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Iran Tag

President Donald Trump announced that America will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. Trump has consistently threatened to withdraw from the deal, but extended it a few times in his first year. However, in January, Trump said this would be his last waiver "unless the deal is strengthened by Congress and European allies."

Reports indicated "Israeli intelligence uncovered a huge amount of new and dramatic information on the Iranian nuclear program." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a public announcement at 1:00 PM ET to discuss these findings (or as much as can be made public) and indicated he shared the intel with the US. Mossad managed to obtain a half ton of original documents germane to Iran's nuclear program. Incredibly. Documents revealed Monday explain how Iran continued nuclear weapons development using different organizations.

Iran has stirred the pot even more with Israel by threatening the Jewish state after an airstrike on Monday killed several Iranian military personnel at an air base near Homs, Syria. Reuters reported that Israel faces even more security concerns over the possibility of US airstrikes in Syria after President Donald Trump threatened Russia over its support of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

PressTV, which is affiliated with the Iranian regime, has reported that the government has revealed a plan to change to the Euro "as its official reporting foreign currency" as the country's rial continues to plummet. The rial's problems have caused citizens to rush to the banks to take out US dollars. This week, 60,000 rials could be purchased for just one American dollar.

An editorial in The New York Times on Monday blasted President Donald Trump for not having a plan for Syria. I don't know if Trump does or doesn't have a plan for Syria. What I do know is that Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama did have a plan for Syria - and it is the reason we keep seeing carnage there. What's worse, The New York Times enthusiastically supported Obama's plans affecting Syria.

The Trump administration has slapped sanctions on an Iranian company and nine Iranians for hacking into American universities. A tenth person received sanctions after he hacked accounts belonging to HBO employees to steal data and unaired episodes of shows like Game of Thrones. Officials said these individuals do not work for the regime, but did their work for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

More details are emerging about the Iranian drone launched from central Syria that was brought down over Israeli territory, and the resulting Israeli attack on the Iranian base near Palmyra that launched and controlled the drone. In that attack on the Iranian base, an Israeli F-16 was brought down, though the precise circumstances are not yet clear based on public information. Differing news accounts have the F-16 hit by shrapnel, or alternatively being ditched when the pilots realize a Russian-made surface-to-air missile (SAM) had locked on to the plane.

The United States and Argentina are to work together to cut off Lebanese terrorist outfit Hezbollah’s funding networks in Latin America. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Argentinian Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie declared their intention to cooperate in this regard during a press conference in Buenos Aires on Sunday. Argentina is home to a large Lebanese expatriate population and U.S. authorities believe that the Iranian-backed terrorist group has been raising funds for it activities through organised crime in the region, including drug trade.

President Donald Trump and his administration continues to crack down on Iran, but this time it took aim at terrorist group Hezbollah, which relies on Iran. The sanctions will also try to dim Iran's influence across the Middle East. From the Treasury Department:
“Hizballah is a terrorist organization responsible for the death of hundreds of Americans. It is also Iran’s primary proxy used to undermine legitimate Arab governments across the Middle East. The Administration is determined to expose and disrupt Hizballah’s networks, including those across the Middle East and West Africa, used to fund their illicit operations,” said Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin. “The Treasury Department will continue to sever Hizballah from the international financial system, and we will be relentless in identifying, exposing, and dismantling Hizballah’s financial support networks globally.”

According to recent Israeli security assessments, more than a third (420 out of 1,027) of the terrorists released in a November 2011 swap for captive soldier Gilad Schalit have gone back to planning terror attacks. As noted by senior Israeli security officials, some of these freed murderers have taken up leadership roles in Hamas in Gaza, from where they are “working with Iran to execute terrorists attacks and kidnappings.”

German authorities allowed a top Iranian cleric accused of mass murder to flee the country on Thursday. The decision came despite formal requests from leading exiled Iranian groups calling for the cleric to face justice. Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi, the 69-year-old Mullah touted as the successor to Iran's all-powerful theocratic dictator Ali Khamenei, came to Germany for treatment at the clinic of an Iranian-German neurosurgeon when exiled Iranian dissidents referred him to German prosecutors, citing his record of running Islamic courts, where he presided over the killing of thousands of Iranians. The leading German tabloid Bild Zeitung ran the headline "Death Judge In Iran, Luxury Patient In Germany,"  covering Shahroudi's stay in the country.

One of the predicted outcomes of the nuclear deal with Iran, contrary to what President Barack Obama claimed, is that it would strengthen the hands of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the "hardliners" in the regime. (I don't believe there are moderates in the regime. It is a revolutionary regime that seeks to export its ideology across the region. President Hassan Rouhani would not have been allowed to compete or win if he did not subscribe to the same ideologies as the hardliners.) Rather than opening up or liberalizing Iran, the deal was correctly predicted to lead to further repression.

Politico has reported that President Donald Trump has decided to extend the Iran nuclear deal. He stated, though, this will be his last waiver "unless the deal is strengthened by Congress and European allies." Politico continued:
Trump faced a Friday deadline to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Iran the U.S suspended as part of a 2015 nuclear agreement negotiated with Tehran by the Obama administration and five other nations.