Iran
September 29, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times. He is a veteran reporter, foreign correspondent, and editor for the New York Times and other publications. Cliff’s most recent column is “Reading the UNGA tea leaves” (at FDD, where it is posted with links). Cliff has kindly given us his permission to post his column on Power
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September 21, 2023 — Scott Johnson
When it comes to the Iranian mullahcracy, the Biden administration has formulated a policy that it has deftly kept under wraps. Indeed, there doesn’t seem to be much interest in it. Former National Security Council Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction Rich Goldberg spells it out in the column
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September 20, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The Biden administration’s $6 billion hostage deal with Iran is a big story, but the public version is for chumps. I fell for it, and perhaps that assessment is overly harsh on similarly situated citizens who follow the news. The real deal hasn’t been covered in the news and the administration has deftly lied about it. Rich Goldberg is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. From
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September 14, 2023 — Scott Johnson
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby attended yesterday’s White House press briefing. The White House has posted the transcript here. Kirby was asked about the $6 billion payoff to Iran for the release of five American hostages, with additional American hostages to be taken later. I have written about this disgraceful and destructive deal several times. One reporter actually asked Kirby about the administration’s nonsensical dodge regarding the payoff: Question:
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September 13, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Here I thought I was just amusing myself by invoking Robert Gover’s One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding, but no. The Biden administration’s $6 billion deal with Iran appears to be subject to the kind of misunderstanding that vexed the protagonists in Gover’s cult classic. According to the Biden administration, the use of the $6 billion is subject to severe constraints. It can’t be used to support the mullahs’ nuclear weapons program.
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September 12, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Robert Gover wrote the cult classic One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding. It might have been cutting-edge in 1962, when it was published, but not for long. Insofar as my subject here is related to President Biden, I can note that Hunter Biden’s misadventures have taken reality far beyond Gover’s satire. However, I have found Gover’s title an irresistible source of headlines for comments on the news. Today comes word that the
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August 30, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The corruption of every major American institution by the left has picked up speed under the Biden administration. In its morning newsletter, the Washington Free Beacon notes: WHAT WE’RE WATCHING: Making plans for a symposium on deterrence, U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) decided that a top Iranian official cum Princeton professor, Hussein Mousavian, would make a good keynote speaker. Mousavian last made headlines when he was captured on Iranian television smirking
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August 11, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Robert Gover wrote the cult classic One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding. It might have been cutting-edge in 1962, when it was published, but not for long. Insofar as my subject here is related to President Biden, I can note that Hunter Biden’s misadventures have taken reality far beyond Gover’s satire. However, I have found Gover’s title an irresistible source of headlines for comments on the news. Today comes word via the
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July 14, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times. He is a veteran reporter, foreign correspondent, and editor for the New York Times and other publications. Cliff’s most recent column is “Iran’s shadow war” (at FDD, where it is posted with links). Cliff has kindly given us his permission to post his column on Power Line. He
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July 9, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I touched on the enraging story of XiYue Wang in “The Princeton historian mugged by Princeton.” The Middle East Forum invited Wang to tell the story of his captivity in Iran to a Washington audience. I have posted the video below. MEF’s Clifford Smith converts Wang’s speech into an excellent narrative account in the post “Academic Perfidy and Diplomatic Appeasement Embolden the Islamic Republic.” Listening to Wang’s speech, I confess
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May 12, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Alisa Flatow was murdered in 1995 by an Iranian sponsored suicide bomber who plowed his car into a public bus near the Israeli settlement of Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip. Seven Israeli soldiers were killed along with Alisa. They were all under age 21. Fifty-two passengers were wounded in the attack. Alisa was remembered by her friend Alan Mitrani in a moving letter posted here at Brandeis University’s memorial
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May 12, 2023 — Scott Johnson
John and I started Power Line 21 years ago this coming Memorial Day weekend to support the United States and Israel in the war on terrorism. The United States has made great progress in the war. We don’t worry much about terrorist attacks on the United States nowadays. Osama bin Laden is pushing up daisies. China has become our principal national security preoccupation. In the case of Israel, Iran has
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March 27, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracy’s Andrea Stricker tuned in to Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley’s testimony before the House Appropriations Committee this past Thursday. Stricker quotes Milley stating that the United States “remains committed, as a matter of policy, that Iran will not have a fielded nuclear weapon.” Stricker observes that this statement, as well as a similar comment by Milley last September, suggests the Biden administration is
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March 26, 2023 — Scott Johnson
On Friday in Ottawa President Biden held a joint press conference with Prime Minister Trudeau. The White House has posted the transcript here. Before getting to what he referred to as “today’s business,” Biden struggled to read a written statement. Reading the script he had been handed, he vowed to “act forcefully[.]” Yet he projected nothing but infirmity and weakness (cough, cough). He qualified that statement with this reservation: “The
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January 29, 2023 — Steven Hayward
This week’s geopolitical news should raise a lot of questions about what is going on, and whether the “strategists” in the Biden Administration have any clue what they are doing. So we’re going to send 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine—eventually (because it will take months to get them deployed). This decision is apparently thought necessary to get Germany to send 200 of its smaller and simpler Leopard tanks. Abrams are
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December 28, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Once and future Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Bibi: My Story was published in mid-October. Mosaic’s Jonathan Silver has just posted the last of Netanyahu’s series of book-plugging podcasts with American hosts here on Stitcher and elsewhere on other platforms. Recorded on December 22, this one is slightly different from the rest: Rather than focus on his early life as depicted in the memoir, or on the current international and
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December 15, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Cliff Sims was the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Strategy and Communications in the Trump administration. He was an eyewitness to the “Russian disinformation” fraud, and a participant. He told the story in a series of tweets: Want to know what it's like to deal with some journalists who "cover" the Intel and NatSec communities at the highest level, but actually serve more like mouthpieces of the permanent security
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