Larijani’s death removes key pillar of regime. Will it be enough to make Iran collapse? - Lazar Berman

 

by Lazar Berman

Ali Khamenei’s handpicked deputy was believed to be coordinating Tehran’s war effort. Israel hopes his assassination will bring protesters out on ancient Persian holiday

 

Ali Larijani (center) participates in a Quds Day anti-Israel march in Tehran on March 13, 2026, the last time he was seen alive in public. (X, used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law)

Iran confirmed on Tuesday that Israel had overnight assassinated Ali Larijani, one of the most important Iranian officials who had survived the US-Israeli strikes thus far.

Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, was the regime’s key figure after the assassination of supreme leader Ali Khamenei by Israel on February 28. He was Khamenei’s handpicked deputy, and many viewed him as the de facto leader of the Islamic Republic following Khamenei’s death.

Khamenei “saw Larijani as the man who would inherit the Islamic Revolution and continue it,” said  Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “And that obviously has been seriously disrupted.”

An establishment insider who hailed from one of the country’s leading clerical families, Larijani had been tasked with taking the lead on Iran’s most pressing issues. He oversaw Iran’s efforts to reach a nuclear deal with the United States, and is widely believed to have personally directed the deadly crackdown on anti-government protests in January.

“Larijani was one of the first Iranian leaders to call for violence in response to the legitimate demands of the Iranian people,” said the US Treasury as it announced sanctions against him.

A former member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Larijani served as chief nuclear negotiator from 2005 to 2007, defending what Tehran says is its right to enrich uranium. He once described European incentives to abandon nuclear fuel production as “exchanging a pearl for a candy bar.”

In this photo obtained by The Associated Press, Iranians attend an anti-government protest in Tehran, Iran, January 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In 2005, he headed the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) for the first time.

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog on Tuesday accused him of masterminding the kidnapping and killing of IDF soldiers in 2006 that sparked the Second Lebanon War. “That morning he took a flight out of Lebanon,” said Herzog. “He was there as head of the national security council of Iran — he came to plan with [Hassan] Nasrallah this operation, to give him the okay.”

Larijani was speaker of the parliament from 2008 to 2020, during which time Iran negotiated and signed a nuclear deal with the US and five other powers in 2015.

Soldiers evacuating a wounded comrade during the Second Lebanon War, on July 24, 2006 (photo credit: Haim Azoulay/ Flash 90)

He also ran unsuccessfully for president in 2005. He later sought to contest the 2021 and 2024 presidential elections but was barred both times by the Guardian Council, which cited issues including lifestyle standards and family ties abroad.

Larijani was appointed last August as secretary of the SNSC once again, following the 12-day air war between Iran and Israel that the US joined.

Khamenei, to whom Larijani had always shown loyalty, sent him last month to Oman to prepare for indirect nuclear talks with the US. He also made several trips to key ally Moscow in recent months to discuss a range of security issues.

In this photo released by state-run Oman News Agency, Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, left, shakes hands with Iran’s Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani during their meeting in Muscat, Oman, February 10, 2026. (State-run Oman News Agency via AP)

“His status and influence extended far beyond any formal position he had,” said Meir Ben-Shabbat, once Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser and now head of the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy.

Since Khamenei’s death, said Ben-Shabbat, Larijani “managed the fight against Israel and served as the chief coordinator of Iran’s security bodies.”

‘Unprecedented crisis’

The pressing question now is what practical effect Larijani’s assassination will have on the Islamic Republic’s ability to continue mounting a coherent military response to the US-Israeli aerial onslaught, and potentially on its very survival.

Before Larijani’s death, dozens of other senior Iranian officials had been killed in 18 days of bombing, including head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Basij Force, Gholamreza Soleimani, who died in a separate strike Monday night.

Members of Iranian paramilitary forces (Basij) march with weapons and their national flag during a rally in Tehran, January 10, 2025. (AFP)

The strikes, said Ben-Shabbat, “continue the process of severing and dismantling the chain of ideological, political, and operational command and control of the Iranian regime, placing it in an unprecedented crisis.”

Right now, it’s not at all clear who’s running things. Khamenei’s son Mojtaba was selected as Iran’s third supreme leader, but he is believed to have been injured in the airstrike that killed his father, and hasn’t been seen since.

That doesn’t automatically equal the end of the regime. Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hezbollah have both suffered a series of Israeli decapitation strikes and operations, and are both still functioning.

But they didn’t have to contend with an angry populace that wants to tear down their regime.

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

Larijani’s death, said Michael Makovsky, president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, “has to hearten the Iranian people, and encourage them more at some point to rise up again against the regime.”

Netanyahu is looking to take advantage of the strike immediately. In an English-language message to the Iranian people on Tuesday night, he urged them to “celebrate the Festival of Fire.”

The holiday of Chaharshanbe Suri, marked on Tuesday evening and seen by the Islamic Republic as pagan though it’s of Zoroastrian origin, often features anti-regime protests. “Celebrate and Happy Nowruz,” said Netanyahu, reassuring Iran’s people that “we’re watching from above.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the IDF’s Kirya military headquarters on March 17, 2025. (Haim Zach/GPO)

“The culling of the top leaders is absolutely going to have an impact on the way the Iranian people view what happens next,” said Schanzer.

No one knows exactly what the next stage of the war will bring, and whether the killing of Larijani will be enough to get Iranian protesters back out onto the streets.

Even if it isn’t, Israel’s ability to locate the most important figure in the Iranian regime 18 days into war is evidence of how deeply its intelligence has penetrated the most sensitive reaches of the Islamic Republic. There are — it appears — more surprises from Israel on the way.

Agencies contributed to this report. 

Lazar Berman

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/larijanis-death-removes-key-pillar-of-regime-will-it-be-enough-to-make-iran-collapse/

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Media, lawmakers downplay threat from the Iran regime, but evidence shows the true scope of danger - Steven Richards

 

by Steven Richards

Tehran’s actions include organizing assassination plots against an American president, steadfastly refusing to cease its nuclear program, and seeking deadly anti-ship missiles from China to directly threaten U.S. naval vessels.

 

Media outlets, think tanks, and lawmakers from the left and the right have claimed in recent days that Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States, but the body of evidence shows that Iran has in recent years grown more aggressive toward the United States. 

Tehran’s actions include organizing assassination plots against an American president, steadfastly refusing to cease its nuclear program, and seeking deadly anti-ship missiles from China to directly threaten U.S. naval vessels.

In the days leading up to the latest round of fighting between Iran and the U.S.-Israeli coalition, and while negotiations with the United States about Tehran’s nuclear program were still ongoing, Iran’s late Supreme Leader addressed a threat to the U.S. more directly. He said that the U.S. military could “receive such a slap that it cannot rise” if Trump continued to pressure Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. 

Trump: "A dire threat to every American"

In the days after he launched Operation Epic Fury, targeting the Iranian regime’s military assets, President Donald Trump said Iran's ballistic missile program, nuclear program, and sponsorship of terrorist proxies throughout the Middle East posed the main threat to the United States. 

“An Iranian regime armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons would be a dire threat to every American,” the president said in a video statement earlier this month. 

Since the U.S. attack, the president’s assessment of the Iranian threat has been directly challenged by media outlets, think tanks, Democratic lawmakers and even a former senior official in his own administration. 

This week, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, resigned from his post in protest over President Trump’s decision to launch a preemptive strike against Iran. "I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran," he said in a letter delivered to the president. 

"Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby," he insisted. At the same time, he said it has "been an honor" to have served under President Trump and ODNI Tulsi Gabbard.

CIA operative who worked in Iran: "The threat is indisputable"

Not everyone agrees with Kent. Iran has presented a unique threat to the United States for years–whether through its sponsorship of terrorism or illicit nuclear program, Charles “Sam” Faddis, author of "Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA" and a former CIA operative with experience in Iran told Just the News. 

“They've been a threat to us for a long time. They've killed one way or the other, directly or through surrogates, God knows how many thousands of Americans. I don't care what the IC assessment is at any one particular time point in time, because I think in a lot of cases, it's based on lack of access. It is crystal clear, they've had a nuclear weapons program, and they've been after a nuclear weapons program for a long time, and we can't tolerate that,” Faddis told the John Solomon Reports podcast.  

“So they are a huge threat. And have they been for a long time? Without question, if I have any caveat to that, it would be then the question is, how do we approach dealing? What do we do in response to that? But the threat is indisputable,” he added. 

The revolutionary Iranian regime has positioned itself as an adversary of the U.S. ever since it came into power decades ago in 1979, directing a host of terrorist attacks against U.S. troops, diplomats, and citizens. Those operations killed hundreds of Americans, such as the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Just the News reported last month. 

Iran sponsored assassination attempts in U.S.

“I think Iran has been a constant threat to the United States for an extended period of time and posed an immediate threat at this time,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at its annual worldwide threats hearing on Wednesday.  

In addition to steadfastly refusing to end its illicit nuclear program, a defiance that sparked President Trump’s first strikes against Iran last summer in the 12-Day War, the regime has also threatened the lives of U.S. political figures in recent years, including President Donald Trump and former officials in his first administration. 

The trial for one of those attempted assassins, a Pakistani national who was charged with attempting to organize an assassination plot against now-President Donald Trump on behalf of Iranian intelligence, resulted in a conviction earlier this month. The defendant, Asif Merchant, was charged in the murder-for-hire plot and during the trial admitted that he was working on behalf of Iranian intelligence. 

Separately, the Justice Department filed charges against Afghan national Farhad Shakeri for an alleged role in a similar murder-for-hire plot directed by an unnamed Iranian intelligence official, Just the News previously reported. Shakeri remains at large and is believed to be living in Iran. 

Faddis told Just the News that another concern is whether Iran operates sleeper cells inside the United States capable of carrying out terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in retaliation for the war. 

“The guys we caught are the ones that are easy to catch,” said Faddis. “We caught the sloppy [ones]. The guy who's got his act together and is here as part of a cell and knows how to do this well…we don't see him. That does not mean he is not here.”  

The illegal immigrant connection

In January, the Homeland Security Department announced that it had deported three Iranian nationals living illegally in the United States that were former members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a U.S. designated terrorist organization and key pillar of the regime’s security apparatus. All three individuals entered the United States illegally across the Southern Border in 2024. 

Last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 11 Iranian nationals also living in the United States illegally. At least three of those individuals had ties to the Iranian military, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or were otherwise designated as suspected terrorists, the agency said. 

There are also indications that, before the war, Iran’s growing ballistic missile program was geared specifically toward conflict with the United States, a review of intelligence assessments and public reports show. Before war broke out last month, Tehran was reportedly close to a deal with China to purchase anti-ship cruise missiles that could directly threaten U.S. naval vessels, including aircraft carriers, in its proximity. 

The Chinese missiles, the supersonic CM-302, were deployed by China more than a decade ago and were described by one expert as “the most dangerous anti-ship missile” China has produced so far. Because of its high speed, U.S. air defense crews would only have about 45 seconds from identification to impact to intercept the missile. 

Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — killed in late February 2026 at age 86 during U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran — made no secret of what his country would do with such a missile. Responding to President Trump’s decision to deploy an aircraft carrier to the Middle East to pressure Iran, Khamenei told "Iran Inisght," a London-based Persian-language news channel “an aircraft carrier is a dangerous device, but more dangerous than the carrier is the weapon that can send it to the bottom of the sea.” 

In December, Iran also signed a $589 million deal with Russia for thousands of advanced shoulder-fired missiles, The Financial Times reported. 

Various missiles ordered, under development by Iran

The portable, shoulder launched air defense missiles are one of the most modern tools in Moscow’s arsenal and are capable of targeting cruise missiles, low-flying aircraft, and drones. Because of their portability, soldiers can fire the weapon quickly and disperse, increasing survivability compared to traditional air defense systems that rely on fixed radars. 

The Financial Times reported that Russia was set to make deliveries of the launchers and rockets beginning in 2027. There is no indication that any were expedited to Iran ahead of the start of the conflict with the U.S. last month. 

Before the war, Trump warned that Iran also had the potential to develop Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs, that could one day reach the United States using knowledge derived from its nascent space program. ICBMs are long-range missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads, though they do not exclusively do so and can deliver conventional payloads. 

“They’ve already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America,” Trump said at his State of the Union address in February. “They were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, in particular nuclear weapons.” 

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the Senate on Wednesday that the U.S. intelligence community assesses that Iran was likely to develop the capability by 2035 if its leadership chose to do so.  

Steven Richards

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/security/media-and-lawmakers-downplay-threat-iran-regime-public-evidence-shows-true

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Trump says Israel will stop attacking Iranian gas field, but US will attack it if Iran strikes Qatar - Natalia Mittelstadt

 

by Natalia Mittelstadt

Israeli and U.S. attacks on Iran that started Feb. 28 has resulted in Iran attacking neighboring, oil-producing nations, which has significantly disrupted the world's energy supply.

 

President Trump said that Israel will stop attacking an Iranian gas field, but that the U.S. will attack it if Iran strikes Qatar again.

"Israel, out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle East, has violently lashed out at a major facility known as South Pars Gas Field in Iran. A relatively small section of the whole has been hit," Trump posted on Truth Social late Wednesday. "The United States knew nothing about this particular attack, and the country of Qatar was in no way, shape, or form, involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen.

"Unfortunately, Iran did not know this, or any of the pertinent facts pertaining to the South Pars attack, and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked a portion of Qatar’s LNG Gas facility. NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar - In which instance the United States of America, with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before," he continued.

"I do not want to authorize this level of violence and destruction because of the long term implications that it will have on the future of Iran, but if Qatar’s LNG is again attacked, I will not hesitate to do so. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP."

Trump's comments followed the Israel Defense Forces striking the gas field the prior day, the Times of Israel reported.

In response to the Israeli strike, Iran attacked targets across the Gulf states, including a Qatari gas hub, and oil and gas facilities in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait.

Following the strikes on the Gulf states, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned that additional attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure would result in “uncontrollable repercussions whose effects extend to engulf the entire world.”

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that if attacks on Iran’s energy sites continue, then attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure “will not stop until it is completely destroyed.”  

Natalia Mittelstadt

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/trump-says-israel-will-stop-attacking-iranian-gas-field-us-will

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Why Iran Was Always a Threat to the US - Ahmed Charai

 

by Ahmed Charai

Regimes of this kind [Iran] do not become less dangerous because democracies grow tired of confronting them. On the contrary, in Tehran, democratic fatigue is interpreted as permission.

 

• [CIA Director John] Ratcliffe projected command, seriousness, and strategic clarity. He spoke like a man who understands intelligence not simply as the collection of information, but as the fuel of statecraft. He reaffirmed the administration's rationale for striking Iran, saying that Iran posed a "constant threat to the United States for an extended period of time, and posed an immediate threat at this time." Tulsi Gabbard, by contrast, appeared less at ease in a role that demands steadiness, clarity, and discipline.

• For years, Tehran has built and expanded an arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones while cultivating a network of coercion that has threatened not only Israel, but also Gulf states such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—countries that chose peace, modernization, and partnership with Israel and the United States. To suggest that America had no obligation to stand with such partners against a regime built on intimidation, blackmail, and ideological expansionism would constitute a shocking abdication.

• Regimes of this kind [Iran] do not become less dangerous because democracies grow tired of confronting them. On the contrary, in Tehran, democratic fatigue is interpreted as permission.

• Here, the Abraham Accords offer a strategic approach. They showed that the Middle East need not be organized around permanent grievances, but can be reorganized around commerce, technology, security cooperation, and mutual recognition. Jared Kushner deserves recognition for the role he played in helping bring those accords into being and in working afterward to deepen their promise.

• Their deeper lesson was not merely that old enemies can sign documents. It was that the future can be built around incentives more powerful than hatred.

• In the end, the choice was never between war and perfect peace. It was between confronting a regime that had spent decades arming proxies, tightening a ring of fire around Israel, terrorizing America's Arab partners, and extending its reach toward the world's most sensitive maritime corridors—or waiting until that architecture of aggression became even harder, bloodier, and costlier to dismantle.

• History is rarely kind to powers that confuse delay with prudence. If this moment is to mean anything, it must mean more than having checked Tehran's advance. It must mark the beginning of a different regional horizon: one in which Israel can live in security, Arab states can deepen stability and prosperity, and the Iranian people can finally reclaim a future stolen from them by a regime that made regional chaos its grand strategy.

Pictured: A Fattah ballistic missile is displayed during a military parade in Tehran, on September 22, 2023. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

Yesterday's Senate Intelligence Committee's Worldwide Threats demonstrated that in an age of deep polarization and mounting international disorder, the public questioning of intelligence leaders before elected representatives is one of democracy's highest disciplines. Those in power must explain their actions before the nation.

Specifically, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified before the Senate committee on the Trump administration's decision to launch strikes on Iran on February 28. Their testimonies mattered not because they satisfied partisan ritual, but because they defined to the public how they assess the threats gathering against the United States, its allies, and the strategic order America sustains.

Measured against that standard, Ratcliffe projected command, seriousness, and strategic clarity. He spoke like a man who understands intelligence not simply as the collection of information, but as the fuel of statecraft.

He reaffirmed the administration's rationale for striking Iran, saying that Iran posed a "constant threat to the United States for an extended period of time, and posed an immediate threat at this time." Tulsi Gabbard, by contrast, appeared less at ease in a role that demands steadiness, clarity, and discipline.

Ultimately, it is for President Donald Trump to judge how these perceptions matter. But the central question raised this week is fundamental to American strategy going forward. Did Iran represent a danger to the United States? And did that danger justify American action? The answer is yes in terms of both principle and strategy.

In principle, the matter should not be elusive. Israel is not a distant acquaintance of the United States. It is an ally, a friend, and a democratic partner living under the permanent threat of a regime that has made hostility toward the Jewish state a pillar of its legitimacy and doctrine. Nor is Israel the only target of Iranian aggression.

For years, Tehran has built and expanded an arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones while cultivating a network of coercion that has threatened not only Israel, but also Gulf states such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—countries that chose peace, modernization, and partnership with Israel and the United States. To suggest that America had no obligation to stand with such partners against a regime built on intimidation, blackmail, and ideological expansionism would constitute a shocking abdication.

The Hamas massacres of October 7, 2023, did not emerge from a vacuum. Whatever debate may persist about Iran's precise role, the deeper strategic reality is unmistakable: Iran spent years financing, arming, training, and legitimizing the forces of militant extremism that made such a massacre possible. Tehran did not need to sign every operational order to bear central responsibility for the ecosystem of terror it built and sustained.

Nor did that strategy stop at Gaza. Hezbollah opened a northern front against Israel before the smoke cleared on October 8. Not long after, the Houthis attacked ships in the Red Sea, one of the world's most sensitive maritime corridors. Iran also sought to deepen its reach along the Red Sea basin through Sudan, where General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan chose to restore relations with Tehran, opening another strategic avenue for Iranian influence along a vital theater. It was a regional strategy of encirclement—designed to pressure Israel, intimidate America's Arab partners, and establish influence across the region's most critical routes.

There is also a moral dimension that serious strategic analysis must not ignore. The Iranian regime is not merely authoritarian. It is repressive, ideological, and structurally committed to domination at home and destabilization abroad. It has brutalized its own people while exporting fear across the region. Regimes of this kind do not become less dangerous because democracies grow tired of confronting them. On the contrary, in Tehran, democratic fatigue is interpreted as permission.

A stronger Iran would not have remained a local nuisance. It would have become a more formidable pillar in a broader revisionist alignment increasingly useful to Russia and China against the American presence in this decisive region. To ignore such a threat in the name of restraint is not prudent. It is strategic negligence disguised as sophistication.

Democracies are right to ask difficult questions before, during, and after military action. But one cannot seriously claim that Tehran was harmless, or that the United States had no stake in preventing the consolidation of a regime whose ambitions have long extended beyond its borders. The more demanding question begins after the strike.

The day after the Islamic Republic cannot be reduced to a military ledger. It must be conceived as a political and civilizational project. That requires a different level of engagement with Iran's democratic opposition, civil society, technocrats, women, students, workers, and diaspora networks. The world should not merely hope for a better Iran; it should help serious Iranian alternatives become equal to the expectations of a people who deserve better than repression, isolation, and endless indoctrination.

Any serious post-crisis strategy must therefore aim higher than containment. It must help create the conditions in which Iranians can rebuild their economy, restore credible institutions, and recover the hopes and dreams that have been denied to them for decades. The Iranian people do not aspire to endless ideological mobilization. They aspire, like all peoples, to freedom, peace, dignity, and prosperity.

Here, the Abraham Accords offer a strategic approach. They showed that the Middle East need not be organized around permanent grievances, but can be reorganized around commerce, technology, security cooperation, and mutual recognition. Jared Kushner deserves recognition for the role he played in helping bring those accords into being and in working afterward to deepen their promise.

For that reason, his experience and support should be brought to bear in thinking through a post-transition regional framework—one that links security to opportunity, peace to prosperity, and regional normalization to the legitimate aspirations of the Iranian people. Their deeper lesson was not merely that old enemies can sign documents. It was that the future can be built around incentives more powerful than hatred.

In the end, the choice was never between war and perfect peace. It was between confronting a regime that had spent decades arming proxies, tightening a ring of fire around Israel, terrorizing America's Arab partners, and extending its reach toward the world's most sensitive maritime corridors—or waiting until that architecture of aggression became even harder, bloodier, and costlier to dismantle.

History is rarely kind to powers that confuse delay with prudence. If this moment is to mean anything, it must mean more than having checked Tehran's advance. It must mark the beginning of a different regional horizon: one in which Israel can live in security, Arab states can deepen stability and prosperity, and the Iranian people can finally reclaim a future stolen from them by a regime that made regional chaos its grand strategy.

This article originally appeared in The National Interest 

 

Ahmed Charai is the publisher of the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune and serves on the boards of directors of the Atlantic Council, the International Crisis Group, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the Center for the National Interest.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22359/iran-threat-to-us

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US Direct Talks with Hamas: Legitimizing and Empowering Terrorists - Khaled Abu Toameh

 

by Khaled Abu Toameh

Article 13 of the Hamas charter says: "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

 

• Engagement clearly signals to terrorists that violence is an effective path to power, land, and international recognition. Hamas is a group that is explicitly and fundamentally committed, in both ideology and practice, to "armed resistance" (terrorism).

• Hamas is not some misunderstood political faction waiting to be coaxed into moderation. It advocates jihad (holy war) as an "individual duty [of all Muslims] for the liberation of Palestine."

• Article 13 of the Hamas charter says: "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

• [T]here is no evidence that the terror group intends to fundamentally alter its long-term goals.

• Talking to Hamas now, without its first adhering to Trump's preconditions, marks a sharp and potentially confusing policy reversal that weakens US credibility globally.

• Across the region, the Iranian regime and its terror proxies are watching closely. The lesson for them will unmistakably be: hold out, escalate, and eventually the world's most powerful democracy will come to deliver victory to you.

• Engaging Hamas as if it were a normal governing authority will only demonstrate to other terrorist groups that terrorism works.

• Launching direct talks with Hamas or other Islamist terror groups absent any fundamental change in their positions is not diplomacy. It is capitulation and surrender dressed up as "realism."

• Above all, direct engagement of Hamas is a concession to the jihadis, who believe Muslims are in an eternal confrontation with the enemies of Islam and must overthrow secular regimes to restore a "pure" Islamic state.

Hamas is not some misunderstood political faction waiting to be coaxed into moderation. It advocates jihad (holy war) as an "individual duty [of all Muslims] for the liberation of Palestine." Pictured: Hamas terrorists in Jabalia refugee camp, in the Gaza Strip, on December 1, 2025. (Photo by Omar Al-Qataa/AFP via Getty Images)

Envoys from U.S. President Donald J. Trump's "Board of Peace" recently met representatives of Hamas in the Egyptian capital of Cairo in an effort to safeguard the Gaza ceasefire, Reuters reported on March 16.

"The weekend meeting is the first publicly reported since ‌the start of the Iran war between the Palestinian militant group and the board, a new international body personally headed by Trump, which has been tasked with overseeing post-war Gaza....

"One of the sources says Trump's board was represented at the talks with Hamas by Aryeh Lightstone, an American aide to Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff.... Further meetings were expected ‌this week. "

The Trump administration is making a huge mistake by engaging an Islamist terror group.

Direct talks with Hamas, officially designated by the US government as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, risk conferring legitimacy on a group that rejects Israel's right to exist and for decades has carried out attacks against countless Israeli civilians.

Engagement clearly signals to terrorists that violence is an effective path to power, land, and international recognition. Hamas is a group that is explicitly and fundamentally committed, in both ideology and practice, to "armed resistance" (terrorism).

Hamas's October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel was a large-scale terror operation that illustrated the group's commitment to terrorism. Senior Hamas officials have repeatedly vowed that they fully intend to continue such attacks.

Hamas is hardly a controversial political actor. The group, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, aims to establish an Islamic state encompassing the entirety of present-day Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip, through armed conflict.

Hamas's 1988 charter as well as repeated statements by its leaders, rejects the legitimacy of Israel. Its charter quotes Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna as saying: "Israel will exist and continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

Article 11 of the Hamas charter states:

"The Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas] believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that."

Hamas is not some misunderstood political faction waiting to be coaxed into moderation. It advocates jihad (holy war) as an "individual duty [of all Muslims] for the liberation of Palestine."

Article 13 of the Hamas charter says:

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

Since its establishment in 1987, Hamas has remained fully committed to its "armed resistance" and the elimination of Israel. In Hamas's lexicon, the terms "compromise" and "concessions" do not exist.

Hamas's ideological framework -- rooted in Islamist "resistance" -- make compromise and concessions impossible. Needless to say, there is no evidence that the terror group intends to fundamentally alter its long-term goals.

For Hamas, direct talks with the US provide an opportunity to gain time, legitimacy, and concessions. As Trump's envoys are talking to Hamas, the terror group has been continuing by force to reassert its rule in the Gaza Strip.

Unfortunately, negotiating with terrorist groups and the like, instead of defeating them, tends to end in disaster. The minute it becomes convenient, they go right back to terrorizing. The Taliban have been expanding their repression throughout Afghanistan. Russia disregarded the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which it guaranteed Ukraine's sovereignty, borders and freedom from aggression if Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons; and China appears to assume that agreements exist to be violated (such as here, here and here).

Hamas has consistently refused to disarm, recognize Israel, cease ruling Gaza, renounce violence, and accept past agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. Talking to Hamas now, without its first adhering to Trump's preconditions, marks a sharp and potentially confusing policy reversal that weakens US credibility globally.

If Hamas is allowed to gain diplomatic access without changing its core positions, other Islamist terror groups will draw an empowering lesson: violence pays.

Across the region, the Iranian regime and its terror proxies are watching closely. The lesson for them will unmistakably be: hold out, escalate, and eventually the world's most powerful democracy will come to deliver victory to you.

For Palestinians, direct talks would mean that Hamas's rule in the Gaza Strip -- which began with a violent coup against the Palestinian Authority in 2007 -- has been marked by nearly twenty years of repression at home. It has consisted of crackdowns on dissent, summary executions, torture, intimidation and murder of rivals, stealing humanitarian aid from civilians, shooting at their own people trying to flee, using their citizens as human shields to escalate the death count and blame it on Israel; and the imposition of heavy economic burdens.

Engaging Hamas as if it were a normal governing authority will only demonstrate to other terrorist groups that terrorism works. Negotiating will not moderate reality. The message it sends to the Palestinians and like-minded groups is: The international community is willing to overlook internal abuses and human rights violations so long as the rulers in question enforce obedience. That is the job for a prison warden, not for a government one hopes will stabilize the neighborhood.

Direct negotiations with Hamas also sideline other Palestinians who are not affiliated with the terror group or who are opposed to violence and terrorism. Direct negotiations just reinforce Hamas's claim that "armed resistance," not diplomacy, gets results.

The Trump administration, if it believes that talking to Hamas represents a pragmatic and necessary approach for achieving peace and stability, is dangerously mistaken. This belief collapses under scrutiny. Talking directly to Hamas will only reward extremism and terrorism, weaken anti-Hamas individuals and parties, and erode the very principles Washington claims to defend.

Launching direct talks with Hamas or other Islamist terror groups absent any fundamental change in their positions is not diplomacy. It is capitulation and surrender dressed up as "realism."

The Trump administration would do well to see that talking to Hamas only normalizes it as a legitimate regional actor rather than ostracizing it as an Islamist terror group.

Above all, direct engagement of Hamas is a concession to the jihadis, who believe Muslims are in an eternal confrontation with the enemies of Islam and must overthrow secular regimes to restore a "pure" Islamic state.

• Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on X (formerly Twitter)

 

Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22358/us-talks-with-hamas

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Israel fully reopens Gaza’s Rafah Crossing with Egypt - Akiva Van Koningsveld

 

by Akiva Van Koningsveld

The move reportedly came in the wake of pressure from the Trump administration.

 

A convoy transporting Palestinians heads towards the Rafah border crossing with Egypt after it opens for the first time since the US-Israel war with Iran started, in Khan Yunis on March 19, 2026. Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt reopened on March 19 for a limited number of people, Egyptian state media and a Red Crescent official said, for the first time since Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP via Getty Images) BASHAR TALEB/AFP via Getty Images

 

The Rafah Crossing between southern Gaza and Egypt has been reopened in both directions, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit said on Thursday.

The decision to reopen the crossing, which had been closed since the start of “Operation Roaring Lion” against Iran on Feb. 28, was made in coordination with Egypt, a COGAT spokesperson told JNS.

The move came in the wake of pressure from the Trump administration, according to Israel’s Ynet news outlet.

Under the U.S.-brokered Oct. 10, 2025, ceasefire deal with the Hamas terrorist group, Jerusalem agreed to reopen Rafah for civilian crossings “in both directions.”

COGAT in a social media post on Wednesday stressed that “security restrictions imposed at the crossings were implemented due to the ongoing missile threat, stemming from a real concern for the safety of all individuals present at the crossings.”

“At the same time, and out of a commitment to allow and facilitate the humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip, tailored operational mechanisms were formulated to enable the crossings to function. Accordingly, hundreds of trucks enter the Gaza Strip every day,” it added.

The current Gaza truce went into effect on Oct. 10, 2025, ending the two-year war that started when Hamas, other Palestinian terror groups and Gazan “civilians” invaded the western Negev on Oct. 7, 2023, and slaughtered approximately 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 others.

Akiva Van Koningsveld is a news desk editor for JNS.org. Originally from The Hague, he made the big move from the Netherlands to Israel in 2020. Before joining JNS, he worked as a policy officer at the Center for Information and Documentation Israel, a Dutch organization dedicated to fighting antisemitism and spreading awareness about the Arab-Israel conflict. With a passion for storytelling and justice, he studied journalism at the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht and later earned a law degree from Utrecht University, focusing on human rights and civil liability.

Source: https://www.jns.org/news/israel-news/israel-fully-reopens-gazas-rafah-crossing-with-egypt

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Mossad slams regime's use of mosques as military posts, allegedly threatens Iranian commanders - Miriam Sela-Eitam

 

by Miriam Sela-Eitam

Further, the Mossad urged the public to continue sending it footage of the regime’s operations within Iran.

 

Screengrab of a video from the Mossad's X/Twitter account showing soldiers belonging to Iran's regime inside a mosque, March 19, 2026.

(photo credit: SCREENSHOT/X) 

Iran’s regime has turned mosques into weapons depots and command headquarters, according to the Mossad, amid reports of Israel's security agency directly threatening Iranian commanders.

In a Thursday morning post to the organization’s Farsi X/Twitter account, the Mossad slammed the regime's appropriation of mosques for military purposes as “shameful” and being “in conflict with Islam and with every other religion.”

“The desecration of holy places has always been and will always be the work of evil battling against good, and darkness against light,” it said.

Addressing the Iranian people, the Mossad called on them to aid in showing the world the true face of the regime’s actions and “their evil.”

Further, the Mossad urged the public to continue sending it footage of the regime’s operations within Iran.

برادران و خواهران شجاع ایرانی ما،

نیروهای سرکوبگر مساجد را اشغال کرده و آن‌ها را به انبار سلاح و مقر فرماندهی تبدیل کرده اند.

این کار ننگین با اسلام و با هر دین دیگری در تضاد است.
بی‌حرمتی به مکان های مقدس همیشه کار نبرد شرارت بر ضد خوبی و تاریکی بر ضد نور است و خواهد بود.… pic.twitter.com/JKTwkOnG91

— موساد رسمی - Mossad Official (@mossad_fa) March 19, 2026

“Together, we will defeat them and build a new future for Iran!” the Mossad said. “The spirit of the real Iran is stronger than any era and any government.”

Included in the post is a video showing text from the Quran and a repeated call for the Iranian public to send in documentation of the regime against the background of what seems to show regime soldiers in a mosque.

Mossad threatens regime security force commanders

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Mossad officials have begun directly calling individual commanders, threatening them and their families should they refuse to "stand aside" in the event of an uprising. 

“Can you hear me?” a Mossad agent says in one of the recordings, speaking Farsi, per the WSJ. “We know everything about you. You are on our blacklist, and we have all the information about you.”

The agent went on, explaining they had called to warn the commander that if they do not stand with the Iranian people, the commander’s “destiny will be as your leader.”

According to the WSJ, the commander did not argue with the Mossad agent, but rather pleaded: “Brother, I swear on the Quran, I’m not your enemy.”

“I’m a dead man already,” he said. “Just please come help us.”

Miriam Sela-Eitam

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-890506

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Drones detected above Army base in DC where Hegseth, Rubio live: report - Natalia Mittelstadt

 

by Natalia Mittelstadt

The drones reportedly prompted officials to consider relocating Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio

 

Drones have reportedly been detected above Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington, D.C., where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio live.

Three anonymous sources told the Washington Post, and two of them said that officials have not determined where they came from, the newspaper reported Wednesday. 

In addition, an unnamed official told the newspaper the the military is monitoring potential threats more closely because of the heightened alert level as the U.S. and Israel strike Iran. Multiple drones were detected over Fort McNair on a single night in the last 10 days, the official said, resulting in increased security measures and a White House meeting to discuss how to respond.

The drones prompted officials to consider relocating Hegseth and Rubio, according to two anonymous sources. The unnamed official said the secretaries haven’t moved.

Multiple media outlets reported in October that the secretaries' quarters are on the base.

Fort McNair houses the National Defense University and some of the Defense Department's most senior military officials. 

Traditionally, the base has not housed political leaders, but a growing number of Trump administration officials, including outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, have moved onto area bases, citing security concerns.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell has declined to comment on the drones.

“The department cannot comment on the secretary’s movements for security reasons, and reporting on such movements is grossly irresponsible,” Parnell said.

The State Department also did not respond to the Post's requests for comment.

Officials locked down facilities at MacDill Air Force Base, home to U.S. Central Command, twice this week. The FBI is investigating a suspicious package that closed the base’s visitors center for hours on Monday. On Wednesday, an unspecified security incident caused the base to be under a shelter-in-place order for hours.

“To ensure the safety and security of our people and the mission, commanders adjust their installation’s security posture in accordance with local threat assessments,” an Air Force spokesperson said in a statement.

Also, the State Department ordered all U.S. diplomatic posts worldwide on Tuesday to “immediately” undertake security evaluations, citing “the ongoing and developing situation in the Middle East and the potential for spillover effects,” according to a cable the Post reviewed. 

Natalia Mittelstadt

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/drones-detected-above-dc-army-base-where-hegseth-rubio-live-report

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Justice Department's attack on red states widens GOP rift on abortion pill rules ahead of midterms - Greg Piper

 

by Greg Piper

Feds concede RFK Jr. has statutory authority to "immediately" suspend mifepristone if he finds "imminent hazard to the public health," but warn blocking Biden-era rules will spark "judicial tug-of-war"

 

The "Trump-Vance administration" is threatening women's lives and enabling their domestic abuse, according to a major player in election spending.

It's not an abortion-rights group.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which plans to spend $80 million in the midterm elections on protecting a pro-life legislative majority, accused its putative White House ally of "siding with the abortion industry as it breaks laws, kills babies and harms women and girls" by seeking to tank red-state lawsuits against its predecessor's policies.

The Justice Department filed motions this month to pause or even dismiss separate litigation by Missouri, Idaho and Kansas, and Florida and Texas, to end the Biden administration's relaxation of prescribing conditions for mifepristone, which is taken with misoprostol to suffocate and starve to death a fetus and expel it from the uterus.

The prior administration permanently removed the in-person prescribing requirement, a temporary COVID-19 measure, following the Supreme Court's elimination of federal abortion rights in Dobbs, circumventing state regulation. The Obama administration previously extended mifepristone's gestation window to 10 weeks and allowed non-doctors to prescribe it.

President Trump's DOJ has not relented in its argument, first made to halt or shut down Louisiana's challenge to mifepristone's availability by mail, that the states do not have legal standing to sue the feds and their litigation threatens the administration's own review of mifepristone's safety profile, which DOJ admitted may not be finished by midterms.

While reimposed restrictions on abortion pills could energize Democratic turnout in the midterms, just as Dobbs energized voters to protect abortion in states with GOP-controlled legislatures, SBA Pro-Life America warned the GOP is facing a electoral clobbering if the Trump administration doesn't restrict abortion pills.

It cited a national survey of 1,000 GOP primary voters by Cygnal last month that found 71% oppose mifepristone's lack of "in-person consultation" and 75% want congressional Republicans to "aggressively oversee" the Department of Health and Human Services on abortion. 

About a third each "would be less enthusiastic about voting" if GOP leaders "abandon pro-life policies" and less willing to volunteer for campaigns. Only one-in-five knows abortions have risen since Dobbs, and when informed, 73% "find this concerning."

Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, a vocal critic of Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary for mifepristone decisions including authorizing a generic form, last week introduced legislation with Tennessee GOP Rep. Diana Harshbarger to ban mifepristone for "pregnancy termination" and authorize victims' lawsuits against its makers.

Previous FDAs have "steadily dismantled critical safety safeguards" around mifepristone, including by ending government tracking of "the most serious complications" from the drug, said Harshbarger, a pharmacist. "Evidence now suggests that the real-world risks to women are far greater than the federal government has acknowledged."

SBA Pro-Life America pointed to the latest prosecution of a man for allegedly giving mifepristone to the mother of his unborn child without telling her – an outcome made possible by mail-order prescription – after she repeatedly refused his pressure to get an abortion. The girl, Presley Mae, was stillborn.

The pro-life powerhouse mocked Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for showing greater concern about the sugar in Dunkin' coffee than the online prescribing of pills that end human life and "put thousands of women in the ER," apparently referring to mifepristone complication research published last spring.

The Ethics and Public Policy Center, one of the groups to analyze that mifepristone prescription database, published a "fact sheet" last week that estimated adverse events following mail-order pills were 13.5 percentage points higher than for in-person dispensing, which the FDA required before authorizing mail order as a COVID-19 emergency measure.

"More Americans die from abortion drugs than fentanyl, cocaine and heroin combined. Haven’t we seen enough ‘American carnage’?" SBA Pro-Life America said, referring to President Trump's polarizing first inauguration speech. It emphasized the first Trump administration banned mifepristone by mail but was now refusing to reinstate its own policy.

 

And this AFTER @EPPCdc released new data showing Biden’s mail order abortion policy caused 13% more serious adverse events (hospitalizations, sepsis, deaths), and 52% more prescriptions for ectopic pregnancies, which are deadly. Why is @POTUS defending a Biden-era policy that…

— Katelyn Walls Shelton (@AnnaKateShelt) March 13, 2026

It seized on DOJ's admission in a March 3 supplemental brief in the Louisiana challenge that Kennedy has statutory authority to "immediately" suspend mifepristone if he finds "an imminent hazard to the public health." 

U.S. District Judge David Joseph had asked for a briefing on the "FDA’s authority to issue interim orders ... if confronted with concerning information during its review process."

SBA Pro-Life America wrote on X: "Women have been poisoned by abusive partners. Pressured and coerced by boyfriends or family members into taking these drugs." 

"Others have suffered severe, life-threatening complications after taking them alone at home. Some have even died," it also said. "When anyone can order life-ending drugs online without safeguards, a crisis is inevitable."

Trump administration says it's not 'standing in the way'

DOJ's motions to stay or dismiss lawsuits by the two groups of states, filed March 6 and March 13, make the same arguments with two exceptions due to different claims by each group. 

Missouri, Idaho and Kansas, which initially joined a lawsuit by pro-life emergency room doctors who unsuccessfully argued they had legal standing, argued they have standing to sue for "the loss of fetal life and potential births," a theory SCOTUS prohibits, DOJ said. They are also challenging regulatory changes since 2016, which are "time-barred."

Florida and Texas aren't arguing for standing based on loss of fetal life, and their challenges to FDA mifepristone rules from 2000, 2016 and 2019 are also time-barred, DOJ said.

The two groups of states "threaten to short-circuit the agency’s orderly review and study of the safety risks of mifepristone" through the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy review announced by Kennedy and Makary last fall, DOJ said in both filings.

The federal agency warned that granting the states relief is likely to prompt "conflicting injunctions" from other courts hearing challenges by abortion-rights groups. While neither group "appropriately" has sought a preliminary injunction, "the ultimate relief they request threatens to spark a judicial tug-of-war," DOJ said.

Florida and Texas "waited 25 years to challenge the approval of mifepristone," nearly 10 for the Obama administration's changes, seven for "the first generic equivalent" under the Trump administration, and nearly three for the mail-order change, so they "cannot seriously claim prejudice from the additional time necessary" for the FDA's review. 

DOJ said the same about Missouri, Idaho and Kansas waiting "nearly a year" to challenge the permanent mail-order authorization.

The feds insisted the states "remain free to make and enforce their pro-life policies" and the Trump administration is not "standing in the way," ignoring their central argument that mail-order prescribing neuters their ability to enforce their laws.

DOJ's move is exacerbating the rift between President Trump's pro-life supporters and critics within the conservative movement, the latter of whom questioned why the former acted surprised by the motions against states' litigation.

Trump's estranged former veep, Mike Pence, praised SBA Pro-Life America on Saturday morning for speaking against the "Trump-Vance DOJ" for twice siding with abortion providers in a week, in the separate motions against the two groups of states. 

JD Vance has received high-profile endorsements to succeed Trump including from perceived rival Secretary of State Marco Rubio; former Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin; and Erika Kirk, the widow of the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

"Trump-Vance has been utterly consistent on its defense of mail-order mifepristone since the day Vance was tapped as running mate," Washington Examiner senior editor Peter Laffin wrote on X, referring to Vance's 2024 interview supporting Trump's position. Trump's FDA also approved a generic form of mifepristone after promising a safety review.

"The GOP weakened the pro-life planks of its platform because of Trump. And the ticket got pro-life support anyway. Now here we are," National Review contributor Alexandra DeSanctis Marr wrote on X.

"One of the most bizarre aspects of Trumpism is the way in which pro-Trump evangelicals will bully anyone who breaks with Trump as a baby-killer while doing nothing at all to arrest the GOP's slide into becoming a pro-choice party," wrote New York Times columnist David French, who voted for abortion-rights champion Kamala Harris to "save conservatism from itself."

"Breaking with Trump *is* the pro-life move," said French, a founder of The Dispatch, which got SBA Pro-Life America's election ads censored by Facebook two weeks before the 2020 election through a botched fact-check that falsely claimed then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate Harris didn't support late-term abortions.

Greg Piper

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/abortion/justice-departments-attack-red-states-widens-gop-rift-abortion-pill-rules

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China approaches Taiwan with an offer: reunification in exchange for energy independence - Just the News Staff

 

by Just the News Staff

But Taiwan, which had been receiving ​a third of its LNG from Qatar and gets no energy from China, ​has said it is fine for now, with ⁠the United States as the island's main international backer.

 

China made an offer to Taiwan Wednesday, to provide the island nation with energy stability in exchange for “reunification,” which has long been the communist regime’s goal, and which Taiwan has always rejected, according to Reuters.

While energy supplies around the world are in a degree of turmoil, with the situation in Iran and through the Strait of Hormuz, since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, China apparently sees this as a good time to approach Taiwan with such a deal. 

But Taiwan, which had been receiving ​a third of its LNG from Qatar and gets no energy from China, ​has said it is fine for now, with ⁠the United States as the island's main international backer.

China has long offered Taiwan "one country, two systems" if it agrees to be brought under Beijing's control, according to Reuters, but no ​major Taiwanese political party has supported that offer.

China has long threatened to “reunify” with Taiwan one way or the other, never having renounced the use of force to achieve that goal.  

Just the News Staff

Source: https://justthenews.com/world/asia/china-approaches-taiwan-offer-reunification-exchange-energy-independence

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