Radio America Online News Bureau

nuclear deal

New Iran Sanctions, Warren Calls Justice System Racist, Trump’s LeBron Tweet

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Listen to “New Iran Sanctions, Warren Calls Justice System Racist, Trump’s LeBron Tweets” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America commend the Trump administration for reinstating sanctions on Iran after rescinding the failed nuclear deal, which the rogue regime did not follow. They also denounce Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth’s Warren’s far-left rhetoric about the criminal justice system and they blame the divisive discourse for the lack of meaningful reforms. And they are frustrated that President Donald Trump tweeted about LeBron James’ intelligence rather than thanking the NBA star for funding education and extolling the benefits of charter schools.

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Americans Freed, U.S. Exits Iran Deal, GOP Voters Get It Right

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Jim and Greg are both on vacation this week.  They will be back June 25th.  There will new episodes with guest hosts Thursday and Friday of this week.  Today, please enjoy an encore presentation of the Three Martini Lunch.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are in very good spirits as they savor three wonderful martinis for conservatives.  First, they celebrate the news that three American hostages are on their way home from North Korea in advance of the upcoming Trump-Kim summit.  They also applaud President Trump for withdrawing the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal, which was riddled with inspection loopholes and was never properly submitted to Congress.  And they cheer the victory of conservative Patrick Morrisey in the West Virginia U.S. Senate primary, the lopsided defeat for “Cocaine Mitch” accuser Don Blankenship, and strong turnout for Republicans in three primary states.

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Ellison’s Exit, Entitlements Implode & America Yawns, Obama’s New Iran Lie

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America welcome the news that outspoken liberal Rep. Keith Ellison is leaving the House of Representatives to run for statewide office in Minnesota, a venture they sincerely hope ends in failure.  They also lament that Medicare and Social Security are getting closer to insolvency and neither lawmakers nor most Americans seem all that concerned about it.  They also highlight yet another lie perpetrated by the Obama administration in getting the Iran nuclear deal done, this time allowing Iran access to U.S. banks while adamantly telling lawmakers it would not do so.

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‘Undue Concessions from the West Are Ending’

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President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Iranian nuclear deal leaves Iranian leaders with the grim realization that the era of endless concessions from the West is over and that their own grip on power continues to slip.

On Tuesday, Trump announced he was exiting the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.  In the hours since, Iranian officials have alternately vowed to keep honoring the deal with the remaining partners and to exit the JCPOA themselves and begin openly enriching uranium again.

Some official burned a paper American flag inside the Iranian parliament.

“It’s very important to realize that after several decades of appeasing the regime in Tehran…finally we see that the President of the United States is actually declaring that all the lavish money that was made (available) to the regime by the previous administration was actually disastrous,” said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

The NCRI has played a key role in uncovering details of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.  And Jafarzadeh says the contrast in response to Iran from the past two administrations ought to be obvious.

“[Trump] has said [Iran] has funded its long reign of chaos and terror by plundering the wealth of its own people.  That is, of course, a sharp contrast with what we have seen before.  I think that’s what the regime is sensing,” said Jafarzadeh.

“That era of gaining undue concessions from the outside world, from the West, is actually ending.  They were pretty much getting away with everything they were doing and gaining concessions for their terrorism and development of nuclear weapons, and their missile program, all of that,” he added.

Unrest is raging in Iran, mostly over rapidly deteriorating economic conditions.  Unemployment is high and so is inflation.  Just two weeks ago, Jafarzadeh said the regime was desperate to keep the U.S. in the JCPOA.

Now he says, the pressure inside Iran will intensify.

“The regime was already frightened.  They were afraid of their own population, and then comes this new position by the United States that simply adds fuel to the fire that is already burning the regime through the uprisings in Iran.

“The regime’s economy is in shambles.  There’s a huge amount of corruption going on.  It’s very institutionalized corruption from top to bottom.  The regime has not been able to contain its own population, who want nothing but change,” said Jafarzadeh.

Jafarzadeh says the policies and excuses offered by the regime are also falling on deaf ears.  He says protesters want Iran out of Syria, chanting slogans such as “Leave alone Syria, think about us” and “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I give my life for Iran.”

Even blaming “The Great Satan” doesn’t work anymore.  Jafarzadeh says Iranians in rural areas – typically the places that most strongly support the regime – are chanting lines such as “The enemy is right here, they wrongly say it’s America.”

Jafarzadeh says pressure is clearly building on the regime and that American sanctions will add even more.

“That simply makes things a lot worse.  It just gives a picture for the future of the regime, much more bleak than it was before,” he said.

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Iran Desperate for U.S. to Keep Nuke Deal

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President Trump’s instinct is to scrap the Iran nuclear deal while French President Emmanuel Macron is willing to amend it but not rescind it without another plan in place, but a leading figure in the Iranian resistance says the deal doesn’t stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons but does help the radical mullahs stay in power.

President Trump has until May 12 to declare whether Iran is in compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, and whether the U.S. will remain a party to the seven-nation agreement.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, says despite Tehran’s bluster about exiting the deal if the U.S. does, the Iranian leaders badly need the agreement to continue.

“There’s no way the Iranian regime wants to lose this agreement.  They want to do everything possible to keep it, because the regime knows that absent this agreement, there’s really not too many other options left for them,” said Jafarzadeh, who says threats to the contrary are nothing but “hot air.”.

He says that’s because internal unrest is reaching a boiling point.

“The regime is facing tremendous problems domestically, particularly on the economic side of it.  We’ve seen the uprising going on since December that were built around the economic corruption in Iran and the high rise in prices for very basic food.  Inflation is so high.  Inflation is skyrocketing,” said Jafarzadeh.

Iran is clamping down on media outlets and social media, so reports of the ongoing protests are hard to find, but Jafarzadeh says they are still going strong and are appearing in many different parts of the country.

“The protests are continuing ever since they started.  It expanded to 142 cities starting back in December,” said Jafarzadeh, listing off a number of cities seeing major protests in the past several days.

“Every week there is a new hot spot in Iran.  People are chanting with the same intensity against the regime, making significant demands, none of which the regime can really meet,” said Jafarzadeh.

He says some chants even explicitly scold the government for blaming its problems on America and stating that only the Iranian regime is to blame.

Keeping the deal in place is critical for the Iranian leaders because the money that flowed back into Iran from the agreement has been trumpeted as the solution to Iran’s economic problems.

However, even that good fortune could soon backfire on Iran’s leadership.

“Once the people realize that all the money that was given to the Iranian regime ended up in the pocket of the mullahs, the ayatollahs, and the Revolutionary Guard.  It was basically the military structure and the clerical structure that benefited from that.

“Imagine if there’s more pressure built against the regime what kind of political problems it’s going to create for the Iranian regime,” said Jafarzadeh.

The more pertinent issue for Trump, Macron, and other world leaders is whether the JCPOA is actually preventing the advancement of Iran’s nuclear program.  Jafarzadeh is convinced it doesn’t.

“The agreement has kept almost all of the nuclear infrastructure of the Iranian regime intact.  It has allowed the research and development of more advanced centrifuges that could actually enrich uranium much faster and more efficiently further down the road.

“It hasn’t put any meaningful restrictions on the missile program of the Iranian regime, which is really marching forward with more missile tests on nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.  And it has this ridiculous sunset clause.  In a few years, all those restrictions on the nuclear program are removed,” said Jafarzadeh.

And he says the hurdles to inspections make enforcement of the existing deal virtually impossible.

“Most importantly, there’s no serious access and inspection of a number of nuclear sites where the core of the nuclear program of Iran is.  It’s not just the enrichment but the weaponization part of the program.  We exposed at least six nuclear sites we believe need to be inspected,” said Jafarzadeh.

He says the bottom line is the JCPOA doesn’t stop Iran from getting nukes.

“As of now, the current restrictions are not sufficient enough to prevent the Iranian regime from developing nuclear weapons further down the road,” said Jafarzadeh.

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Iran Deal Stands for Now, Trump Sends Clear Message

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President Trump is giving the Iran nuclear deal another four months but also warned Congress that will not happen again without lawmakers passing major changes to the agreement, and leading Iranian dissidents urge the U.S. to stop trying to save a fatally flawed deal in the first place.

In addition, the Trump administration announced new sanctions aimed the Iranian regime in connection with its crackdown on protesters in recent days.

Officially, Trump is waiving nuclear sanctions against Iran until May.  He did not say what type of changes would meet with his approval at that time.

For the Iranian dissidents, there’s no way to salvage this deal.

“The main problem is that the entire nuclear structure of the Iran regime has remained intact, and the fact that there’s no real access to the key centers and locations that are actually engaged in weaponization, which is a critical part of building nuclear weapons.

“There’s no access for the [International Atomic Energy Agency] to the military sites where the real deal is.  Then there is a sunset clause.  At some point down the road, all of those restrictions are going to be gone and the Iranian regime will be free to continue its development of nuclear weapons,” said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is allied with the main internal resistance group in Iran, Mojahedin-e-Khalq.  The group is also known as the MEK.

Jafarzadeh says modifications to the nuclear deal will be fruitless because the regime will never abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons.  He says there’s only one effective modification for Iran.

“The Iranian regime is intent on building the bomb so the real solutions to all of the problems is to see fundamental change in Iran to change the regime,” said Jafarzadeh.

The Iranian resistance is also very pleased with the Trump administration’s actions, through the Treasury Department, to issue sanctions against 14 different Iranian individuals and entities, largely in response to the repression of protests over the past couple of weeks.

One figure targeted financially is he head of the Iranian judiciary, Sadeq Larijani.

“He’s the one who implements all the repressive measures of the Iranian regime.  He’s the one who has been prosecuting and putting people in jail. at least 8,000 demonstrators in the past two weeks.  He has already instructed the other judges to be very, very harsh against the demonstrators,” said Jafarzadeh.

“Another entity was the Rajai Shahr prison.  It is a very notorious prison that is known for torture and horrible things they have done to prisoners.  A number of people who have been detained during the demonstrations are now in Rajai Shahr prison,” said Jafarzadeh., who says the head jailer there is also named in the sanctions.

Others targeted by sanctions on Friday include elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, specifically for cutting off internet access that prevented protesters from communicating with each other and the outside world.  Individuals and entities assisting the Iranian ballistic missile program are also being targeted.

Jafarzadeh says Trump is paying attention.

“The president showed Friday that while he is so unhappy with the nuclear deal, he’s even more unhappy with the other aspects of the Iranian regime’s behavior, namely their domestic repression, their censorship and threatening their neighbors in the region,” said Jafarzadeh.

He also says the pressure is getting to the regime.  This past week, Ayatollah Ali Khameini gave a speech vowing to crackdown on the protests even more and blaming them on a “triangle” of organized resistance – namely the United States, hostile Gulf States like Saudi Arabia, and the MEK.  He also vowed a fierce crackdown on all elements of the triangle within Iran.

Jafarzadeh does not think the threats will work because they don’t change the reality of economic misery in Iran.

“No matter how much you repress them, the disconnect of the people will not go away.  The economic situation is not going to get any better.  There’s no plan for the government to resolve the issues.  There are workers who have not been paid for eleven months.

“Even doctors who used to get regular pay haven’t been paid for 9-10 months.  A lot of factories are not working,” said Jafarzadeh.

Jafarzadeh says the protests swelled to 141 different cities of all sizes.

“This is absolutely unprecedented since the ayatollahs came to power in Iran,” he said.

The bottom line, says Jafarzadeh, is that pressure from inside and outside Iran is working.

“The more pressure the United States builds against the Iranian regime, the more the regime’s forces get frightened and the more encouraged the people will get,” he said.

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Trump’s Dizzying DACA Move, Soft on Iran Sanctions, White House vs. ESPN

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to President Trump making a deal with Democratic leaders to enact DACA into law in exchange for “massive border security” that has yet to be defined.  They also sigh as the Trump administration continues sanctions relief for Iran in conjunction with the nuclear deal it still hasn’t scrapped.  And they slam the White House for suggesting ESPN anchor Jemele Hill ought to fired for tweeting that Trump is a white supremacist while also blasting Hill and ESPN for their aggressively extreme politics.

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