Iran Deal

Left unchecked, document says, the Islamic Republic will use whatever means it can to continue terror financing.

Pompeo says Iran has been using the ICJ for ‘propaganda purposes.’

Secretary of state lays out new Iran strategy in first major foreign policy address.

President Trump cancels the Iran deal. Now comes the hard part.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday reiterated support for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in his address to the U.S. Congress. His remarks drew cheers from Democrats but a chilly reception from Iran hawks who want to withdraw from the deal.

Months after three U.S. congressmen first made a formal request for a visa to travel to Iran, THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported Monday that the Iranian government finally issued a response. The congressmen were looking to make a fact-finding trip to examine Iran's nuclear program, the status of American…

In February, THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported on the attempt of three congressmen, Reps. Mike Pompeo, Lee Zeldin, and Frank LoBiondo, to request visas to travel to Iran. Among other things, they hoped to use the trip to independently verify aspects of the Iranian nuclear deal since the Obama…

Last week pictures of Qassem Suleimani started to circulate on social media, which is always a pretty sure sign that an Iranian military campaign is about to kick off somewhere in the Middle East. And indeed not long after, Iranian-backed Shiite militias, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps units,…

A government spokesman said Wednesday that the State Department purposefully removed part of a 2013 video about secret negotiations with Iran.

Ambassador Wendy Sherman, lead negotiator for the Iran nuclear agreement, on Thursday defended the Iran deal narrative presented by senior Obama adviser Ben Rhodes in his controversial New York Times Magazine profile.

Ambassador Wendy Sherman fervently defended the U.S. record for protecting human rights in Iran Thursday, though the Obama administration has not sanctioned any Iranian human rights abusers since signing the Iran nuclear agreement in July.

Guess who's not part of the White House's Iran deal "echo chamber"? Yep, Qassem Suleimani. The head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force thinks Iran and America aren't poised for realignment, but rather are at war. And Iran, he says, is thrashing the great Satan. "Iran relied on…

Why is John Kerry eager to provide Iran with more economic benefits by publicly declaring the Iranians may actually deserve more relief? Why did the secretary of state tell Charlie Rose that the United States and Iran want the same thing when it comes to ending the war in Syria? Why does America’s…

A veterans group is going after Donald Trump for his stance on the Iran nuclear deal, criticizing rhetoric in the New York businessman's record that pre-dates his tough talk about the agreement.

American presidents are always emotionally and politically drawn to the plight of American hostages overseas. In his sympathy and paternalism, Barack Obama seems just like Ronald Reagan, who traded Hawk missiles to Iran for the release of Americans held by the Lebanese Hezbollah, the clerical…

It was a great year for the Obama administration’s foreign policy .  .  . says the Obama administration. The State Department even created a new hashtag to celebrate the White House's annus mirabilis—#2015in5Words. "Protecting Arctic Climate and Communities" and "Protecting Health of Our Ocean" are…

Throughout the debate over the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Obama administration insisted that its approach to brokering a deal with the mullahs is guided by a simple principle: "verification, not trust." Of course, by the time a deal was…

Last week, Senate and House Democrats threw a party to celebrate the adoption day of Obama’s Iran deal. Ninety days after the White House signed the deal in Vienna, Obama directed the United States government to lift sanctions on Iran, the Democrats listened to a string ensemble in Washington, and…

Richard Nixon visited Canada just once during his presidency. He’s also been dead 20 years. But he was about the only person to correctly call last week’s Canadian election.

Sunday, October 18, isn’t just a day of baseball playoffs and pro football games. It’s “Adoption Day,” when all parties to the Iran nuclear deal must begin preparing to implement its terms. And while the Obama administration takes another opportunity to pat itself on the back for its achievement,…

Theodore Roosevelt summarized his approach to diplomacy with the maxim “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Time and again, President Obama has chosen the opposite tack. Perhaps nowhere has his policy of speechifying without substance to back up the rhetoric been more problematic than in the…

During Tuesday's Democratic debate, presidential candidate Jim Webb ripped the Iranian nuclear deal, adding that the deal will allow Iran "to move forward and eventually acquire a nuclear weapon." Watch:

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has a habit of trying to have it both ways on the Iran nuclear deal

The United States, President Obama said at the U.N. General Assembly last week, “worked with many nations in this assembly to prevent a third world war—by forging alliances with old adversaries.” Presumably, the president was not referring to his deeply flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,…

The United States, President Obama said at the U.N. General Assembly last week, “worked with many nations in this assembly to prevent a third world war—by forging alliances with old adversaries.” Presumably, the president was not referring to his deeply flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,…

There has been speculation that John Kerry and Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif would be selected for the Nobel Peace Prize. 

In defending the Iran nuclear deal to Congress, President Obama and his staff argued repeatedly that rejection would leave America in dire isolation at the United Nations. Obama can now relax. Having used slash-and-burn executive tactics to roll right over a dissenting majority in Congress and a…

Even now with the Russians on the verge of combat operations in Syria, the White House still says it believes that they’re there to fight ISIS. John Kerry says that his Russian counterpart told him that the Russians are “only interested in fighting” the Islamic State. Other administration officials…

A photograph of a drowned 3-year-old boy washed up on a Turkish beach after his family failed to find refuge from the war in Syria seems to have finally gotten the world’s attention. The conflict has been an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe for more than four years. A quarter of a million are…

Here are the judgments of several senators on the Obama administration’s Iran deal:

A leading Democratic senator said Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is continuing to push for an up-or-down vote on approving the Iran nuclear deal to score points with "some groups."

Last week the White House puffed its feathers when Barbara Mikulski became the 34th Democratic senator to come out in favor of the nuclear deal with Iran. Mikulski’s support ensures enough votes in Obama’s pocket to sustain a presidential veto on a resolution of disapproval, but it’s still not…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the Iran deal, and his recent piece The Supporting Actors.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the fate of the Iran deal and the House GOP's last minute efforts to delay or defeat it.

Today the Tea Party Patriots hosted the "Stop the Iran Deal Rally” at the U.S. Capitol. Speakers included Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, among others. Trump walked on stage to the song, "It's The End Of The World" by R.E.M.

A new Pew poll finds shrinking support among the American people for the nuclear deal with Iran. The poll found 49 percent are opposed to the deal, with 21 percent in support and 30 percent who say they don't know.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on Hillary Clinton's bad weekend and the Iran deal. 

Bill Kristol, the chairman of the Emergency Committee for Israel, has a statement on behalf of the group:

Former vice president Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe Wednesday morning to promote their new book, Exceptional. The Cheneys spoke about national security, foreign policy issues like the Iran deal, and 2016 politics.

A prevailing media narrative is that while Republicans have pitched a fit over Barack Obama’s negotiated deal with Iran over that country’s nuclear program, the seeds of such a deal were sown by the previous administration.

President Obama once made promises about changing the “tone” in Washington. But when the spirit moves him, he can get down with the condescending name-calling, though he can’t compete with Trump in that league. (But who could?) 

Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Monday he is working toward filibustering a disapproval vote on President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, Politico reports. Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, a Republican who has been a vocal critic of the deal, released a statement blasting the Nevada…

Americans have debated whether the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) gives inspectors sufficient visibility into suspected, undisclosed Iranian activities, and whether, in the event of Iranian breach, sanctions will snapback.  But there’s a bigger problem: the Joint Plan grants Iran and…

“Because this is such a strong deal, every nation in the world that has commented publicly, with the exception of the Israeli government, has expressed support. The United Nations Security Council has unanimously supported it. The majority of arms control and nonproliferation experts support it.…

A growing majority of Americans say Congress should reject the nuclear deal with Iran brokered by the Obama administration, according to a new CNN poll. Here's more from CNN:

The Associated Press reports that under the provisions of the deal, the Iranian government will be allowed to use its own inspectors on one site thought to have been used to develop nuclear weapons. Here's more from the AP:

Bob Menendez, the Democratic senator from New Jersey and one of the leading voices for tougher sanctions on the Iranian regime, delivered an address Tuesday at Seton Hall University in which he declared he would oppose the nuclear deal with Iran.

War, President Obama says, is the only alternative to his deal with Iran. But if the president’s overriding goal is to avoid bloody conflict, why is he arming the Middle East for a shootout that may lead to Armageddon?

The New York Post reports that Senator Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has expanded on his rationale for opposing the White House's Iran Deal:

Iraq veteran Robert Bartlett appeared with Megyn Kelly of Fox News last night to discuss his opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran. Bartlett was severely wounded in 2005 in Iraq by an Iranian bomb, which also killed or injured several of his friends. Watch the interview below:

A new ad from the group Veterans Against the Deal features retired Army staff sergeant Robert Bartlett, who in 2005 was badly injured while serving in Iraq. The supplier of the bomb that "cut me in half, from the left corner of my temple to through my jaw" was the regime in Iran. In the ad,…

In May, President Barack Obama donned a yarmulke and spoke in a Washington, D.C., synagogue. He reminded his audience that Jeffrey Goldberg, a member of the congregation, once called him the “first Jewish president.” He claimed to be flattered by the characterization. And perhaps he was—most Jews,…

To paraphrase Lincoln, if we could first know where Iran is and whither Iran is tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. To evaluate the Iran deal, we need, to the degree possible, to understand the Iranian regime, its nature and its history, its past and present behavior. 

John Kerry is bullish on the Middle East. He believes that the Iran deal will make it possible for the White House and Tehran to tamp down wars in places like Syria and Yemen. And—who knows?—maybe even solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

From Agency France-Presse:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on the Iran Deal, how the voters are reacting to it, and why GOP candidates should own opposition to it in Thursday's debates.

The Iran deal turns out to be so no good, so very bad, so awfully ugly, that there is a chance—an outside chance—that a congressional process accepted by the administration because it seemed to virtually guarantee the deal’s survival might actually kill it instead.

On July 21, the Pentagon announced that Muhsin al-Fadhli, an al Qaeda operative who had been wanted for more than a decade, was killed in an airstrike in Syria earlier in the month. Fadhli has been dead at least once before. In September 2014, the United States launched airstrikes against his…

When the secretary of state says, as John Kerry did last week in his Senate testimony, that the Obama White House is “guaranteeing” Iran won’t have the bomb, you can be sure that—well, you can be pretty confident that he doesn’t mean it. And that someday soon he’ll pretend he never said it.

Secure America Now, a group opposed to President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, released a new poll this morning.

Asked directly by CNN's Wolf Blitzer whether she would vote to support President Obama's Iran deal, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz demurred, saying:

President Obama had a moment of impressive moral clarity at his Iran press conference Wednesday. It was when he was asked about Bill Cosby.

One might think that after the last Iraq war Democrats would be wary of allowing intelligence to dictate policy. Yet that is effectively what Barack Obama has done with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed in Vienna on July 14. The agreement with Iran is strategically premised on the…

In his first Inaugural Address, President Obama offered an open hand to the Iranian regime. On July 14, announcing the nuclear deal that is the culmination of that overture, he shook a closed fist at the American people. The president came out swinging—not at the regime in Tehran but at his…

‘Without this deal,” said President Obama on Tuesday, “there is no scenario where the world joins us in sanctioning Iran until it completely dismantles its nuclear program.” That was nothing new. Throughout the negotiations with Iran, “the world” has been one of the president’s favorite defenses…

On Tuesday, the Washington Post's Greg Sargent penned a piece headlined, "What the GOP presidential candidates could say about the Iran deal, but won’t." While there's perhaps some food for thought in the column, this paragraph stopped me cold:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on the Iran deal, and why we can't trust the White House to be honest about it.

A new TV ad argues the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran is repeating history, drawing parallels with the 1994 nuclear deal President Bill Clinton brokered with North Korea. The ad, produced by the Foundation for American Security and Freedom, interchanges lines from both president's…

To cut through the rhetoric surrounding the Iran deal, and to better understand what the two sides conceded and gained, I’ve compiled a balance sheet on the Iran deal. It’s simple and non-technical; a basic list comparing what the U.S. gets versus what Iran gets. The reader is free to make up his…

Barack Obama scolded a reporter at his Wednesday briefing after getting a critical question about the nuclear deal with Iran. CBS News's Major Garrett pressed the president on the imprisonment of Americans in Iran.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on the Iran deal, and whether the country will achieve full nuclear breakout before the end of Obama's second term.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton on the "diplomatic waterloo" that is the Iran nuclear deal.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the Iran nuclear deal and how it is worse than everybody expected it to be.

In his recent interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump sharply criticized the way the Obama administration has been negotiating the forthcoming nuclear deal with Iran.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the Iran Deal, and how the Obama administration continually makes excuses for Iran's dealbreaking.

As always, Winston Churchill said it best. Here he is on March 24, 1938, less than two weeks after the Anschluss, the Nazi annexation of Austria:

Is there anything separating Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush on the question of what to do about the Iran deal? As with many issues, the distinction between the two Florida Republicans falls more in the realm of tone and emphasis than on policy.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, quondam secretary of state and presumptive heir to the presidency 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on the situation with Yemen and how it plays into the pending nuclear deal with Iran.

If there is one thing on which Democrats and Republicans can agree, it is that it is undesirable for countries other than the United States to possess nuclear weapons. For this reason, America’s nonproliferation policy has traditionally been characterized by strong bipartisanship. It is notable,…

What is to be done about Obama’s Iran “deal”? We could, fatalistically, lament the collapse of American foreign policy. We could, indignantly, gnash our teeth in frustration at the current administration. We could, constructively, work to secure congressional review of the deal and urge…

Ever since it announced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran last month, the Obama administration has flooded the news media with technical details elaborating the many virtues of the proposed framework agreement. Indeed, the White House sent its energy secretary, Ernest Moniz, a…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on how both President Obama's pending nuclear deal with Iran, and Hillary Clinton in 2016 can be defeated.

The Obama White House is enlisting all its allies to make its case for the bad nuclear deal with Iran that, say administration allies, is better than no deal. The alternative, they claim, is war. And to what purpose? Many nuclear experts, Middle East analysts, and journalists argue, after all, that…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the Cotton Letter to Iran, the media, and its response.

It's not clear when (or whether) the Obama White House will conclude a final agreement with Iran over its nuclear program. The extended deadline for the interim deal known as the Joint Plan of Action is set to expire November 24. And the president very much wants a deal that would cement his…

More than 70 foreign policy experts have signed a letter addressed to the leaders in both parties in both houses of Congress urging them to enforce Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal agreed upon in Geneva late last year. Read the full text of the letter, organized by the Foreign Policy…

O believers, when you encounter the unbelievers marching to battle, turn not your backs to them. Whoso turns his back that day to them, unless withdrawing to fight again or removing to join another host, he is laden with the burden of God’s anger, and his refuge is Hell—an evil homecoming! —Koran,…

The interim agreement that the United States and its partners cut with Iran last week stands as a centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy. The Obama administration has walked away from a core objective of U.S. policy for two decades—preventing a nuclear Iran—thereby threatening…