The Mossad was reportedly behind the attack at Natanz on Sunday that caused extensive damage to Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the security cabinet’s first meeting in two months to discuss Iran next Sunday amid increased tensions with Tehran.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif vowed revenge against Israel for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear facilities at Natanz but said it will not stop high-level talks to restore the country’s nuclear deal with world powers.

In a private meeting with lawmakers on Monday, Zarif pointed out that top Israeli officials explicitly said they would try to prevent multilateral efforts to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which would lead to lifting United States sanctions on Iran.

Israel’s alleged attack on a nuclear enrichment facility in Iran was likely a reaction to the Biden administration’s policy towards Iran, Ellie Cohanim, former State Department Deputy Special Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism, said on Tuesday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow, author of Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruption.

The Times of Israel reported:

An Iranian official has acknowledged that Sunday’s blast at Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, which has been attributed to Israel, took out the plant’s main electrical power system and its backup.

“From a technical standpoint, the enemy’s plan was rather beautiful,” Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, the head of the Iranian parliament’s energy committee, told Iranian state television on Monday.

Amos Yadlin, a former IDF chief of Military Intelligence, said on Tuesday following a blast at a key Iranian uranium enrichment site that Israel’s process for approving sensitive security-related operations was not being followed, indicating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was acting without the necessary legal authority.

He further suggested that Netanyahu was dangerously stoking tensions with Iran for domestic political purposes as the prime minister tries to form a coalition following last month’s inconclusive elections.

Yadlin raised the concerns in a scathing attack on policy regarding Iran and its nuclear program in the wake of a Sunday explosion that caused a power outage at the Natanz uranium enrichment site, which Tehran has blamed on Israel. Media reports citing intelligence officials have also attributed to the attack to Israel, which has not officially confirmed any role but has hinted at its involvement.

In the Middle East, tensions between Israel and Iran are escalating, but at the same time changing their focus. Recently, both countries have faced each other more frequently at sea, carrying out dangerous maneuvers and reporting the occurrence of several attacks against vessels on both sides, with emphasis on the Israeli attacks, which become more powerful day after day. Apparently, what was previously a conflict focused on aerial bombing and intelligence and espionage operations is becoming a naval war, marked by constant displays of force.

Last Tuesday, April 6, an Iranian ship was attacked in the Red Sea with an Israeli mine in an unusual operation, totally atypical by the standards of the Iran-Israel conflict. The ship hit in the operation was called “Saviz”, a commercial civilian vessel that did not pose any danger to maritime security in the region and was not spared from Israeli reprisals, whose levels of aggressiveness rise quickly.

A new organization with ties to Iranian monarchists is cultivating relationships with the Republican Party, holding a series of online events with newer GOP House members, strongly advocating against diplomacy with Iran, and pushing for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate so-called “Islamic Republic agents and lobbyists” in the United States.

Iranian Americans for Liberty was established last year alongside two related entities: a political action committee called Iranian Americans for the Constitution, and a super PAC called Iranian Americans for Peace. The group’s public-facing activities –– which include tweets, press releases, and a series of webinars hosted with Republican House candidates and incumbents –– take aim at both the Iranian government and Iranian Americans who favor engaging with the country, while echoing traditional hawkish talking points.

In a move that seems set to greatly complicate ongoing talks over the JCPOA nuclear deal, the Iranian government has announced it will install more new centrifuges, and will begin enriching uranium up to 60%, by far the highest they’ve ever attempted.

This seems destined to provoke a backlash from the West, and allegations that Iran is getting closer to the 90% enrichment level needed for weapons grade. This will be further pushed because Iran has no obvious use for 60% enriched uranium, unlike its 20% enriched, which was used for medical isotopes.

From Iran’s perspective, the move is a response to this week’s sabotage at the enrichment site, which they are blaming on Israel. Iranian officials also warned the US on the latest incident, cautioning that sabotage and sanctions would never stop their legal program.

The US and Israel held the second session of a strategic group to coordinate on Iran on Tuesday. The talks are headed by each country’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan for the US side, and Meir Ben Shabbat for the Israelis.

Details of what was discussed on Tuesday are scant. In a readout of the meeting, the White House said that Sullivan “reaffirmed the Biden-Harris administration’s unwavering commitment to Israel’s security and to ensuring that Iran will never obtain a nuclear weapon.”

The meeting comes as the US and Iran are engaged in indirect talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, which Israel is strongly opposed to. The Israelis are taking covert action to sabotage the diplomacy. An attack over the weekend at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility was attributed to Israel by unnamed officials speaking to the media, which is the usual way Israelis take credit for covert action.

Iran has complained to the United Nations against the suspected Israeli sabotage of a uranium enrichment facility, calling the attack an act of "nuclear terrorism" that could have caused a "human and environmental catastrophe".

In a letter to the UN General Assembly on Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the disruption of power at the Natanz enrichment plant on the weekend - which Iran blames on Israel - risked releasing radioactive material.

The covert attack, he wrote, "constitutes reckless criminal nuclear terrorism".

"Considering the possible indiscriminate human and environmental consequences of this international crime, those who planned, ordered, participated and carried out this cowardly act committed a grave war crime; one that must not go unpunished," the letter said.

An Israeli-owned ship has been attacked close to the UAE emirate of Fujairah, the Hezbollah-aligned Lebanese Al-Mayadeen network reported on Tuesday.

The report has identified the vessel as Hyperion Ray that sails under the Bahamas flag and belongs to Israeli businessman Rami Ungar.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif reiterated his country's right to defend itself in the wake of an apparent sabotage attack on the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant.

In a letter to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday, Zarif noted that a deliberate attack on a nuclear facility is "nuclear terrorism and a war crime."

On 11 April, Iran's uranium enrichment facility in Natanz was hit in what officials say was an “act of nuclear terrorism,” which caused a power failure at the plant.

Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz jokingly told journalist Or Heller that he will "twist his head off" after he asked the US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin to comment on the incident at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility.

It happened when Gantz and Austin were visiting the Nevatim Air Base in southern Israel on 12 April.

Heller shared a video of Gantz's reaction on Twitter.

A day after an incident at Iran’s uranium enrichment facility, which was blamed on Israeli spies, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country will defend itself from Iranian “aggression and terrorism.”

Without directly mentioning the incident in Iran, Netanyahu spared no words to admonish Tehran, calling it the biggest threat Israel faces in the Middle East.

“Iran has never given up its quest for nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them. And Iran consistently and outrageously calls for Israel’s annihilation and works toward that goal,” the Israeli leader said.

I will never allow Iran to obtain the nuclear capability to carry out its genocidal goal of eliminating Israel. And Israel will continue to defend itself against Iran’s aggression and terrorism.

Pentagon chief Austin’s visit to Israel serves as a stark reminder that regardless of stated US policy goals, Israel almost always gets its way.

After a week of fruitful discussions between the parties to the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action – the JCPOA, better known as the Iranian nuclear agreement – and the United States (who, since May 2018, was no longer a party, and as such sat in as an observer), it looked as if the US and Iran had agreed to a mutually accepted outcome: the lifting of all nuclear-related sanctions imposed by the US in exchange for Iran returning to full compliance with its obligations under the terms of the JCPOA. The devil was in the details, however. And by week’s end there was no agreed-upon formula regarding the sequence of events concerning the actions needed to be taken by both parties to fulfil their respective requirements. There was not even a timeframe.

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said Monday that the country’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant was hit by a “small explosion” the previous day, after the government labeled it an Israeli act of “sabotage.”

“The incident occurred at the electricity distribution center. There was a small explosion,” spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told the Tasnim news agency, adding that the “damaged sectors can be quickly repaired.”

Iran initially reported a power blackout had hit the Natanz enrichment site Sunday, a day after it announced it had started up advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges banned under the 2015 deal limiting its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Monday called for a high-level investigation into recent apparent leaks to the press by Israeli officials regarding recent attacks on Iran that have been widely attributed to Israel’s Mossad spy service, saying they were “damaging to our troops, to our security and to the interests of the State of Israel.”

Gantz referred specifically to comments regarding Sunday’s alleged attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility that were attributed to unnamed “intelligence officials” and “Western officials,” whom the defense minister indicated he believed were in fact Israeli officials.

“This ‘Western officials’ is nonsense,” Gantz told reporters on Monday, following meetings with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who is visiting Israel this week.

On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Iran for talks with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif hold a joint press conference following bilateral talks in Tehran.

The top diplomats are expected to discuss prospects for bilateral cooperation in political, trade, economic, humanitarian and other areas, focusing on joint projects in the energy transport sectors.

Earlier, Lavrov said that to a large extent, due to the consistent implementation of the bilateral Treaty on the Basis for Mutual Relations and the Principles of Cooperation, which saw its 20-year anniversary in March, the two countries "have reached such an unprecedentedly high level of interaction".

In December 2020, Iran's Majlis passed a law mandating steadily reductions in the country's commitments to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) until the US rejoins the agreement, including increasing the quality and quantity of uranium enrichment.

Kazem Gharib Abadi, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations office in Vienna, said Monday that the attack on the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant would only result in the older uranium centrifuges being replaced with newer, more advanced ones.

"Enrichment in Natanz is not stopped," Abadi wrote on Twitter. "Iran will react including by planning to implement several technical measures which the [International Atomic Energy] Agency will be informed [of] this week. Replacement process of the damaged centrifuges, including with the same machines with more capacity, has immediately begun."

The spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry says the Islamic Republic is considering counter-sanctions in response to new bans imposed on several Iranian individuals and entities by the European Union while suspending all talks with the bloc in various fields.

Saeed Khatibzadeh made the remarks on Monday after the European Union announced it has imposed sanctions ranging from travel bans to asset freezes on eight Iranian individuals, including the chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Hossein Salami, and three prisons on baseless human rights-related grounds.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is considering reciprocal sanctions in reaction to the EU’s measure, whose details will be announced later,” the spokesman said, adding, “Iran strongly condemns this measure and considers it as lacking any credebility.”

Iran’s foreign minister has warned Israel that an attack on the Natanz atomic site will not stop the country’s nuclear program, and will provide them with further leverage in talks to revive the JCPOA.

Speaking alongside his Russian counterpart on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that Israel had made a “very bad gamble” by sabotaging the Natanz nuclear site.

The foreign minister contended that Iran’s hand in the renegotiation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the now-abandoned 2015 pact limiting Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, had been strengthened by Israel’s sabotage. “The Israelis thought the attack will weaken our hand in the Vienna talks, but in contrary it will strengthen our position,” Zarif said.

Zarif also said that Natanz would continue to be an important nuclear enrichment site for Tehran. “I assure you that in the near future more advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges will be placed in the Natanz facility,” he stated.

The alleged Israeli attack on Iran's Natanz nuclear facility destroyed an electrical substation located 40 to 50 meters underground, Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani, former head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, told Iranian media on Monday.

Davani added that the substation was built underground in order to protect it from air and missile strikes, and that the attack was carried out either via cyber, sabotaged equipment or sabotage committed by agents.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called Iranian authorities a “fanatical regime” at a joint news conference with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Jerusalem.

The US official’s arrival in Israel coincided with a sabotage attack on Iran’s underground Natanz nuclear facility that damaged its centrifuges, an assault that could imperil continuing talks over rejoining the 2015 Iran nuclear accord. Returning Iran to the deal has been a top priority of the administration of US President Joe Biden.

Israeli intelligence was responsible for the incident on Sunday at Iran’s Natanz nuclear plant, which saw a blackout at an electricity distribution network, Israeli media outlets are claiming, citing unnamed “Western sources.”

Calling it an “attack” and an example of “nuclear terrorism,” Iranian officials said the incident had not caused any damage, but reports in the Israeli media that followed disputed that.

Citing anonymous sources, various outlets, including the Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post, claimed the facility sustained “severe” and “extensive” damage as a result of a “cyber-attack.”

According to a report from Axios, on Tuesday, US and Israeli officials will convene the second meeting of a strategic group to coordinate on Iran. The talks are headed by each country’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan for the US side, and Meir Ben Shabbat for the Israelis.

The first meeting of the strategic group took place in early March. The second comes as the US and Iran are engaged in indirect talks to revive the nuclear deal, something Israel is strongly opposed to and is taking covert action to sabotage the effort.

An attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility over the weekend was attributed to Israel’s Mossad spy agency by Israeli media, and Iran blamed the Israelis on Monday. Last week, an Iranian ship was targeted with an explosive in the Red Sea.

Iran on Monday blamed Israel for an attack on the Islamic Republic’s Natanz nuclear facility that reportedly caused power outages and damaged centrifuges. While Israeli officials have not officially claimed responsibility for the incident, multiple Israeli media outlets cited unnamed officials who attributed the attack to the Jewish State.

The Natanz attack comes as the US and Iran are engaged in indirect talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, something Israel is strongly opposed to. When blaming Israel for the incident, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said it would not affect the negotiations.

“The Zionists want to take revenge because of our progress in the way to lift sanctions,” Zarif said on Monday. “We will not fall into their trap … We will not allow this act of sabotage to affect the nuclear talks.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Iran had not given up efforts to obtain nuclear weapons and Israel would continue to "defend itself" against Tehran's aggression.

"In the Middle East, there is no threat more dangerous, serious and pressing than that posed by the fanatical regime in Iran," Netanyahu said, hours after the Islamic Republic blamed Israel for an attack on one of its nuclear facilities.

"Israel will continue to defend itself against Iran's aggression and terrorism."

Iran denies pursuing nuclear weapons and says it only wants to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Israel appeared to confirm claims that it was behind a cyber-attack on Iran’s main nuclear facility on Sunday, which Tehran’s nuclear energy chief described as an act of terrorism that warranted a response against its perpetrators.

The apparent attack took place hours after officials at the Natanz reactor restarted spinning advanced centrifuges that could speed up the production of enriched uranium, in what had been billed as a pivotal moment in the country’s nuclear programme.

As Iranian authorities scrambled to deal with a large-scale blackout at Natanz, which the country’s Atomic Energy Agency acknowledged had damaged the electricity grid at the site, the Israeli defence chief, Aviv Kochavi, said the country’s “operations in the Middle East are not hidden from the eyes of the enemy”.

Iranian diplomats accused Israel of an “act against humanity” targeting the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, saying it was meant to derail talks on the lifting of sanctions.

The underground Iranian nuclear facility experienced a power outage on Sunday. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman called the suspected Israeli sabotage “an act against humanity,” because the damage done to the plant could have caused a disaster.

“There was no contamination or injuries but it could cause a disaster. It could be considered as an act against humanity,” Saeed Khatibzadeh told a news conference on Monday.

The text below is Chapter III of Michel Chossudovsky’s book entitled: The Globalization of War. America’s Long War against Humanity, Global Research Publishers, Montreal, 2015. To order the book directly from Global Research click here

This chapter provides a historical perspective of US war plans directed against Iran, including the use of a preemptive nuclear attack, using low yield, “more usable” tactical nuclear weapons.

This analysis is of particular relevance to the Biden administration’s ongoing threats to attack Iran.

***

Iran blamed Israel for an attack on the power network at its largest uranium enrichment plant, raising geopolitical tensions around Iran’s nuclear program as diplomats try to revive the international deal that contained it.

“Various sources have confirmed Israel was behind the attack” at the Natanz facility in central Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said at a press conference on Monday, without giving further details. IR-1 centrifuges were damaged but it is too soon to assess how badly, he said.

The assault, which cut off power to the site, didn’t disrupt enrichment operations and the plant is still running on emergency electricity backup, state-run IRIB news cited Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the country’s atomic energy agency, as saying. The main power supply will be restored in the coming days, he said.

The Iranian government has confirmed that the M/V Saviz was the victim of an attack in the Red Sea yesterday. The ship is widely believed to be a mothership that the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps uses to assist Houthi rebels in Yemen and otherwise conduct discreet activities in the region, particularly around the strategic Bab Al Mandeb Strait.

There are reports that Israel carried out the attack and that it is the latest incident in an escalating series of tit-for-tat clandestine operations by the two countries that have primarily targeted each others' commercial ships. The attack also came on the same day that the United States and Iran held their first indirect negotiations over the future a controversial multi-national deal regarding Tehran's nuclear programs.

Iran has finally released a South Korean-flagged tanker that the IRGC had siezed back in January, which developed into a diplomatic standoff over billions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds held in South Korean banks due to US-led sanctions.

While some of the crew of the Hankuk Chemihad had been allowed to leave in February, a dozen along with the captain stayed on in order to conduct maintenance with the hope of eventually being able to sail it home. On Friday South Korea's foreign ministry issued a statement confirming the ship's detention had been lifted and that it "departed safely today".

The month before the Hankuk Chemihad was seized in the Strait of Hormuz with the official charge being that it had "violated rules of pollution", Tehran had mounted protest with Seoul for freezing close to $10 billion in Iranian assets (according to foreign ministry figures), though the governor of the Central Bank of Iran had estimated it at $7BN.

Talks are underway in Vienna to save the JCPOA – the agreement the Trump administration unilaterally walked away from. Making the deal whole again is relatively easy for Iran. But that can’t be said for the US. Does the Biden administration have the political will to say ‘yes’ to Tehran?

CrossTalking with Mohammad Marandi, Geoffrey Aronson, and Tariq Rauf.

US Republicans are ramping up opposition against the Iran nuclear deal in a sign of growing partisan division over Washington's approach to Tehran.

As indirect talks between signatories to the nuclear pact began in Vienna this week, several leading Republicans have issued statements denouncing President Joe Biden's push to revive the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Republican president Donald Trump had nixed the deal in 2018.

"The United States must not relinquish its leverage over the Iranian regime just to return to the JCPOA, a severely flawed agreement that undermines our national security interests due to its arbitrary sunsets and limited scope," four leading Republicans on powerful Senate committees wrote to Biden on Tuesday.

Iran’s mission to the European Union has called on Amnesty International to compile a report about the harmful impact of illegal American sanctions on the livelihoods of Iranians, especially at a time when the country is grappling with a deadly coronavirus outbreak.

In a chain of tweets on Friday, Iran’s Embassy in Belgium ­— which hosts the EU’s headquarters — drew attention to the difficulties that over 80 million Iranians have been facing under America’s unilateral sanctions, saying those problems have been compounded by the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

Along with one of the tweets, the diplomatic mission posted a recent Amnesty report on “deliberately divisive and destructive policies that have perpetuated inequality, discrimination and oppression and paved the way for the devastation wrought by COVID-19.”

Talks between Tehran and the other signatories to the 2015 nuclear agreement in Vienna have yielded no results so far, with Iran’s top negotiator saying there was no agreement yet on how sanctions will be removed or the verification of their removal.

On Friday, envoys from Iran and the P4+1 group of countries — Britain, France, Russia, and China plus Germany — wrapped up four days of talks in the Austrian capital aimed at removing sanctions on Tehran and discussing other issues.

The fate of the multilateral deal has remained uncertain since May 2018, when former US president Donald Trump pulled his country out of the accord and re-imposed the anti-Iran sanctions that had been lifted under the UN-endorsed document. Trump’s administration then launched a campaign of “maximum pressure,” under which it placed other sets of sanctions under many headings on Iran.

The governments of China and Russia, which appear to be taking the lead in talks between Iran and the remaining partners in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, expressed optimism after talks concluded on Friday for the week that progress had occurred.

The conversations over the agreement formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) began this week in Vienna, Austria. Representatives from China, Russia, and Iran — as well as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany — met to discuss, they claimed, a way to repair what remains of the agreement after years of violations by Tehran and President Donald Trump withdrawing the United States from it in 2018. Notably absent from the invitation list was the United States, which had no formal representation in this week’s talks.

Iran will “definitely” respond to a recent attack on an Iranian ship in the Red Sea, a spokesman for the Islamic Republic’s military said Thursday.

Brig. Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi told Russian news agency Sputnik that Iran was investigating Tuesday’s attack on the Saviz and would not retaliate until the competition of the probe.

“If we uncover the source of the attack on the ship, we will definitely respond, we will never be silent,” he said.

Israeli and Iranian ships in the Red Sea have been subject to regular attacks in recent weeks and months. Tel Aviv and Tehran blame each other but with little evidence to support either side’s claims.

On April 6th, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) cargo ship was struck in an unknown manner, in the area between the coasts of Yemen and Eritrea. Some sources claimed that it had been struck below the waterline, meaning that it had been hit by a magnetic mine.

Others, however, claimed that it was subject to rocket fire. Either way, there was official confirmation that an IRGC ship by the name of Saviz had sustained damage.

Earlier, on March 25th, an Israeli-owned cargo ship – the “LORI” was struck by a missile as it was sailing from Tanzania to India. This was immediately blamed on Iran. No significant damage nor casualties were reported.

Iran said on Thursday that it will "without a doubt" respond to the widely reported attack on an Iranian military vessel in the Red Sea that occurred Tuesday. A spy vessel later identified as the Saviz was damaged in the incident, with the The New York Times alleging that Israel was behind a naval mine attack.

Anonymous US officials had told Reuters the US did not conduct the attack; however, in Thursday's statement a top Iranian general indicated that Tehran believes both Israel and the United States were behind the Red Sea mine attack. This after Israel appears to have owned up to it according to a US official's statement to the Times.

"We will respond without any doubt to the attack on our ship Saviz in the Red Sea once we identify those involved," Iran's military spokesman Brig. Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi said to Sputnik Arabic.

The possibility of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) being revived is inching closer as talks between the parties to the pact are under way in Vienna. Israel has been opposed to the deal from the outset, seeking another format to more widely restrict Iran's nuclear programme and military power.

Israel will not be bound by a possible revival of the Iran nuclear agreement, because the country should be able to defend itself against a potential aggressor, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday in a speech at an official Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony.

"A deal with Iran that threatens us with annihilation will not obligate us", he claimed, commenting the ongoing talks in Vienna between the joint JCPOA commission and Iranian representatives.
According to Netanyahu, the nuclear agreement in its original form "is worthless".

While talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, kicked off in Vienna, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu railed against the agreement and said Israel must "act" against Tehran.

"The danger that Iran will return — and this time with an international imprimatur — to a path that will allow it to develop a nuclear arsenal is on our doorstep on this very day," Netanyahu said at a meeting of his Likud party in the Knesset on Tuesday.

Like most Israeli officials, Netanyahu claims the JCPOA is somehow a path to a nuclear-armed Iran even though the agreement puts strict limits on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. And after the JCPOA expires, Iran would still be bound by the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Israel refuses to sign since it has a secret nuclear weapons program.

"We cannot go back to the dangerous nuclear plan, because a nuclear Iran is an existential threat and a very big threat to the security of the whole world," Netanyahu said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stepped up his rhetoric against the Iran nuclear deal after talks to revive the agreement were held in Vienna on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Netanyahu said the JCPOA would not “obligate” Israel, claiming the deal threatens the Jewish State with “annihilation.”

“The nuclear deal with Iran is once again on the table. Such deals with extreme regimes are worthless,” Netanyahu said at a speech during Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony. “A deal with Iran that threatens us with annihilation will not obligate us.”

Netanyahu made a veiled threat about taking action against Iran, as he did on Tuesday when the Vienna talks kicked off. “I say to our closest friends too: ‘A deal with Iran that threatens us with annihilation will not obligate us.’ Only one thing will obligate us: to prevent those who wish to destroy us from carrying out their plans,” he said.

The US State Department has signaled willingness to drop sanctions on Iran that conflict with the 2015 nuclear pact, but suggested Tehran would still have to make concessions of its own – a notion that Iran previously rejected.
“We are prepared to take the steps necessary to return to compliance with the JCPOA, including by lifting sanctions that are inconsistent with the JCPOA,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Wednesday, referring to the nuclear deal by its formal title, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Price added that he was not in a position to provide “chapter and verse” on what sanctions Washington will consider ending, nor any timeframe for when that might happen, saying “That is precisely why we have agreed to engage in diplomacy to this effect.”

The head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency is reportedly expected to travel to Washington in the next few days to lobby against Iran as the occupying regime remains wary of renewed efforts aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major world powers.

Israel’s Channel 13 TV reported on Wednesday that Yossi Cohen will visit Washington for meetings with senior White House and US intelligence officials.

It will be the first high-level visit by an Israeli official since US President Joe Biden took office in January.

Israel is trying to arrange a meeting between Cohen and Biden, the report said, adding that the Mossad chief will present alleged evidence against Iran’s nuclear program in a bid to prevent the US from reentering the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which former president Donald Trump abandoned in May 2018.

US and Iranian officials said initial indirect talks in Vienna on Tuesday aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal were "constructive", with negotiations set to continue this week as US President Joe Biden looks for ways to revive the agreement.

"We do see this as a constructive and certainly welcome step," US State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington.

"It is a potentially useful step as we seek to determine what it is that the Iranians are prepared to do to return to compliance with the stringent limitations under the 2015 deal and, as a result, what we might need to do to return to compliance ourselves," he added.

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European allies of the United States, along with Russia and China, met in Vienna with representatives of Iran in the most forceful bid yet to revive the Iran nuclear deal after former president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in May 2018.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will be the Biden administration's first top cabinet member to visit Israel. He is expected to arrive next week, Walla reported on Tuesday night.

Austin will arrive in Israel amid an increase in maritime incidents between Israel and Iran.

Both the United States and Iran say they are ready to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in full and they have no "open confrontation" between themselves, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the Vienna-based international organizations Mikhail Ulyanov said on Tuesday.

"The task is quite clear - to restore the deal in full. Both the Americans and the Iranians say they are ready. Naturally, the Iranians are very critical about the United States but there is no open confrontation, at least because they don’t speak with each other," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.

He noted that the United States and Iran maintain no direct contacts and communicate via mediators. "The European Union representative will play a key role of a go-between in contacts between the Iranians and the Americans, but Russia may also get involved, like any other participant in the deal," he explained.

Earlier on Tuesday, reports emerged saying that an Iranian cargo vessel, the Saviz, had been attacked in the Red Sea by a missile or a mine. There has been no official confirmation from Tehran on the reported attack.

Israel notified the United States that its forces had attacked an Iranian vessel, the Saviz, in the Red Sea, The New York Times reported Tuesday, citing an unnamed American official.

According to the anonymous official, the Israelis had called the attack "a retaliation for earlier Iranian strikes on Israeli vessels". The official also noted that the Saviz had been damaged below the water line.
He went on to say that it was possible that the attack had been delayed so that an American aircraft carrier in the area, the Dwight D. Eisenhower, could distance itself from the Saviz. At the moment when the Saviz was hit, the official noted, the Eisenhower was "about 200 miles away".

Top Iranian negotiator Abbas Araqchi tells Press TV that the United States must lift its anti-Iran sanctions altogether and in one step if it truly seeks to rejoin the 2015 nuclear agreement, which it abandoned around three years ago.

Araqchi, who serves as deputy foreign minister for political affairs, was interviewed by Press TV outside the venue of a session of the Joint Commission to the Iran deal — officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — in Vienna, Austria.

He reaffirmed that the gathering did not feature any American representatives, and that it just involved Iran’s discussions with the remaining JCPOA participants or the P4+1 — Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany.

The remaining signatories “would then later talk with Americans. And that’s their business. We’re not engaged in that business. We only negotiate with the P4+1.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has issued a statement saying they will maintain their enhanced enrichment level until they get full and immediate sanctions relief as required under the P5+1 nuclear deal.

Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said that proposals for a “step-by-step” process had been suggested, and would see Iran reversing its nuclear process, for only a small step of US engagement in the process. He said Iran considers this unacceptable.

With indirect talks coming up, France is urging Iran to avoid any further escalation as both sides try to work out the disagreements and get the process back into good standing, with everyone getting what they believe they’re entitled to under the nuclear deal.

The Biden administration is moving forward on steps to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, with officials set to participate in high level discussions with signatories to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna next week.

The U.S. and Iran are not expected to meet face to face, although administration officials have said they remain open to direct talks.

The Vienna meeting marks the most forward movement for the Biden team, which will engage with European, Russian and Chinese counterparts over what steps the U.S. can take to achieve a “mutual return” for both America and Iran.

Foundation for the Defense of Democracies CEO Mark Dubowitz is best known for his leadership in promoting “economic warfare” against Iran as a means to foment regime change in Tehran or outright war with the Islamic Republic.

Part of that campaign requires spreading a lot of mis- or disinformation, and Dubowitz himself has been a fervent participant in those efforts.

Over the weekend, Dubowitz tweeted a passage from a Wall Street Journal article that noted an IMF report that “predicts Iran’s economy will return to 3.2% growth in 2021, following a 5% contraction in 2020, on the back of expanded oil sales and a stronger domestic industry.” Dubowitz blamed President Biden’s failure to maintain his predecessor’s “maximum pressure” campaign for the IMF’s alarming forecast.

“The Biden [administration] is already giving major concessions,” he tweeted. “That’s why this is occurring.”

Joe Biden harshly criticized Donald Trump for pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal during the presidential campaign. But two months into his administration, Biden has done absolutely nothing to revive the landmark deal — and his inaction might have already killed it.

Over the years, Iran has given Israel plenty of reasons to worry. Officials in Tel Aviv have accused Tehran of working on developing weapons of mass destruction and of supporting terrorist entities. Yet despite calls to annihilate the Jewish state, an Israeli expert says the Islamic Republic does not pose an existential threat to his country.

Iran is not on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's mind at the moment because he's preoccupied with a political stalemate and efforts to form a coalition to remain in power.

President Hassan Rouhani has dismissed as “lies” the US’s claims that it needs a few months to lift the anti-Iran sanctions and return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal since those things can happen through “a single decree and in one hour.”

“The Americans lie when they say a return to their commitments and the lifting of the sanctions will take 2 to 3 months... It can be done with one decree and in one hour. All it needs is the will to do so, and if there is a serious resolve, the US can return to all its obligations in a single day, and we can also return to all our commitments,” he told a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday.

“Mere slogans and interviews will not work,” said Rouhani. “The Americans must act and do everything in their power” to facilitate the revival of the nuclear deal they abandoned in 2018 in defiance of international law.

The historic partnership agreement signed between Iran and China will force the West to revisit its foreign policy that has persistently relied on intervention and exploitation, a commentator says.

“I think cooperation between Global South countries like China and Iran will force the political elite in the Western capitals to sit back and re-evaluate their policy,” Carl Zha, investigator and content producer on the political, cultural, and historical issues that center around China, told Press TV on Tuesday.

The Global South is a rough term coined to refer to, what some call, “developing countries” as opposed to certain Western and Western-allied states.

He said the West’s trademark foreign policy towards the supposed Global South nations has for long consisted taking interventionist approaches towards them so it can comfortably extract their resources.

A report from Politico on Monday said the Biden administration was ready to offer a proposal to Iran that would give some sanctions relief in exchange for Tehran halting some activity of its civilian nuclear program, such as stopping enriching uranium at 20 percent.

An unnamed Iranian official responded to the report and told Iran’s Press TV on Tuesday that Tehran would only halt 20 percent enrichment if the US lifts all sanctions that have been reimposed since 2018. “Twenty percent uranium enrichment is in line with Paragraph 36 of the JCPOA and will be stopped only if the US lifts all the sanctions,” the official said.

Coming after a 'successful' weekend in which sanctions-beleaguered Iran hailed its signing a major 25-year infrastructure and investment agreement with China, Iran's ambassador to Russia is also touting that a new north-south trade corridor across the region could become a prime 'alternative' to the strategic Suez Canal waterway that's been featured in global headlines due to the 'Ever Given' stuck tanker disaster that just played out.

Called the "International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC)" — a two decades in the making ambitious project — the new trade corridor, currently partially in operation, is 7,200km long, linking up Russia, Iran, and India and ultimately accelerating trade with Europe as well.

The leaders of Russia, France and Germany, which are signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal, have exchanged views on the multilateral accord amid a standoff between Iran and the United States over the implementation of the agreement.

During a conference call on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron discussed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), among other issues.

The Kremlin said the trio spoke in favor of “preserving and implementing” the JCPOA and “further coordinating steps in this direction.”

Separately, the Elysee Palace said in a statement that three leaders had agreed to take measures on the nuclear pact and coordinate their efforts to return Iran to full compliance with its international obligations as soon as possible.

Capping an extraordinary two weeks that turned 21st century geopolitics upside down, Iran and China finally signed their 25-year strategic deal this past Saturday in Tehran.

The timing could not have been more spectacular, following what we examined in three previous columns: the virtual Quad and the 2+2 US-China summit in Alaska; the Lavrov-Wang Yi strategic partnership meeting in Guilin; and the NATO summit of Foreign Ministers in Brussels – key steps unveiling the birth of a new paradigm in international relations.

The officially named Sino-Iranian Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was first announced over five years ago, when President Xi Jinping visited Tehran. The result of plenty of closed-door discussions since 2016, Tehran now describes the agreement as “a complete roadmap with strategic political and economic clauses covering trade, economic and transportation cooperation.”

According to a report from Politico, the Biden administration is preparing to offer a new proposal to Iran on a way to possibly revive the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.

Citing people “familiar with the matter,” the report said the proposal could be put forward as early as this week. One source said the proposal asks Iran to halt some nuclear activity, such as new advanced centrifuges and the enrichment of uranium at 20 percent, in exchange for some relief from US sanctions, although details are still being worked out.

It’s not clear from the report how much sanctions relief the US would offer. Iran is under an enormous amount of US sanctions. Some are devastating to the country’s economy, and others are more symbolic. So the Biden administration has a lot of options of sanctions it could lift that would not really give Tehran any relief.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif characterised the 25-year Iran-China Strategic Partnership Agreement signed on Saturday as a “historic” pact which provides a “strategic roadmap” for relations between the two nations. Publicised details about the agreement have been limited, leading to concerned speculation in Washington and elsewhere.

Israel has reason to be concerned with the strategic cooperation agreement signed by Iran and China, particularly its section about military cooperation, Israeli Air Force general (ret.) and former Israel Defence Forces Military Intelligence Directorate chief Amos Yadlin has said.

“One of the most worrying clauses in the agreement between Iran and China is intelligence sharing,” Yadlin, who now heads the Tel-Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies think tank, told Ynet News on Monday.

China and Iran have signed a strategic partnership agreement. For sanctions-wracked Tehran, it’s an economic lifeline. For Beijing, it’s the start of a tricky Middle East balancing act.

In the midst of a spat of tensions between China and the West, Beijing’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi spent the weekend in Iran, another country that has borne the brunt of confrontation with the United States over the past few years. Sweeping the Middle East on his diplomatic tour, in Tehran Wang signed the long-awaited ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ agreement, hashed out last year, that will span 25 years and encompass Iran’s energy, infrastructure and technology sectors – valued up to an estimated $400 billion. It comes as geopolitical differences peak between Washington, Beijing and its allies.

A senior Iranian official has told Press TV that Tehran will not stop 20-percent uranium enrichment before the US sanctions are lifted.

"20-percent uranium enrichment is in line with Paragraph 36 of the JCPOA and will be stopped only if the US lifts all the sanctions," the official said on Monday evening.

The Iranian official said the country will not stop any of its current nuclear activities before the removal of all sanctions.

"The Biden administration is losing time, and if it fails to lift the sanctions soon, Iran will take the next steps, which will be further reduction of its JCPOA commitments," the official added.

The Iranian official made the remarks in reaction to a report by Politico which claimed the US is to end the deadlock over the 2015 nuclear deal with a new proposal.

An American political analyst says the 25-year cooperation agreement signed by Iran and China reinforces both countries' stance against the United States’ economic blackmail and shores up security in the region.

During a ceremony in Tehran on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi put their signatures on the Sino-Iranian Comprehensive Strategic Partnership to strengthen the traditional friendship between the two states.

The deal, which was five years in the making, includes Chinese investments in Iran’s energy and infrastructure sectors in return for steady supplies of Iranian oil.

A senior Israeli military official has declared on Friday that his country has the ability to "completely destroy Iran's nuclear programme."

Tal Kalman, head of the Strategic Division and the Third-Circle Directorate of the Israeli army, told Israel Today that 2020 was a "good" year concerning war against Iran.

Kalman added: "I do not want to call it a year of transformation, but it is a year of great change. It started with the assassination of Qasem Soleimani and continued with a series of events that I cannot comment on most of the time, which made the balance positive, and very positive."

He explained that Tel Aviv deals with Iran through four axes, the first of which is the extremist regime, adding: "As long as it controls Iran, Israel faces a very big challenge."

Increasingly it appears that so-called "rogue states" and those under Washington's wrath and sanctions are coming together to combat US dominance across the globe. It was a process already set in motion after years of aggressive US attempts to enforce a ban on Iranian and Venezuelan oil, as a prime example.

For starters, China and Russia have been major players in helping to circumvent US attempts to blockade Venezuelan and Iranian crude. Saturday's major China-Iran news to some degree formalizes this, as Reuters reports, "China and Iran, both subject to US sanctions, signed a 25-year cooperation agreement on Saturday to strengthen their long-standing economic and political alliance."

Iranian media outlet Press TV has condemned Facebook for “censorship” after its main page was banned on the site yet again, with the platform citing violations of its “community standards” and stating the move can’t be undone.

“Without any prior warning, Facebook informed Press TV on Friday that its account had been shut down for what it claimed to be the Iranian news channel’s failure to ‘follow our Community Standards,’” the outlet reported, calling the ban “yet another attack by the US-based social media giant on Iranian media outlets.”

‘We have already reviewed this decision and it can’t be reversed,’ said Facebook in a note, without specifying the so-called violations of its rules.

Israel is extremely worried that Iran would develop a nuclear bomb that would target the state of Israel, murdering the Israeli and the Palestinian populations since areas surrounding one of the holiest sites to Islam located in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Al-Aqsa Mosque that will also be contaminated with nuclear fallout, but Israel insists that Iran is building a nuclear weapon to destroy the self-proclaimed Jewish state.

If Iran’s alleged plan to launch a suicide boat attack on Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., sounds nuts, that’s because it is.

The National Security Agency intercepted communications from members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps discussing “USS Cole-style attacks” against the Army installation in January, Associated Press Reporter James LaPorta first revealed.

The Iranian plan also reportedly involved targeting Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Joseph M. Martin, who lived on Fort McNair, according to the AP, which cited two unnamed senior intelligence officials.

In part due to these threats, the Army wants to push boat traffic further away from Fort McNair, according to the Associated Press. Army spokeswoman Col. Cathy Wilkinson declined to discuss the reported threat for this story.

“As a matter of policy, we do not comment on security for senior officials,” Wilkinson said.

While Iran and the IAEA seemed to be on good terms in recent months, a split is starting to emerge from weekend comments by IAEA chief Rafael Grossi, who is seeking “very technical discussions” on undeclared Iranian uranium, and sites that are not listed in the official documentation.

Israel, and subsequently the US, have long accused Iran of having secret sites, but so far have not come up with solid evidence any of this has happened, and have mostly sent the IAEA to repeatedly search through an old carpet factory, finding what appeared to be trivial amounts of unprocessed uranium, hardly definitive of anything.

Iran has given IAEA access to these accused sites a few times, but has expressed annoyance that they keep wanting to go through them over and over, and never find anything. So long as the allegations continue that there were secret sites, the IAEA seems to be treating the fact that they can’t find anything as proof Iran needs to be more forthcoming with info.

If Iran’s alleged plan to launch a suicide boat attack on Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., sounds nuts, that’s because it is.

The National Security Agency intercepted communications from members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps discussing “USS Cole-style attacks” against the Army installation in January, Associated Press Reporter James LaPorta first revealed.

The Iranian plan also reportedly involved targeting Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Joseph M. Martin, who lived on Fort McNair, according to the AP, which cited two unnamed senior intelligence officials.

In part due to these threats, the Army wants to push boat traffic further away from Fort McNair, according to the Associated Press. Army spokeswoman Col. Cathy Wilkinson declined to discuss the reported threat for this story.

“As a matter of policy, we do not comment on security for senior officials,” Wilkinson said.

Iran reportedly threatened to attack Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., as well as the Army’s vice chief of staff, according to a report from The Associated Press published on Sunday.

Citing two unidentified senior U.S. intelligence officials, the AP reports that communications intercepted by the National Security Agency (NSA) indicated that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) discussed carrying out a “USS Cole-style attacks” on Fort McNair in January, referencing the 2000 suicide attack against the U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer in Yemen's Aden harbor that left 17 sailors dead.

The report in the Wall Street Journal a week ago apparently uncovered only the tip of the iceberg of the economic warfare that Israel has been waging against Iran for the past two and a half years. According to the Journal, Israel has systematically scuttled maritime oil smuggling from Iran to Syria by striking at least 12 ships. That effort, according to American sources, is intended to disrupt the use of the funds paid for the oil smuggled to Hezbollah in order to purchase combat materiel.

The Journal noted that it also drew on additional sources, including intelligence sources in the Middle East. The first leak may have come from the Biden administration, aimed at neutralizing background noise which the Americans think might soon hamper the renewal of negotiations with Iran about the United States’ return to the nuclear agreement.

Israel has accused Iran of doing many nefarious things. But the historical record shows that whatever Israel accuses Iran of, it is likely that Israel is already doing it.

For example, Israel has repeatedly accused Iran of destabilizing the region by malignantly spreading across the region and forming alliances and exercising influence in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

But Israel is spreading across the region by forming alliances and exercising influence across the region. With varying degrees of formality and publicity, Israel has expanded its network and formed alliances with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. And this Israeli spread has been destabilizing both in terms of increasing weapons in the region and legitimizing and solidifying occupations.

On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron asked Tehran to “act responsibly” and “stop exacerbating the thorny nuclear situation with multiple violations” of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal. Iran says it will return to its obligations under the JCPOA as soon as the United States lifts its illegal sanctions.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has taken to Twitter to blast the European signatories to the JCPOA (collectively known as the E3) over their public concern about Iran’s nuclear activities while ignoring Israel’s suspected nuclear arsenal.

“To appease a terrorist regime with illicit nukes, E3 urge Iran ‘to act responsibly’. Reality check: The JCPOA is alive SOLELY because of Iran’s responsible conduct,” Zarif wrote.

The US has told China it will enforce Trump-era sanctions against Iranian oil sales, as shipments from Tehran to Beijing surge.

A senior Biden administration official told the Financial Times on Tuesday that Iranian oil exports to China had been increasing "for some time now".

"We've told the Chinese that we will continue to enforce our sanctions," the senior administration official told the newspaper. "There will be no tacit green light."

Still, the official noted that such sanctions could be waived during anticipated talks between the two countries over reviving the Iranian nuclear accord.

In an interview with BBC Persian on Wednesday, President Biden’s Iran envoy said the Trump administration’s Iran policy, known as the maximum pressure campaign, was a “failure.”

“The maximum pressure campaign has failed. It was a predicted failure. It hasn’t made life any better for the Iranian people … It hasn’t brought us any closer to this ‘better deal’ that President Trump spoke about,” said Robert Malley. “Maximum pressure should be a thing of the past.”

While Malley denounced Trump’s policies, the crippling economic sanctions left by the Trump administration are still in place. Malley even recognized that economic sanctions are hurting ordinary Iranians.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was all smiles during a trip to Turkey on Friday. He said it was productive as he stood alongside his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu. He said it was a “wonderful” trip where he spoke with his “brother Cavusoglu.” The trip signals the growing alliance that Turkey and Iran have in the region.

Zarif said “as before, constructive engagement on bilateral and regional issues. Ultimate aim: Apply Iran and Turkey's experience of 400 years of peace to our region. Together, anything is possible.”

Iran has informed the IAEA that they intend to conduct initial testing at the Arak heavy water reactor soon, with a focus on fluid and support systems. They did not set a specific day, but said it would be somewhat after Iranian new years, which is Sunday.

Iran designed Arak to replace the Tehran Research Reactor as a source of medical isotopes. The Iran nuclear deal saw Iran scrap that reactor in favor of an alternative design, and after substantial delay it seems ready for testing.

The testing could begin in days, and the expectation is that Iran could have the site fully active and operational later this year. This would finally resolve a long-standing concern about the age of Iran’s research reactor.

The US has told China it will enforce Trump-era sanctions against Iranian oil sales, as shipments from Tehran to Beijing surge.

A senior Biden administration official told the Financial Times on Tuesday that Iranian oil exports to China had been increasing "for some time now".

"We've told the Chinese that we will continue to enforce our sanctions," the senior administration official told the newspaper. "There will be no tacit green light."

Still, the official noted that such sanctions could be waived during anticipated talks between the two countries over reviving the Iranian nuclear accord.

On Tuesday, Iran’s defense minister said the country must be prepared to face nuclear, chemical, and biological attacks.

“We should be prepared to defend our nation against all threats and whatever the enemy may one day use as an offensive tool, including chemical, nuclear and biological weapons,” said Gen. Amir Hatami, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency.

Hatami made his comments on the 33rd anniversary of a chemical weapons attack by Saddam Hussein on Iraqi Kurds in Halabja, Iraq. During the Iran-Iraq war that raged from 1980 to 1988, Hussein frequently used chemical weapons against Iran, sometimes with US support.

Some day historians will scratch their heads over the fact that for the better part of 20 years U.S. presidents were engaged as a leading foreign policy question in how to restrain Iran, a small country half the world away that has not attacked the U.S., that does not have nuclear weapons, that is the seat of ancient civilization, and whose contribution to regional instability doesn’t look any worse than Israel’s or Saudi Arabia’s.

It is hard to see any American interest at all in Iran, and yet four presidents have now expended an immense amount of political capital on the country.

Last week it came out that New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez was working to “sabotage” Joe Biden’s effort to return to the Iran deal even if he “risks setting the US on a course toward war with Iran.” And meantime, 70 Democrats in the House have signed a letter telling Biden that he shouldn’t reenter the Iran deal that the leading Israel lobby group “AIPAC was behind,” per J Street.

“Biden may already be taking a somewhat harder line on Iran in fear of Menendez’s wrath, Politico reported earlier this month.”

In that Politico article, two top Biden aides, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, gave over-the-top praise of Menendez as a “sounding board” and “principled” guide, respectively.

It’s become monotonous. The New York Times runs a report on U.S.-Iran relations, including the sparring over the nuclear deal — and the paper leaves out the Israel angle entirely. The latest example the other day was headlined: “Impasse Over Iran Nuclear Talks Sets Off International Scramble to Save Accord.”

The article, in addition to the U.S. and Iran, mentioned Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and the European Union — but no Israel.

The reporter, Lara Jakes, is a veteran correspondent, with many years of experience, including in the Mideast. She didn’t just parachute into the story from covering town board meetings in Westchester County.

The Times’s editors are legendarily powerful, which raises the suspicion that 1) they either cut any reference to Israel, or 2) Jakes knew better than to include one.

Some day historians will scratch their heads over the fact that for the better part of 20 years U.S. presidents were engaged as a leading foreign policy question in how to restrain Iran, a small country half the world away that has not attacked the U.S., that does not have nuclear weapons, that is the seat of ancient civilization, and whose contribution to regional instability doesn’t look any worse than Israel’s or Saudi Arabia’s.

It is hard to see any American interest at all in Iran, and yet four presidents have now expended an immense amount of political capital on the country.

The Biden administration, deep down, unfortunately seems to wish to forge ahead with its agenda to revive the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- also known as the Iran nuclear deal, which, incidentally, Iran never signed -- and subsequently to lift sanctions against Tehran.

At a moment the question of the Biden administration's reentry into the 2015 nuclear deal remains in doubt - despite the admin seeking to assure that "indirect diplomacy" is taking place through the Europeans - tensions are soaring in the region and the prospect of a major regional war between Israel, Iran and Syria is now greater than ever.

For starters, it appears Israel and Iran are engaged in a shadow war to sabotage each other's tankers in places like the Red Sea and Gulf of Oman. Signaling continued military preparations in this tit-for-tat saga which has witnessed what was for years a proxy battle fast becoming a more 'direct' confrontation, on Monday Iran's IRGC Navy unveiled a new underground missile base, video footage of which was featured in state media.

THE ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE SERVICES are behind a series of mysterious attacks that have damaged Iranian oil tankers in the past 24 months, according to a new report that cites sources in the international shipping industry. The report, which appeared last week in The Wall Street Journal, cites a number of “shipping professionals” and “regional officials”, but does not name them.

The paper claims that the Israeli government decided to target the Iranian oil tankers after it concluded that Tehran uses the proceeds from oil sales to fund groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Most of the damaged ships were attempting to deliver oil to Syria in violation of a host of international sanctions against Iran, which are led by the United States. Washington appears to be quietly supporting the Israeli attacks on Iranian ships, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Biden’s push to rejoin the failed deal with Iran would undermine U.S. national security.

“If this administration unwinds that and goes back to the deal that we had with Iran when President Obama was in office, America will be less secure. Israel will be less secure. The Middle East will be less secure,” Pompeo stated. “The entire region will be less stable.”

In Sunday’s interview, Pompeo said Iran’s ayatollah regime does not understand diplomacy and agreements and only understands strength. He added Biden’s attempts to negotiate with Iran will result in America being taken advantage of, yet again.

China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and others are seeking support for a coalition to defend the United Nations Charter by pushing back against the use or threat of force and unilateral sanctions, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Thursday.

The move by 16 countries and the Palestinians to create such a group comes as U.S. President Joe Biden’s new administration boosts its multilateral engagement and with allies, reversing former President Donald Trump’s favored unilateral approach as he focused on an “America First” policy.

Biden has also pledged to take on China at the United Nations, where Beijing has been pushing for greater global influence in a challenge to traditional U.S. leadership.

A concept note for the “Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations,” seen by Reuters, states that multilateralism “is currently under an unprecedented attack, which, in turn, threatens global peace and security.”

All signs are currently pointing to serious escalation in the Middle East between Israel, Iran, and involving the United States - particularly after Israel's recent claim of an Iranian sponsored attack on an Israeli-owned cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman two weeks ago.

Signaling the likelihood that another red hot 'tanker war' is set for regional waters within the upcoming months, a new bombshell report in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday reveals Israeli intelligence has been waging its own tanker sabotage campaign against the Iranians over the past two years, in order to thwart what Tel Aviv believes are illegal oil shipments that result in funds for terror groups.

"Israel has targeted at least a dozen vessels bound for Syria and mostly carrying Iranian oil out of concern that petroleum profits are funding extremism in the Middle East, US and regional officials say, in a new front in the conflict between Israel and Iran," the WSJ writes.

Israel has ta rgeted at least a dozen vessels bound for Syria and mostly carrying Iranian oil out of concern that petroleum profits are funding extremism in the Middle East, U.S. and regional officials say, in a new front in the conflict between Israel and Iran.

Since late 2019, Israel has used weaponry including water mines to strike Iranian vessels or those carrying Iranian cargo as they navigate toward Syria in the Red Sea and in other areas of the region. Iran has continued its oil trade with Syria, shipping millions of barrels and contravening U.S. sanctions against Iran and international sanctions against Syria.

Some of the naval attacks also have targeted Iranian efforts to move other cargo including weaponry through the region, according to U.S. officials.

The attacks on the tankers carrying Iranian oil haven’t been previously disclosed. Iranian officials have reported some of the attacks earlier and have said they suspect Israeli involvement.

In a letter to the leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives Friday, President Joe Biden extended the United States’ national emergency with respect to Iran which began in 1995 for one more year.

Biden warned that the actions and policies of the Government of Iran — including its proliferation and development of missiles and other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities, its network and campaign of regional aggression, its support for terrorist groups, and the malign activities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its surrogates — continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.