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Marco Rubio of Florida argued that the administration shouldn&#8217;t extend the waivers when they expire in early May.
&#8220;There is extensive evidence Iran channeled its nuclear weapons program through civil nuclear projects after 2003,&#8221; the senators wrote. &#8230; They urged the president to &#8220;finally end all U.S. implementation&#8221; of the 2015 deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
</blockquote>
The Daily Wire received a copy of the senators&#8217; letter, courtesy of a Republican staffer. The letter urges the Trump Administration to take four concrete steps: (1) once and for all end all U.S. implementation of the Iran deal by refusing to reissue waivers permitting civil nuclear work, (2) urge the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to reopen its file on the possible military dimensions of Iran&#8217;s nuclear program, (3) properly designate all Iranian entities named in the Israeli government&#8217;s previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/30045/iran-lied-netanyahu-reveals-israel-smuggled-100000-ben-shapiro">seized nuclear archive</a> from Tehran, and (4) explicitly reference the aforementioned nuclear archive in the Trump Administration&#8217;s upcoming report to Congress on &#8220;Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments.&#8221;
At least on issue (2), it seems like the senators may be fighting an uphill battle. As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44212/classic-iaea-head-says-he-can-not-speak-past-josh-hammer">reported</a> last month, the IAEA tends to be less than forthcoming on the issue of Iran&#8217;s hegemonic nuclearization ambitions:
<blockquote>
On Monday in Vienna, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Yukiya Amano hedged hard when asked about the extent of the Iranian regime&#8217;s prior nuclear activity. Specifically, Amano said that he could &#8220;not speak of&#8221; such previous activity &#8212; effectively refusing to confirm or deny that the Islamic Republic has engaged in prior nuclearization efforts.
</blockquote>
At The Federalist last month, Erielle Davidson persuasively <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/03/27/ted-cruz-right-united-states-axe-irans-oil-waivers/">argued</a> Cruz and his fellow senators are correct to push for a full evisceration of Iran&#8217;s oil waivers:
<blockquote>
Waivers have been used as a balm to protect Iran from economic collapse following President Trump&#8217;s exit from the Iran Deal and the swift reinstatement of sanctions this past November. The Trump administration has expressed aims of removing Iranian crude exports entirely from the market very soon, but arguments within the State Department questioning the feasibility of such an aim have garnered suspicion. &#8230;
The waivers have allowed Iran to continue to rake in billions of dollars, thus enabling the country&#8212;and the repressive regime&#8212;to stave off economic collapse. Many experts on both sides of the Iran debate think Iran is positioned to wait out the Trump administration&#8217;s pressure campaign, perhaps indefinitely, unless the Iranian economy sustains a dramatic shock.
</blockquote>
Sen. Cruz has made hawkishness on Iran a centerpiece of his foreign policy profile. As I argued in a Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43151/hammer-ted-cruzs-non-interventionist-hawk-foreign-josh-hammer">op-ed</a> in February:
<blockquote>
Since joining the U.S. Senate in 2013, Cruz&#8217;s foreign policy has consistently been in the wide chasm between Ron Paul-style isolationism and Dick Cheney-style moralistic interventionism. Cruz has been blisteringly hawkish on true national security threats to the United States and our core allies &#8212; his stances on the Shiite supremacist Iranian terror regime mullocracry and the Sunni supremacist Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas alike both come to mind &#8212; but as a doctrinal rule, he has generally been warier of the risk of prolonged military deployments.
</blockquote>

Senate Hawks Push White House To Stop Extending Certain Iran Nuclear Waivers

The following is satirical.
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un will be holding peace talks in Viet Nam, or maybe that&#8217;s an acid flashback I&#8217;m having. No, I don&#8217;t remember ever using acid, so I guess it&#8217;s really happening. The eccentric president of the United States and the utterly insane Supreme Leader of North Korea will get together to discuss such issues as whose red button is bigger, where you can get a really good haircut, and whether it&#8217;s better to call out journalists for bias or simply have them executed en masse.
According to sources in the American camp, the president plans to approach Kim with a proposal in which North Korea gives up its nuclear program and in return Trump refrains from bouncing Kim down the streets of Hanoi like a looney four-eyed basketball. According to North Korean sources, Kim is planning to offer a counter proposal in which he becomes Supreme Leader of everything that ever was or ever will be and in return Trump gets to worship him by dancing in circles singing, &#8220;There is no un like Kim Jong Un.&#8221;
After that, both leaders plan to punch each other in the face and then roll around on the floor clawing and scratching at each other while pieces of clothing fly in all directions and words like Pow and Bam appear in the air above them.
Americans say they have high hopes that the Kim-Trump summit in Hanoi will result in similar diplomatic gains to their first summit in Singapore last year, during which Kim promised to begin to think about considering reflecting on the possibility of one day wondering if perhaps he would be completely unwilling to dismantle his nuclear program and Donald Trump then declared victory and ordered a triumphant parade through Washington, D.C. to celebrate peace in our time.
If the summit is not successful, Kim plans to launch a first strike nuclear attack on Los Angeles, which might possibly wipe out Tokyo, after which he will mysteriously disappear into the foundation of Trump&#8217;s latest hotel in Moscow.
Should be fun.

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