by Majid Rafizadeh  •  Gatestone Institute •  April 19, 2025

The Trump administration must not lose sight of the Iranian regime’s history and intentions. Iran has mastered the art of prolonging negotiations: appearing cooperative while covertly advancing its strategic interests, especially developing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. The mullahs see their nuclear program as the key to their survival.  Pictured: Secretary Kerry Listens as Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif Addresses Reporters (Photo by U.S. Department of State from United States –  Public Domain)

• The Iranian regime’s primary objective remains preserving its power. The mullahs see their nuclear program as the key to their survival.

Read more…

Peloni:  Not a good sign.

By Janatan Sayeh | April 19, 2025

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Saudi Arabia Minister of Defense Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud participate in a bilateral exchange at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., Feb. 24, 2025. (DoD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza)

In an unprecedented move, Saudi Arabia’s defense minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman, visited Tehran on April 17 for high-level talks with senior Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian, and Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces and a senior member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Read more…

Peloni:  Has Trump surrendered his position demanding Iran have no nuclear program after having just reiterated it via statements from the State Dept, his Press Secretary, and a reversal by his own Mideast Envoy?  It seems highly unlikely.

FDD | April 19, 2025

Latest Developments

• Second Round Held: A second round of negotiations between the United States and Iran over the future of Tehran’s nuclear program took place in Rome on April 19. A four-hour long discussion was held between delegations led by President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Once again, Oman served as the mediator, this time hosting talks at its ambassador’s residence in the Italian capital. The deliberations unfolded amid international debate over whether diplomacy or military action is the most effective way to deter Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Read more…

Peloni:  Netanyahu announces resolve to defeat Hamas, eliminate Iran’s nuclear program and return the hostages.

Janet Levy : Francisco Gil-White explains how Qatar, a defenseless country with the third largest gas reserves in the world (13th in oil) where 94% of the work force are slaves, is completely dependent on the U.S.

If the U.S. demanded the return of the hostages and the cessation of terrorist funding, Qatar would comply in a heartbeat rather than risk the loss of their national security that is guaranteed by the U.S. presence.

A sobering interview that brings home the reality of U.S. policy and explains the close ties of Trump administration officials to this jihad-mongering emirate.

This is the time for Meta to start labeling Al Jazeera and AJ+, so it will be a little harder for anyone to get away with quoting them and saying “Facebook says it’s true.”

By GIL HOFFMAN | APRIL 19, 2025

In a classic episode of the long-running cartoon show South Park, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is confronted with lies and denies them until his adversaries use the damning line “Facebook says it’s true!”

Read more…

Jabotinsky’s Betar worldwide is the growing link in the chain begun by Jabotinsky and continued by Menachem Begin.

Ronn Torossian  |  Apr 18, 2025

Zeev Jabotinsky memorial (Photo by Avi1111 dr. avishai teicher – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0)

As Pro-Hamas media, the UN and craven world leaders attack us, we owe our enemies nothing. The great Zionist Revisionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky said it all when he timelessly wrote in an essay entitled “Go To Hell” in 1920:

“We constantly and very loudly apologize… Instead of turning our backs to the accusers, as there is nothing to apologize for, and nobody to apologize to, we swear again and again that it is not our fault… Isn’t it long overdue to respond to all these and all future accusations, reproaches, suspicions, slanders and denunciations by simply folding our arms and loudly, clearly, coldly and calmly answer with the only argument that is understandable and accessible to this public: ‘Go to Hell!’?

Read more…

by Rafael Medoff

Wesleyan University – College Row (Photo by Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 3.0)

The president of Wesleyan University claimed, in a recent New York Times op-ed, that the Trump administration and the Republican Party are teeming with secret or aspiring Nazis. But how did the Wesleyan administration relate to the actual Nazis and Nazi supporters on its Connecticut campus in the 1930s?

Read more…

Peloni:  In a nation where elections are not free, fair and transparent, the republic for which the elections have been held has already fallen.  Indeed, election integrity is the key construct upon which the concept of the Consent of the Governed is based, making this investigation, and any reform emanating from its findings, the foundation upon which the liberties and freedoms of the American people will be secured for future generations.  Hence, the outcome of this investigation will in large measure define the future of the American experiment, and the extent to which it will be defined by the will of the people vs the will of the elites.

By Jerome R. Corsi, Michael J. Flynn (US Army, Lt. Gen., Retired) | Am Thinker | April 16, 2025

Peloni:  Highly recommended video.  The panel discusses the importance of the development of an Eastern Mediterranean balance to the growing expansionist threat from Turkey.  They also discuss the possible threat of Turkey, as a NATO member, developing a nuclear program, as well as Turkey representing the Sunni equivalent to the radical Shia axis in Iran, and how the US is needed to play a pivotal role in this calculus, not by supporting Erdogan, but by opposing him in cooperation with the Eastern Mediterranean allies, and that as the US is becoming less engaged in Europe, it might well be convinced that they have a very real interest in stabilizing the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Peloni: In fact, if the policy of “We will kill you if you take our people” were actually the accepted policy, there would be no ongoing negotiations, the war would have been long over, and the threat over future Jew ransoms would be greatly diminished. Contrary to this policy, even while we see the perpetrators of October 7 being eliminated daily, the negotiations persist, with thousands of butchers having won their release from a just imprisonment due to these negotiations.  So too, the war rages on, but as if the mechanization of reciprocity and justice were on some form of unseen and inconceivably premised leash, the practice of total war which was so well earned by the savagery of October 7 is inexplicably being restrained from being enforced.  The negotiations, even if they had not been profitable to the perpetrators of October 7, betray the stark need of enacting such an unrelenting policy of quibbling over the price to be paid for the living and dead now being held.  Indeed, the true price of negotiating for the hostages is that it reinforces the practice of future hostage raids being conducted.  As the entire force of the IDF is today being restrained by the protective shield created by the living and dead Jews now held in Gaza, it represents a model which has proven its worth to the barbarians who perpetrated October 7, making it certain that the medieval practice of Jew Ransoming is too successful of a gambit for the likes of Hamas to ignore.

Watch: Trump’s Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs breaks the rules of political correctness and triggers the hell out of jihadists in the Middle East with this dire warning…pic.twitter.com/wsEas0Q1Qe

— Liza Rosen (@LizaRosen0000) April 18, 2025

Janet Levy:  Be very concerned.  Anti-Israel is anti-American. Iran’s theocracy threatens Israel AND America.

by Con Coughlin  •  April 18, 2025 at 5:00 am

• The appointment, however, of several officials to key national security positions in the Trump administration, who vehemently oppose direct military action against Iran, has raised concerns that the White House might be backing away from its commitment to eliminate the threat Iran poses to global security.
• In particular, these concerns relate to the recent appointments to the Pentagon of influential figures such as John Byers for Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (South and South-East Asia), and Michael DiMino, a former career CIA military analyst and counterterrorism official, for Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Middle East).

Read more…

By Seth Frantzman | April 16, 2025

U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to 4th Platoon, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, set up a mortar weapon system during a patrol of the Deconfliction Zone at Al-Tanf, Syria, Dec. 23, 2024. These regular patrols enable Coalition forces to maintain security and stability within the Combined Joint Operations Area.
(U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Fred Brown, Public Domain)

US forces in Tanf continue to train with Syrian partner forces and support their work securing an area of southern Syria near the Iraqi and Jordanian borders.

Read more…

Thomas McInerney, LTG, USAF (Ret) & Paul E. Vallely MG, US Army (Ret)

Guest Editorial: Cynical Publius | April 16, 2025

By U.S. Navy – Vice Admiral Shoshana S. Chatfield, Public Domain

Politics is the domain of the president, not the oath-bearing members of the uniformed services. There is a cancer in America’s military ranks, and it must be expunged before it’s too late. That cancer lies in uniformed service members’ widespread rejection of the uniquely American concept of civilian control of the military and disregard for the absolute necessity that America’s military officers remain apolitical in the face of the constitutional will of the electorate.

Read more…

Peloni:  As Erdogan espouses ever greater Jihadi rhetoric, it is important that his access to the most advanced Western military hardware should be restricted.  The expansion of his realm to now include northern Syria demonstrates his expansionist rhetoric is quite material in nature, demonstrating the need for a more restrictive approach towards Turkey as discussed below.  As the authors explain, the Trump administration should react in a way which will restrain Erdogan rather than appease him.

Recep Tayyip Erdo?an in Kahramanmara?, May 2023 (Photo By Voice of America, Picryl,  Public Domain)

Turkey and Israel held talks last Wednesday aimed at avoiding a confrontation in Syria as Ankara continues to pursue greater influence in a post-Assad Syria, including through an increased military presence. With Turkey again throwing its military weight around the Middle East and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asserting Ankara’s central role in European security, it is worth taking stock of Turkey’s actual military capabilities and foreign policy objectives.

Read more…