the Biden presidency. That would allow them to
engage in “old-fashioned nu- clear blackmail — a blockade of oil shipments by Persian Gulf states, only to be lifted un- der conditions set by Tehran.” What would President Joe
Biden do if faced with a nuclear Iran? What would Israel do? Both have said they will not al- low Iran to go nuclear. But what if that has already happened?
Death to America. Death to Israel.
Those chants are familiar to most Americans. Following the lead of Ayatollah Ruhol- lah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic regime in 1979, Iran’s fanatical mullahs call America the “Great Satan” and Israel the “Little Satan.”
Iranian presidents, from
the so-called “moderate” Ak- bar Rafsanjani to the more “radical” Mahmoud Ahma- dinejad, have publicly evoked a nuclear confrontation with Israel. While Iran would lose millions from an Israeli nu- clear counter-strike, Israel would cease to exist. Not a week goes by without
rabid, and often genocidal, statements vowing to destroy Israel and the U.S. from Iran’s Khamenei and his military. But could the Iranian regime actu- ally carry out those threats? The short answer is, yes. DNI’s Ratcliff e warned
publicly in October that Israel’s Iron Dome mis- sile defense shield could be overwhelmed if Hezbollah entered the war. If Hezbollah fl ooded the
zone and took Israel’s de- fenses offl ine, would Iran be tempted to strike Israel with long-range missiles tipped with nuclear weapons?
Biden Has Strengthened Iran
in 2018 and reimposed “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran, their funding for overseas adventures dried up. Former Director of National In- telligence John Ratcliff e explains: “Throughout 2020, Iranian mili-
W
tary and intelligence leaders were telling us, as we listened into their conversations, ‘We’re broke. We can’t aff ord to fund Hamas. We
72 NEWSMAX | DECEMBER 2023
hen former President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal
can’t aff ord to pay Hezbollah. We cannot aff ord to pay our proxies to engage in this mayhem.’ “All of that intelligence was
shared with the Biden administra- tion. As they came in, they were very much aware of that. “And unfortunately, it’s a disturb-
ing trend that we’ve seen over and over again, they simply ignored the intelligence . . . it’s not hyperbolic to say we’re on the road to a war in the Middle East.” Richard Goldberg, the director for
The only person who
knows the answer to that is Khamenei, and until now, neither the U.S. nor Israel has succeeded in penetrating his inner circle to know his thinking. Similarly, over the past 20
years Iranian military leaders have been studying the dev- astating impact of an electro- magnetic pulse (EMP) strike
countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction for the White House National Security Council under Trump, notes that Iran’s oil exports to China went from 300,000 barrels/ day in 2020 to nearly 1.6 million b/d today because President Joe Biden made a strategic decision to not en- force the Trump-era sanctions. That has given Iran $35 billion a
year in extra revenue, in addition to the $6 billion ransom money paid on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and another $10 billion re- leased by the U.S. from Iraqi banks this past summer.
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