Iran
September 15, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Iran seems to be accelerating the pace of its nuclear program in the age of Biden. According to the report flagged by the Times of Israel, Iran could have enough enriched uranium for a nuke in a month. Posted online as “The IAEA’s Iran NPT Safeguards Report” and published under the auspices of the Institute for Science and International Security, the September 9 report is written by David Albright, Sarah
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July 23, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Iran is experiencing a new wave of protests, some violent. The protests are centered in the oil-rich Khuzestan province in the southwest, along the border with Iraq. In this tweet by Entifadh Qanbar, you can watch Iranian demonstrators attack a seminary said to be in the city of Khorramabad, located in Lorestan province, also near Iraq. According to the Washington Post, the protests “have rattled the government.” It “has been
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July 19, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Joe Biden came to office determined to negotiate America’s way back into the Iran nuclear deal. His team made clear that it was willing to make major concessions to accomplish this dubious objective. What concessions? According to Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif, Biden has expressed willingness to lift sanctions on the “Supreme Leader,” remove restrictions on all but one Iranian bank, and rescind the foreign terrorist designation for the Islamic
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July 14, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The State Department informed Congress late yesterday that it would waive sanctions on Iran’s illicit oil trade so that the regime can access frozen funds from South Korea and Japan. The Washington Free Beacon story on the waiver is here and it is worth reading. The appeasement goes on, we learned yesterday (as the also Beacon notes), even though four Iranian intelligence officials were indicted on charges of conspiring to
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July 2, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
There’s very little Joe Biden has done as president with which I agree. However, I agree with his policy of striking Iranian-backed militias whenever they attack American troops. According to the Washington Post, Donald Trump’s policy was to retaliate only if the Iranian-backed attacks resulted in American deaths. If so, I think Biden’s policy is better. One sign that Biden is on point with this policy comes from the protests
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June 28, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I’ve written briefly about Iran’s newly elected president — the mass murderer Ebrahim Raisi — in “Meet Iran’s new prez,”, “Biden sleepers will not awake,” and “Hope springs supreme” (more here). Raisi brings a bracing clarity to Iran’s public face. Even John Kerry might have a problem prettifying it. He probably won’t be bragging that the guy is his friend, anyway. Spectator deputy editor Dominic Green takes up Raisi’s election
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June 23, 2021 — Scott Johnson
According to Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and psickening pspokesman Jen Psaki, the election of mass murderer Ebrahaim Raisi to Iran’s presidency poses no obstacle to the administration’s desire to consummate another nuclear deal cum sanctions relief with the regime. The administration continues to abase itself in Vienna with the let’s get it on spirit. “The president’s view and our view is that the
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June 22, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Iran’s president-elect Ebrahim Raisi seems a somewhat clarifying figure. He is the head of regime’s judiciary. He is under sanction by the United States for his role in the mass execution of thousands of Iranian political prisoners in 1988. He earned his nickname the hangman honestly. See Mariam Memarsadeghi’s Tablet backgrounder “Meet ‘The Butcher,’ Iran’s New President Ebrahim Raisi” and Bret Stephens’s New York Times column “Iran Bets on Religion,
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June 21, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett obviously had the deep thinkers of the Biden administration in mind when he asserted that Iran’s presidential election was a sign for world powers to “wake up” before returning to a nuclear agreement with Tehran. The winner of Iran’s presidential election this past Friday was one Ebrahim Raisi. Raisi won with 62 percent of the vote. Iran’s president-elect is sanctioned by the United States in
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June 19, 2021 — Scott Johnson
There is a bracing clarity about Iran’s newly elected president, Ebrahim Raisi. The Times of Israel has useful background on the election in this story attributed to various news agencies: Raisi will be the first serving Iranian president sanctioned by the US government even before entering office, over his involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, as well as his time as the head of Iran’s internationally
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June 11, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Having just stepped down as head of the Mossad last week, Yossi Cohen sat for an Israeli television interview regarding the agency’s mind-boggling operations against the Islamic Republic of Iran over the past several years. The Times of Israel has posted the story “In stunning, revelatory interview, ex-Mossad chief warns Iran, defends Netanyahu.” I recommend the whole thing to the attention of Power Line readers. That is one impressive intelligence
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June 7, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I subscribe to Jewish Insider’s emailed Daily Kickoff roundup. Most of the time it strikes me as an arm of the Democrats’ press relations team. Occasionally, however, I find an item of interest. One such is Matthew Kassel’s interview with Barack Obama posted this morning in connection with the publication of Obama’s memoir A Promised Land. Saying I found the interview of interest is a slight overstatement. Jewish Insider is
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May 21, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The Times of Israel reports that “Hamas claims victory as Palestinians celebrate after first night of calm,” and maybe they have a point. Before we take up the point, consider the problem that Israel faced in the hostilities just terminated, however tentatively. The New York Post’s Yaron Steinbuch draws attention to the Israeli military video showing the scope of its airstrikes against Hamas tunnels. Steinbuch links to the video to
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May 14, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Elliott Abrams is author of the memoir Tested By Zion: The Bush Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served, most recently, in the Trump administration State Department as Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela. Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver called on Abrams for a live briefing on the Hamas hostilities against Israel via Zoom yesterday afternoon. In the
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May 12, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Donald Trump, the former president of the Untied States and the current de facto leader of the Republican Party, is barred from Twitter. The ban is permanent. Twitter says that even if Trump were to run for president again, he could not use its platform. The ban is for “inciting violence.” I think it’s true that Trump’s words inspired violence on January 6. However, Trump did not advocate violence, nor
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May 4, 2021 — John Hinderaker
European intelligence agencies report that Iran has been trying to acquire technology needed to facilitate manufacture of nuclear weapons. From the Jerusalem Post: A damning new report authored by the Netherland’s General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) asserts that the Islamic Republic of Iran attempted to obtain technology in 2020 for weapons of mass destruction. The Dutch intelligence document, which was published in April, says the security service “investigated networks
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April 30, 2021 — Scott Johnson
If you want to understand the perverse foreign policy of the Obama administration, Michael Oren’s memoir Ally is in invaluable text. It provides a first-hand account of Obama’s dishonesty and deceit toward Israel while his administration worked toward an arrangement facilitating the Iranian regime’s pursuit of nuclear weapons while funding it terroristic pursuits. It’s hard to come up with an innocent explanation, or at least one that is not stupefying.
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