The only way to Mideast peace? Crush Iran’s terror regime



Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, recently warned, “Any mischief the U.S. does will surely receive a strong reciprocal blow.” It may be the most unintentionally absurd April Fools' joke of the year.

President Trump, who has long sounded the alarm over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, didn’t mince words in response. “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing — the likes of which they have never seen before,” he said. Days earlier, the president warned that if Tehran refused to negotiate a new nuclear agreement, “bad, bad things are going to happen to Iran.”

Anyone with a basic grasp of military power knows the Iranian regime would be hopelessly outmatched in a direct conflict with the United States. A well-executed U.S. strike could dismantle Iran’s nuclear facilities and cripple the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its command-and-control networks, air defenses, and naval forces.

The recent deployment of U.S. B-2 Spirit stealth bombers to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean wasn’t just a routine maneuver. It was a clear and unmistakable signal to Tehran: Test America’s resolve, and the consequences will be swift and overwhelming.

Target the head of the snake

Since October 7, 2023, the Middle East has descended into chaos. The lesson is now unmistakable: Real peace and security in the region require confronting the source of the violence — the Iranian regime.

The Biden administration’s policy of appeasement gave Tehran room to maneuver. It exploited Western concessions, ramped up its nuclear program, and expanded its influence across the region. Intelligence from the National Council of Resistance of Iran — the same group that first revealed Iran’s covert nuclear sites at Natanz and Arak in 2002 — reported in February that Tehran is now actively developing nuclear warheads for ballistic missiles.

At the same time, the regime continues to export terror. Iran arms, trains, and funds the Houthis, who have repeatedly attacked commercial shipping and disrupted trade in the Red Sea.

President Trump pursued a different path: maximum pressure. His administration imposed crippling sanctions and eliminated waivers that helped drive Iran’s oil exports toward zero. More recently, Trump warned that if Iran refuses to negotiate, “There’s a chance that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago.”

This kind of pressure works. But economic force alone isn’t enough. It must be matched with steadfast support for the Iranian people and their resistance movement — those willing to fight for freedom from within.

Ready resistance

Internal dissent remains the most viable path to ending Iran’s theocratic government. Since December 2017, Iran has witnessed at least four major uprisings — each one larger, more diverse, and more threatening to the regime’s grip on power. The most significant was the 2022 revolt, when protesters chanted, “Down with the oppressor, whether the Shah or the Supreme Leader.”

That message couldn’t have been clearer: The Iranian people reject dictatorship in all its forms. They want a secular, democratic republic.

The Resistance Units — a national network affiliated with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran — carried out more than 3,000 anti-regime operations in the past year alone. These efforts persisted despite mass arrests, torture, and executions. The network is growing, not shrinking. It is the only organized force inside Iran capable of challenging the regime from within.

At the same time, Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has offered a clear plan for a free Iran. Her 10-point platform calls for secular governance, universal suffrage, gender equality, individual freedoms, and a non-nuclear state. That vision has earned the public backing of more than 4,000 lawmakers worldwide — including a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and the British House of Commons.

Speaking before Congress in February, Rajavi made NCRI’s position clear. It doesn’t want foreign troops, weapons, or money. It wants recognition of the Iranian people’s right to resist tyranny and of the Resistance Units’ fight to dismantle the IRGC’s machinery of repression.

What the West can do

Military options must remain on the table. But the most effective way to defeat Iran’s regime is to cut off its financial lifelines and escalate pressure across all fronts.

A serious strategy should include the following:

  • Strangle the regime’s economy. Block Iran’s oil and gas exports to starve its terrorist proxies, missile programs, and nuclear ambitions of funding.
  • Activate the U.N. snapback mechanism. Reimpose all prior U.N. Security Council resolutions, shutting down the regime’s nuclear program in full.
  • Place the regime under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter. Its repeated threats and destabilizing activities clearly qualify as threats to international peace and security.
  • Recognize the Iranian people’s right to resist. Publicly support the organized resistance movement and the Resistance Units battling the IRGC inside Iran.

The time for action is now

The Iranian regime is at its weakest point in decades. Its economy is collapsing, regional allies are facing setbacks, and internal dissent is growing. The international community has a unique opportunity to push the regime to the brink. The Iranian New Year, which began on March 20, could mark the start of historic change in the Middle East.

An Iran free from the mullahs is no longer a distant dream — it is within reach. But to make it a reality, the West must act decisively and stand with the Iranian people, not their oppressors.

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WSJ distorts Vance's comments on Ukraine, Russia — but social media users quickly correct the record



Social media users quickly corrected the record after the Wall Street Journal appeared to grossly distort comments Vice President JD Vance made regarding Ukraine and Russia during a recent interview.

On Friday, Bojan Pancevski and Alexander Ward of the WSJ published an article based on an exclusive interview with Vance. The headline for the article — "Vance Wields Threat of Sanctions, Military Action to Push Putin Into Ukraine Deal" — has drawn severe criticism online.

'As we've always said, American troops should never be put into harm's way where it doesn’t advance American interests and security.'

William Martin, the communications director for the vice president, immediately tweeted out screenshots of a transcript of the interview, revealing that the headline did not accurately reflect Vance's statements.

According to the screenshots, Vance admitted that President Donald Trump has an array of "instruments of pressure" he can use to convince President Vladimir Putin to abide by any agreement reached with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Among them are "economic" and "military tools of leverage."

Vance also reiterated that whenever President Donald Trump walks into a negotiation, "everything is on the table."

However, the vice president did not threaten sanctions or military action. Instead, he simply declined to eliminate any possible leverage Trump could use as he works to bring peace to the region.

There is also little chance that the interviewer misunderstood Vance's point. A screenshot of the transcript showed that the interviewer asked a follow-up question to "make sure": "So just want to make sure I understand you correctly. You're saying that even though the possibility of a Ukraine NATO accession at the end of this process, or even the presence of U.S. troops in Ukraine is not officially off the table?"

Trump "wants to have a productive negotiation, both with Putin and with [Zelenskyy]," Vance told the WSJ, even as he "doesn't like the idea of moving Ukraine into NATO."

Martin claimed that the framing from the WSJ was "fake news."

"This is pure fake news. Compare the transcript of @JDVance's conversation with WSJ to the headline being run here. The Vice President didn’t make any threats. He simply stated the fact that no one is going to take options away from President Trump as these negotiations begin," he wrote.

According to a post from Libs of TikTok, the WSJ article was even slapped with a community note denying the accuracy of the headline, but as of early Friday afternoon, no such community note is currently attached to the WSJ post.

'Such liars. That’s not at all what VP Vance said.'

Vance reacted to the WSJ headline by quote-tweeting Republican strategist Andrew Surabian, who called the headline "one of the most intentionally dishonest things I've seen in a long time" and likened the WSJ to the Huffington Post.

Vance did not mention anything about the headline or the WSJ in his message. Rather, he reiterated the administration's stance on the Ukraine-Russia war:

President Trump is the ultimate deal maker and will bring peace to the region by ending the war in Ukraine. As we've always said, American troops should never be put into harm's way where it doesn’t advance American interests and security. This war is between Russia and Ukraine.

Other social media users have also excoriated the WSJ for the misleading headline:

  • "Who wrote this headline?Whoever it was didn't read the article because J.D. said nothing like that," said Brick Suit, an eccentric figure frequently spotted wearing a brick-patterned ensemble at Trump campaign rallies.
  • "Such liars. That’s not at all what VP Vance said," said a user called Queen Isabel.
  • "No one takes you seriously anymore. You’ve lied, yet again. You are just a bunch of partisan hacks, and the people who buy your bs are just as bad. Keep it up, you’re sending yourselves into an irrelevant oblivion," came another popular response.

In an era in which news is regularly aggregated by other outlets, such a specious headline can have far-reaching implications. For instance, the New York Post similarly adopted the WSJ framing, writing up an article entitled "JD Vance threatens Russia with sanctions, possible military action if Putin doesn’t agree to end Ukraine war."

Pancevski, Ward, and Victor Nava, author of the Post article, did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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