On August 6, 2018 President Trump announced the reimposition of nuclear-related sanctions on Iran following his announcement in May that the U.S. would withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal (aka the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA). These announcements were geared at precluding Iran from receiving funding from sanctions-free trade that it could use toward any secret nuclear weapons-related work.  However, Europe, led by Germany and France, is attempting to rescue Iran’s flailing economy by bypassing U.S. sanctions.

The Iran nuclear deal was based on a lie.  It was claimed that the deal would allow Iran substantial sanctions relief, and in return delay Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.  This lie was promoted by many world leaders, nations, and organizations, and culminated in the 2015 signing of the JCPOA.    

It was not until President Trump became leader of the free world that the United States stopped enabling Iran’s nuclear ambitions and made it clear that anyone seeking to continue doing business with Iran would face sanctions.  The sanctions were reinstated on some sectors of the Iranian economy on August 7, 2018 and the remaining ones went into effect on November 5.

President Trump explained the importance of sanctions, stating:

The JCPOA, a horrible, one-sided deal, failed to achieve the fundamental objective of blocking all paths to an Iranian nuclear bomb, and it threw a lifeline of cash to a murderous dictatorship that has continued to spread bloodshed, violence, and chaos.

Since the deal was reached, Iran’s aggression has only increased. The regime has used the windfall of newly accessible funds it received under the JCPOA to build nuclear-capable missiles, fund terrorism, and fuel conflict across the Middle East and beyond… By exiting the JCPOA, the United States is able to protect its national security by applying maximum economic pressure on the Iranian regime.

In contrast to claims by the Obama administration, in all likelihood Iran is heavily invested in a secret nuclear weapons program that is hidden from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and any other inspectors because they are at military sites.  Ayatollah Khamenei declared in June 2015 that all Iranian military sites are off-limits, without exception.

In a 2016 National Review article, Reagan and Clinton administration officials note that Iran is deceiving the world in order to finance its secret military nuclear program that “no doubt continues underground.”  The article, co-authored by former CIA director James Woolsey, William Graham, Henry Cooper, Fritz Ermarth, and Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, warns:

Iran sacrificed its overt civilian nuclear program to deceive the Obama administration, to lift international sanctions, to prevent Western military action, while a clandestine military nuclear program no doubt continues underground. That is why Iran, under the nuclear deal, will not allow inspection of its military facilities and prohibits interviewing scientists -- it is concealing the dimensions and status of Iran’s nuclear-weapons program.

On April 30, 2018 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed 100,000 files and 180 CDs found in a secret “atomic archive” of Iranian nuclear documents.  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the documents “show that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program for years.” In confirmation of the 2003 IAEA report, these documents confirm that Iran had an implosion testing chamber, a neutron generating device, and what appears to be work geared at making a neutron initiator.  In a speech to the UN in September, Netanyahu revealed that the IAEA has not taken action to inspect any nuclear sites discovered in Iran’s nuclear archive.  He disclosed a new nuclear site that remained uninspected and that he said already had 15 kilograms of radioactive material recently removed by Iranian officials.

While a 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate claimed that in 2003 Iran had halted work toward a nuclear weapon, internal Iranian memos reveal extensive plans to continue several nuclear projects covertly.  In a memo dated September 3, 2003, an Iranian official writes of the nuclear program: “Let there be no mistake: the amount of personnel in the overt and covert parts will not decrease.  The structure will not become smaller, and every sub-project will supervise both its overt and covert parts.”

According to multiple German intelligence reports, Iran has made frequent attempts to procure illegal nuclear technology in a “clandestine” manner aimed at acquiring technology, particularly “goods that can be used in the field of nuclear technology” at a “quantitatively high level.”  And, according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), there are multiple sites currently active that comprise the core of Iran’s covert nuclear weapons program.  (The NCRI was responsible for revealing Iran’s covert military sites at Natanz and Arak in August 2002.  In December 2002 this was confirmed by the United States).

Notwithstanding all the evidence, and Iran’s explicit and public calls for the destruction of the United States and Israel, a recent report in the Wall Street Journal reveals that Europe, led by France and Germany, “have joined forces to rescue a European effort to create a payments channel to keep trade flowing with Iran, defying U.S. attempts to take the air out of the plan.”  In response, the U.S. ambassador to Germany said that “the US will consider sanctions on those entities” that seek to evade sanctions.  This payments channel is being pushed forward while reports have emerged that Iran has more than doubled the number of missile tests in the past year. According to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Iran recently test-fired a medium-range missile “capable of carrying multiple warheads” in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231.

In his UN speech, Prime Minister Netanyahu referred to the European Union’s attempt to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Iran as “appeasement,” adding, “Have these European leaders learned nothing from history?  Will they ever wake up?”

The Iranian regime seeks to bring widespread calamity to the world.  It seeks to wipe out those whom they consider to be infidels, led by the U.S. but including Europe, in the process of preparing for their Messiah.  And, all the while, for the sake of short-term financial windfalls, Europe willfully turns the other way, enabling the extremist Iranian regime to threaten the world like never before.

There is no doubt that the Iranian regime’s feverish work on a clandestine nuclear weapons program threatens the world.  There is also no doubt that many European and other nations seem intent on allowing it to continue for the sake of trade with Iran.  This is why the United States is correct in imposing tough sanctions on Iran and must ensure that any nation or entity that evades those sanctions face debilitating sanctions that it will never forget.  The European appeasers must not be permitted to unleash the Iranian monster; otherwise it risks Iran wreaking devastation on the world.