Mark Levin on Biden's 'not weak at all' Russia sanctions
In this clip, LevinTV host Mark Levin dissecs Joe Biden's 'not weak at all' response to Putin's war in Ukraine.
Mark explains that U.S. President Joe Biden's weakness in Afghanistan and his failure to raise military funds to cover the cost of inflation, among other things, led to the economic sanctions currently being implemented against Russia.
"His decisions have weakened this country," Mark says. Western governments say sanctions will create financial pressure on Russia, and will send a "strong signal." But sanctions are also said to have little effect on Russia's economy.
Watch the clip for more. Can't watch? Download the podcast here.
Biden's Flaccid Russia Sanctions
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Report: Israel suspected in large explosion at Iranian nuclear site, a 'severe blow' that may prevent uranium enrichment there for rest of 2021
Israel is suspected of being behind a large explosion at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment site Sunday, which resulted in a blackout and the complete destruction of its power system. It could prevent the facility from enriching uranium for the rest of year, the New York Times reported, citing anonymous intelligence officials.
What are the details?
The Times cited two officials who described a classified Israeli operation that dealt a "severe blow" to Iran's ability to enrich uranium — and that it could take at least nine months to restore Natanz's production.
Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, called it an act of "nuclear terrorism" and said the international community must confront the threat, the paper reported.
"The action this morning against the Natanz enrichment site shows the defeat of those who oppose our country's nuclear and political development and the significant gains of our nuclear industry," Salehi said, according to Times, which cited Iranian news media. "The incident shows the failure of those who oppose Iran negotiating for sanctions relief."
The act also "injected new uncertainty into diplomatic efforts that began last week to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal repudiated by the Trump administration," the paper noted.
More from the Times:
Iran did not say precisely what had caused the blackout at the heavily fortified site, which has been a target of previous sabotage, and Israel publicly declined to confirm or deny any responsibility. But American and Israeli intelligence officials said there had been an Israeli role. [...]
It was not immediately clear how much advance word — if any — the Biden administration received about the Natanz operation, which happened on the same morning that the American defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, was visiting Israel. But Israeli officials have made no secret of their unhappiness over Mr. Biden's desire to revive the nuclear agreement that his predecessor renounced in 2018.
The talks to salvage the nuclear agreement — i.e., Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — are set to resume this week, the paper added.
'Sabotage and infiltration'
Malek Shariati Niasar, an Iranian lawmaker and spokesman for the Parliament's energy committee, said on Twitter that the outage was "very suspicious" and raised the possibility of "sabotage and infiltration," the Times reported.
More from the paper:
Some Iranian experts dismissed initial speculation that a cyberattack could have caused the power loss. The Natanz complex has its own power grid, multiple backup systems and layers of security protection intended to stop such an attack from abruptly shutting down its system.
"It's hard to imagine that it was a cyberattack," said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. "The likely scenario is that it either targeted the facility indirectly or through physical infiltration." The intelligence officials said it was indeed a detonation of explosives.
What else has gone down?
Iranian military leaders threatened Israel following mysterious explosions at Iranian nuclear and military sites last year, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
"We warn the Zionist liars and their puppeteers that if they continue their prattle, they will see the upper hand of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the resistance front in action," Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi was quoted as saying in the country's state-controlled press, the Free Beacon said.
In November Iran claimed one of its top nuclear scientists was assassinated with Israeli involvement. The Israeli government believed Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was the mastermind directing Iran's nuclear weapons program in the early 2000s.
Immediately following Fakhrizadeh's death, the New York Times was blasted for calling Iran's nuclear program "peaceful."
In December Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said he had "no doubt" that then-President-elect Joe Biden will "bow" to Iran and rejoin the nuclear deal.
Indeed, the Biden administration in February said it was ready to begin talks with Iran to rejoin the deal.
(H/T: The Daily Wire)
President Biden eases sanctions, offers to restart nuclear deal talks with Iran
President Joe Biden's administration on Thursday says that it is ready to commence talks with Iran to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal.
What's a brief history here?
Former President Donald Trump famously withdrew from the Obama-era deal in 2018.
According to reports, the Biden administration has also began taking steps with the United Nations to restore the policy to what it was before Trump's move to strike it down.
Biden has said that he would attempt to save the deal so long as Tehran resumes compliance with the agreement terms.
Iran previously set a deadline of Feb. 21 and vowed that if oil and banking sanctions are not removed, the country would expel the United Nation's nuclear inspectors from the country.
What are the details?
According to the Daily Wire, the state department announced the developments "following discussions between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his British, French, and German counterparts," and just one day before Biden speaks with Group of Seven (G7) leaders at the Munich Security Conference.
"At both," the outlet noted, "Biden is expected to discuss his commitment to multilateral diplomacy and his desire to undo damage that Trump's positions may have caused over the previous four years."
In a statement on the matter, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that the country is willing to further talks regarding the deal.
"The United States would accept an invitation from the European Union High Representative to attend a meeting of the P5+1 and Iran to discuss a diplomatic way forward on Iran's nuclear program," Price said.
No such invitation has been extended at the time of this reporting.
According to the Associated Press, "In addition to signaling a willingness to talk with Iran, the administration also reversed Trump's determination that all U.N. sanctions against Iran had been restored. And, it eased stringent restrictions on the domestic travel of Iranian diplomats posted to the United Nations."
The Daily Wire added, "National security expert Tim Morrison, who was on Trump's National Security Council and is currently a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told The Daily Wire in a statement that the Biden administration was giving up all leverage as it tried to restart the 'dangerously flawed' deal."
"The Biden Administration is repeating the mistakes of the Obama Administration," Morrison said. "It's making concessions to get nothing more than a meeting. The Iran deal was dangerously flawed in 2015. In 2021, with key provisions expired, it's simply national security malpractice to return to that deal. The Trump Administration bequeathed Biden tremendous leverage over Iran — it must not squander it."
The outlet added:
Nuclear weapons expert Dr. Peter Vincent Pry told The Daily Wire back in 2017 that one of the major problems with the Iran nuclear deal was that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) does not have “access to their military facilities where the military program would be going on."
“Most people in this town [Washington D.C.] believe [that Iran does not have nuclear weapons], because I think they are ignorant, the level of technological ignorance among Washington policy makers, who are mostly lawyers, is so astonishing that we can find ourselves in a treaty like this," Pry said. “When Obama signed that thing, he let them off the hook, to prove that they didn't have the bomb yet — and I think it was on purpose because he was so anxious to get that deal to set up his legacy and everything. He didn't want to be the president where Iran goes nuclear on his watch."
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