World
U.S. Weakness Lets Iran Off the Hook
I
Tehran rises as regional, nuclear power under Biden’s watch BY SAMUEL M. KATZ
t was an audacious week — even by Iranian standards. First, on April 28, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-
Abdollahian toured a hilltop border outpost in southern Lebanon and looked straight into northern Israel only a few hundred feet away. He was surrounded by a heav-
ily armed contingent of Revolutionary Guardsmen and Hezbollah operatives and an army of journalists and social media experts streaming the event live. Israeli leaders have long warned
that Iran was encroaching on its fron- tiers in Syria, Gaza, and Lebanon. Amir-Abdollahian’s visit was meant to memorialize the threat; later that day in Beirut he promised that Iran would destroy Tel Aviv and Haifa. As the foreign minister smiled for the cameras, Iranian commandos
50 NEWSMAX | JULY 2023
a thousand miles away were seizing the Advantage Sweet, a U.S.-bound oil tanker, in the shipping lanes of the Persian Gulf. The mullahs are once again rattling
their sabers, and leaders in the Middle East and in the West are on edge. Russia’s war in Ukraine shows no
signs of ending, and China is fl exing its muscles in Asia. With U.S. leadership weakened
under President Joe Biden and Israel preoccupied with domestic turmoil, Iran knows its enemies are vulnerable. A top Pentagon offi cial revealed in May that Iran could make material for
The invasion of Ukraine and the failure of Russia’s conventional forces in battle threw Tehran a lifeline from its internal woes.
a nuclear device in about 12 days if it wanted to do so. Under Secretary of Defense for Pol-
icy Colin Kahl told Congress that Iran had made “remarkable” nuclear prog- ress since President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehen- sive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. “Back in 2018, it would have taken
Iran about 12 months to produce one bomb’s worth of fi ssile material; now it would take about 12 days.” The United Nations’ nuclear watch-
dog said Iran has enriched uranium at one nuclear site up to 83%, close to the 90% enrichment level needed to pro- duce weapons-grade material. It seems like only yesterday that
pundits were penning the obituary for the Islamic Republic and predicting the mullahs could be toppled from power within the year. The Abraham Accords between
Israel and several key Arab states were blossoming into a new regional reality, with hope that Saudi Arabia would soon be establishing ties to
MARWAN NAAMANI/PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES
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