Iran’s flex of long-range ballistic missiles vindicates Trump, may change European calculus - Steven Richards

 

by Steven Richards

Iran’s attempted intermediate-range ballistic missile strike at nearly 2,500 miles shows the regime’s capability to threaten Europe, a national security expert says.

 

With Iran’s launch of two long-range missiles on Friday, putting nearly all of Europe in striking distance, the regime showed that it possesses a capability that President Donald Trump previously cited as a key justification for the U.S. conflict with the Islamic Republic after years of denying it publicly. 

Iran fired the intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) at the joint U.S.-U.K. airbase on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, more than 2,000 miles from Tehran, on the same day that the British government gave the United States the green light to use the facility to launch strikes on Iran. 

"It could probably hit Paris, maybe London," security expert says

Neither missile struck the base. One failed in flight and a U.S. warship fired an interceptor missile at the other, though the U.S. military did not say whether the interception was successful. 

“This whole conflict changed when Iran fired intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, proving that it could probably hit Paris, maybe London,” Fred Fleitz, former Chief of Staff of Trump’s National Security Council during the president’s first term, told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Monday. 

Besides its nuclear program, Iran’s conventional missile program was one of the primary motivations for the Trump administration’s decision to strike Iran earlier this year. In his State of the Union Address just days before the military action, the president told Congress that the regime is developing missiles that would one day be able to reach the United States.

“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 in February. “They were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, in particular nuclear weapons.”  

Though U.S. intelligence assessments show that Iran is about nine years away from developing a missile that could reach the United States, officials allege that Tehran’s growing space program provided the vector for achieving such a breakthrough.   

Before the ballistic missile launch targeting Diego Garcia on Friday, Iranian leaders claimed their arsenal was limited in range and primarily for the purpose of deterring other countries rather than strikes abroad. 

In an interview with NBC News earlier this month, the regime's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran had intentionally limited the range of its ballistic missiles to below 1,250 miles “because we don’t want to be felt as a threat by anybody else in the world.” 

Much further than the previously estimated ranges of Iran’s missiles

But, after firing two missiles at the airbase, Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency reported that the missiles were fired at the base on Friday. “Iran’s targeting of Diego Garcia, about 4,000 kilometers [nearly 2,500 miles] away from Iran, implies its missiles have a greater range than Tehran has previously announced,” Mehr News Agency reported.  “Iran’s targeting of US faraway military base demonstrates its missile capability in targeting long-range positions.” 

Indeed, the range touted by the state-backed outlet would be much further than the previously estimated ranges of Iran’s missiles, excepting the Simorgh rocket — a space launch vehicle for satellites — if it were repurposed as a ballistic missile. 

Neither the U.S. nor the United Kingdom provided information about how far the Iranian ballistic missiles flew. However, if the Iranian regime-backed news outlet can be trusted, such a range would place most of Europe within the radius of the IRBMs, including the more than 38 U.S. military bases on the continent. Members of the European NATO alliance host the U.S. European Command (Stuttgart, Germany), strategic air and naval bases, and U.S. forward-deployed nuclear weapons. 

“It's sort of amusing to look back now, carried by arms control experts and European leaders that we know Iran doesn't have missiles that can fire more than 2000 kilometers, because the Supreme Leader said that they wouldn't do that. Well, that wasn't true,” Fleitz said. 

“They have missiles with at least a range of 4000 kilometers, which can almost get to Paris. And for all we know, the missiles can go even further,” he added. 

Though many European leaders have been hesitant about becoming overtly involved in the conflict, there are signs that their tune may be changing after Iran’s attempted long-range strike last week. 

“He’s doing this to make the whole world safe,” says NATO brass

Two days after the ballistic missiles were launched, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte — who has developed a close working relationship with President Trump since the latter’s term began last year — offered an endorsement of the U.S. military operation against Tehran and said he expects all the NATO nations to eventually come together to support him.

“He’s doing this to make the whole world safe,” Rutte told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan on Sunday. 

He said the European members “always come together” and said that a nuclear-armed Iran would be as much a threat to Europe as the United States. 

While the continent’s leaders have been reluctant to endorse the operation in public, the United States has relied heavily on its European bases and those of its allies to sustain the current conflict against Iran. The bases, which are spread from the United Kingdom to Turkey, have been used for refueling planes and drones, command and communications. 

One of those reluctant allies, the United Kingdom, announced on Monday that it would send short-range air defense systems to the Middle East in order to counter Iranian missile strikes. 

Iran’s strikes on its neutral neighbors and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz have also prompted Europe to adopt a more pro-U.S. stance in the conflict. One day before the long-range ballistic missile launch, a coalition of 30 nations in and outside of Europe issued a joint statement condemning those strikes. 

The countries, which included the U.K., France, Italy, Japan, Australia and other allies, also announced their “readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait.” Whether that will include military assistance to the U.S. is not yet clear.  

Steven Richards

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/security/irans-flex-long-range-ballistic-missiles-vindicates-trump-threat-perception

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Iran Escalates Demands After Dimona Strike and 2,500-Mile Missile Launch - Mardo Saghom

 

by Mardo Saghom

Tehran’s Rhetoric and Actions Point to a Regime That Sees Escalation as Leverage to Be Exploited

 

Iranian missiles are displayed outside a military museum in Tehran. Shutterstock

After two Iranian missiles penetrated air defenses and struck southern Israel on March 21, 2026, one of the Islamic Republic’s remaining senior figures, Speaker of the Parliament Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, said that Israeli skies are defenseless. State-controlled media in Tehran celebrated, and signs emerged that Iran was hardening its conditions for any ceasefire.

Ghalibaf went further, issuing an open threat: “If Israel’s government is unable to intercept missiles in the heavily protected Dimona area, it would, operationally, signal a new phase in the conflict: Israel’s airspace is effectively undefended. As a result, it appears that the time has come to implement the next pre-planned stages. Happy Nowruz to the people of Iran.”

Tehran sees no prospect for an imminent ceasefire and intends to continue its policy of punishing the United States and Israel until the Islamic Republic delivers a “historical lesson.”

An unnamed senior official told the Tehran-backed Arabic-language network Al Mayadeen that “after destroying the enemy’s air defense infrastructure, Iran now has full control of its airspace.” While such language fits a familiar pattern of wartime bluster, the official also outlined conditions for ending the conflict that began on February 28, 2026.

According to the official, Tehran sees no prospect for an imminent ceasefire and intends to continue its policy of punishing the United States and Israel until the Islamic Republic delivers a “historical lesson.” He added that although regional intermediaries have floated proposals to halt the fighting, Iran has set conditions that must be taken seriously. These include guarantees that the war will not recur, closure of U.S. bases in the region, compensation for damages and acknowledgment of aggression, and an end to hostilities across all regional fronts. Additional demands include the establishment of a new legal framework governing the Strait of Hormuz and the prosecution and extradition of individuals linked to anti-regime media outlets.

There are at least two fresh demands in these remarks: Extradition of Iranian journalists from Western countries and ending free navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, giving Tehran the right to regulate which vessels transit. “An end to hostilities across all regional fronts,” suggests Iran seeks security for Hezbollah, Houthis, and other Iranian proxies—a total Iranian victory.

Perhaps more than the strike on southern Israel, what appears to have emboldened Tehran is its launch of two 2,500-mile-range missiles toward the joint British-American base at Diego Garcia on March 20. Although one missile failed in flight and the other was intercepted, the attempt exposed a discrepancy in Iran’s previously declared capabilities. For years, Tehran had emphasized missiles with ranges of 1,200–1,500 miles. Covertly, however, they have developed missiles with nearly double that reach. This longer-range missile falls only about 1,000 miles short of the intercontinental ballistic missile threshold.

This strengthens the case put forth by President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the current air campaign that Iran’s missile threat was becoming dangerous and had to be suppressed.

Had Trump not withdrawn from the [nuclear] agreement and imposed tough sanctions, Iran might already have possessed intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States by 2030.

It also strengthens the case of those who opposed the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal, which allowed Iran to continue its ballistic missile program. Had Trump not withdrawn from the agreement and imposed tough sanctions, Iran might already have possessed intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States by 2030. Those sanctions denied Tehran access to more than $200 billion in additional oil revenue, along with restored banking access and far fewer trade restrictions—conditions that would have enabled a much faster expansion of its missile and military capabilities. Instead, oil exports fell from about 2.5 million barrels per day in 2017 to an average of roughly 1.3 million barrels per day between 2018 and 2025, while financial and trade constraints made it harder to procure advanced and dual-use technologies.

Taken together, Tehran’s rhetoric and actions point to a regime that sees escalation not as a risk to be managed, but as leverage to be exploited. The gap between its maximalist demands and battlefield realities suggests that any path to de-escalation will be long. 

Mardo Saghom was a journalist and editorial manager at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for three decades, overseeing the Iran and Afghanistan services until 2020, and was chief editor of the Iran International English website.

Source: https://www.meforum.org/mef-observer/iran-escalates-demands-after-dimona-strike-and-2-500-mile-missile-launch

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IDF strikes Hezbollah fuel stations across Lebanon, targets main financial infrastructures - James Genn

 

by James Genn

The IDF also located and destroyed a Hezbollah terror tunnel near Mount Dov, along the Israel-Lebanon border in the Upper Galilee.

 

The IDF targeted on Tuesday fuel stations belonging to the company Al-Amana, which is one of Hezbollah's main financial infrastructures supporting its terrorist activities, the military said in a statement.

The military announced that several stations were rendered inoperable, with the main targets being those that were used by Hezbollah to refuel trucks transporting weapons and operatives.

"The fuel stations generate millions of dollars in revenue for Hezbollah, fund its operations, and serve as another example of Hezbollah’s exploitation of Lebanese civilians while operating under civilian cover to advance terrorist activities," the military explained.

The IDF also warned that it would continue to target the Al-Qard al-Hasan association in Beirut, which serves as "the terrorist organization’s economic entrenchment within the civilian population."

IDF locates Hezbollah tunnel near Mount Dov 

Earlier on Tuesday, the IDF's 810th "Mountain" Brigade located and destroyed a Hezbollah terror tunnel near Mount Dov, along the Israel-Lebanon border in the Upper Galilee.

Additionally, the brigade located and destroyed a weapons compound belonging to Hezbollah terrorists.

This follows an earlier announcement from the IDF that it conducted strikes against Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure across Lebanon, including in Beirut, during the overnight period between Monday and Tuesday.

IDF destroys Radwan Force headquarters during Beirut strikes

As part of the strikes on Beirut, the military hit several Hezbollah headquarters, including one belonging to the Radwan Force, which terrorists used to operate terror attacks against both IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians, the military announced.

Another strike hit a Hezbollah Intelligence Directorate headquarters in Beirut.

The IDF also published a video of the military destroying a crossing over the Litani River that was used by Hezbollah terrorists to transfer weapons, rockets, and launchers to carry out terror attacks against Israel.

Additionally, Defense Minister Israel Katz claimed that all crossings over the Litani River used by Hezbollah have been destroyed.

An infographic detailing an IDF strike against a Litani River crossing used by Hezbollah terrorists, published March 24, 2026. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

"All the bridges over the Litani that Hezbollah used to transport terrorists and weapons have been blown up, and the IDF will control the remaining bridges and the security zone up to the Litani," Katz said from the ministry's office in the Kirya, Tel Aviv.

"The IDF will continue to operate in Lebanon with full force against Hezbollah. Hundreds of thousands of residents of southern Lebanon who evacuated north will not return south of the Litani River until security is guaranteed for the residents of northern Israel," Katz added.

Meanwhile, the IDF conducted strikes on Sidon and an apartment approximately eight kilometers from Beirut, killing two terrorists inside, according to reports in Lebanese media.

Airstrike hits Lebanese Christian town north of Beirut, state media says

According to reports by the Lebanese state media, an air strike hit a Christian town north of Beirut, an area that had not yet been targeted in the current war.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the town of Sahel Alma. Witnesses in the area told Reuters they heard several blasts and saw white smoke emanating from the town.

Amir Bohbot, Avi Ashkenazi, and Reuters contributed to this report.

James Genn

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-891021

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Group behind European synagogue blasts claims London arson - Canaan Lidor

 

by Canaan Lidor

Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya said it had torched Jewish ambulances as part of wider campaign.

 

Hatzolah staff treat a patient in London. Credit: Hatzolah UK.

The Islamist group that claimed responsibility for setting off explosions outside a Jewish school in Amsterdam and synagogues in Rotterdam and in Belgium earlier this month said on Monday that it was also behind the torching of a Jewish group’s ambulances in London early Monday morning.

Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya claimed responsibility for the fire, which London police are treating as an antisemitic incident. Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism confirmed the claim in an incident report it published Monday evening.

In a previous report, the ministry said that content published by the group, which surfaced in Europe this month following an explosion outside a synagogue in Liege, Belgium, on March 9, “spread quickly on Telegram channels affiliated with Shi’ite militant networks and pro-Iranian circles, including channels linked to Hezollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).”

No one was hurt in any of the explosions for which the group had claimed responsibility, but 30 people needed to be evacuated from their homes in Golders Green because of the fire that consumed four ambulances of the Hatzola Jewish rescue and emergency organization. 

Canaan Lidor

Source: https://www.jns.org/news/world/group-behind-european-synagogue-blasts-claims-london-arson

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Hispanic Mass Migration and Remigration (Part 1) - White Papers Policy Institute

 

by White Papers Policy Institute

Mass immigration, driven by elites, has fractured national cohesion—only deliberate reversal, not drift, can restore sovereignty and social trust in the West.

 

 

This is part one of a two-part series examining the impacts of decades of mass Hispanic immigration on the U.S. and the policies necessary to reverse those trends.

At White Papers, our core premise is that Western nations deserve to protect their sovereignty, their political institutions, and their founding demography, and to build a future free from interference by alien cultures or hostile elites. The reality is that the nations of the West are at risk. The peoples native to Europe and those who founded Western nations like America are at risk of becoming minorities in their homelands after decades of unwanted mass immigration, facilitated by our own elite political class. In some cases, this was done for ideological reasons (globalism). In other cases, it was to drive down the cost of labor for short-term gains. The inevitable and necessary result of these anti-democratic immigration policies by the postwar liberal establishment is a growing political movement that has risen to reject the premise of continued mass immigration and, crucially, to reverse these trends.

Nationalists and patriots, more than anyone, know the data. They look at the graphs, charts, and trends and understand that, if we do nothing, the West is lost forever! But what can be done? Is it too late?

White Papers knows something can be done. Something must be done. We have advocated these changes for more than six years, and now that pro-Western parties are coming to power across our civilization—the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, France, and beyond—it is time to expand our vision of what can be done to reverse the anti-democratic project of mass immigration.

Remigration (also called repatriation) is simple. It is the return of recent immigrants and many of their descendants who have failed to integrate into Western societies to their respective homelands or perhaps third-party countries willing to take them. It is the policy most needed to correct the course of Western Civilization. Most importantly, though, it is a practical policy.

Westerners, even to our detriment, are some of the most welcoming and hospitable peoples on Earth. Repatriation must, therefore, happen in a peaceful and just manner that respects the dignity of those being asked and incentivized to leave our nations. Remigration is not inhumane or disparaging of other peoples.

America’s demographics have changed radically since the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, and it feels appropriate to begin by examining the largest group of recent immigrants and their descendants in the United States—the group America’s (thankfully declining) uniparty elites have imported in record numbers through both legal and illegal channels to change America’s demographic character: Hispanics (Mestizos, Latinos, et al.). ⁱ

When the 1965 Immigration Act was passed, the share of Hispanics in the United States was just 4 percent of the population at the time of the 1960 census. At most, the Hispanic population would have increased to about 8–10 percent today had the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act (also known as the Hart-Celler Act) never passed, according to PEW research and our own demographic projections. The overwhelming majority of those Hispanics in such a scenario would NOT be immigrants or their descendants but true Hispanic Americans, i.e., the descendants of the populations present in the country when the Southwest was annexed. These are the Hispanos, Tejanos, Californios, Chicanos, and others. Instead of modest, natural population shifts that would have seen an extant community of Americans grow in size, the immigration legislation ushered through Congress has resulted in the Hispanic share of the American population surpassing 20 percent of the overall population.

Throughout this piece, there is a data point more relevant than any other: that 33 percent of all Hispanics, and 45 percent of Hispanic adults, in the United States are foreign-born and therefore already hold, or are eligible for, the citizenship of another country. This fact shines a light on the oft-repeated line that so many of these culturally alien groups from Latin America are “Americans,” when the reality is that tens of millions are indeed foreign-born immigrants the American people never consented to admitting into this country. Another 34 percent of the Hispanic population of the United States are the children of immigrants. In total, more than 45.5 million of the 68 million Hispanics in the United States are first- and second-generation immigrants.

For certain, some, if not many, of these 45 million recent first- and second-generation immigrants are law-abiding, well-integrated, self-sufficient individuals and families. They are good people, good neighbors, and patriotic about their adopted homeland. However, the reality remains that most are simply imported foreigners. They live in parallel societies, do not identify as Americans, and require huge levels of support from American taxpayers through the welfare state. Indeed, the 2024 SIPP survey, as examined by the Center for Immigration Studies, found that 51 percent of legal immigrant households, 69 percent of illegal immigrant households, and 49 percent of naturalized citizen households rely upon the generosity of the American welfare state to make ends meet. More granular data published in 2026 showed that 57 percent of immigrant households from Latin America are using major welfare programs, including 59 percent of Mexican households in the U.S., 49 percent of Cuban households in the U.S., 68 percent of Dominican households in the U.S., and 63 percent of Honduran households in the U.S., to name but a few.

Data from the Center for Immigration Studies

The problem is also intergenerational. The same 2024 data examined by the Center for Immigration Studies found that while 70 percent of Hispanic immigrants would utilize the welfare state at some point, this number only slightly declined to 54 percent for second-generation immigrants (their American-born children) and remained at 53 percent for the third generation (people whose grandparents immigrated to America). Americans never voted for this and would likely be in uproar if these figures were more widely known.

Americans must face the reality that if 57 percent of Hispanic immigrant households are indeed reliant upon public welfare and this persists across generations, then more than 15 million Hispanic immigrants should never have been admitted into this country to begin with, let alone made our “fellow Americans.” The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) was specifically designed to prevent this kind of welfare-based mass immigration, but interpretations of this law allowed it to be hardly applied for decades. The only just way to undo this state of affairs is to reverse the tide on mass immigration and send these public charges, and their families, home.

Data from the Center for Immigration Studies

This is more than an argument about welfare and fiscal costs, though. The American people want to live in a unified, coherent, high-trust society as they have for generations, and this simply cannot be achieved when immigrants and their descendants do not identify as Americans. 2020 data from the Pew Research Center shows that among Hispanics in the United States, just 14 percent state their primary identity is American. This increases to only 22 percent among second-generation Hispanics (those born here) and increases slightly to 33 percent among third-generation Hispanics (those with immigrant grandparents). What is most concerning about these trends is that they are in retrograde. Integration is getting worse, not better, as the Hispanic population of the United States grows. In 2013—when 14 million fewer Hispanics lived in the United States—the share of Hispanics who considered their primary identity to be American was 23 percent (nine points higher), while among second-generation Hispanics, 30 percent considered themselves as Americans (seven points higher). Among the third generation, 59 percent considered themselves to be Americans before any other identity (26 points greater than today).

Mass immigration has so demographically transformed the United States that integration has become impossible. Immigrant populations and their American-born family members are maintaining parallel societies within the United States with their own political, economic, and cultural interests that oppose those of Americans. This is unacceptable and can only be resolved with a policy of remigration that tells the many, many millions of unintegrated Hispanics in the United States that they are going to have to relocate to the country they identify with and leave Americans to live in peace in our own homeland.

Data from the Pew Research Center

Data from the Pew Research Center

White Papers Policy Institute

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/03/24/hispanic-mass-migration-and-remigration-part-1/

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How Iran’s shadow looms over the Sarajevo Haggadah and a sham seder in Congress - Marc Zell, Dana Levinson

 

by Marc Zell, Dana Levinson

Attending it would lend legitimacy to malign actors backed by Tehran, who cloak themselves in Jewish victimhood while peddling hatred.

 

The Sarajevo Haggadah, kept in a vault room surrounded by documents representing Catholic, Orthodox Jewish and Muslim faiths, Dec. 2, 2002. Credit: Kleinjp/Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons.

As Jews prepare for the Passover holiday while Israel fights Iran alongside the United States, an event will be held in the U.S. House of Representatives’ Canon Office Building on March 24 that both mocks Jewish history and appropriates Jewish suffering.

An event advertised as a “Congressional Passover Seder Featuring Sarajevo Haggadah” will bring together “members of Congress … the diplomatic community” and “faith leaders.” No doubt these attendees do not suspect that they will be involved in a ritual seeking to affirm and legitimize the exploitation by the Muslim government of Bosnia and Herzegovina of an ancient Jewish religious artifact.

At the heart of this outrage stands the Sarajevo Haggadah, a 14th-century illuminated Passover manuscript—a masterpiece of Jewish artistry and resilience. Crafted in medieval Spain, it traveled around Europe, eventually winding up in Sarajevo. It survived the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust and the brutal Bosnian Civil War of the 1990s.

Housed in Sarajevo’s National Museum, this artifact symbolizes Jewish continuity through centuries of political upheaval and evil. Yet today, Bosnia’s increasingly pro-Iranian government has hijacked the Haggadah as a political weapon to fund anti-Israel agendas.

On Aug. 1, as Israel still fought to release dozens of hostages being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Bosnia’s state-run National Museum made the stunning announcement, saying that it would send proceeds from the Haggadah (from museum shop book and ticket sales) for “helping Palestine.” The museum’s announcement, put out on Palestinian flag letterhead, slammed Israel for “calculated and cold-blooded terror,” and baselessly accused it of genocide. The Bosnians took no issue with Hamas or its massacres.

A relic celebrating the Jews’ holiday of escape to freedom was being used to provide moral and financial support to those who were literally holding Jews captive underground in tunnels.
These brazen moves have reignited urgent demands for the Haggadah’s repatriation to the Jewish state, where it belongs.

In 2019, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin pressed Bosnia’s ambassador on this very point, underscoring the manuscript’s profound ties to Jewish patrimony. More recently, in January, Israeli President Isaac Herzog echoed this call during meetings with Republika Srpska (RS) officials, advocating for its safe return to Jerusalem, far from the clutches of political opportunists.

Many still think of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a model moderate Muslim state. Bosnia is a fractured nation forged from the ashes of the 1990s civil war. The 1995 Dayton Accords divided the country into two highly autonomous entities: the Bosniak (Muslim)-dominated Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) with its capital in Sarajevo; and the Serb-led, Christian-majority Republika Srpska, based in Banja Luka.

Hopes for peaceful coexistence have been stymied by two factors.

First, the Bosniak entity has increasingly drifted into the radical Islamist orbit of Turkey and Iran. Second, under a unique arrangement, the supreme authority in the country still lies in the hands of a European official known as the High Representative. Originally intended as an interim facilitator, he has total legislative authority over both entities and has systematically used it to strengthen Sarajevo at the expense of the consistently pro-Israel RS government.

Copies of the Sarajevo Haggadah in the parliament building of Bosnia and Herzegovina, June 23, 2009. Credit: Smooth_O/Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons.

But why Sarajevo? Once dubbed “the heart of Europe” by generals in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Bosnia has become a frontline in a clash of civilizations: radical Islamism versus Judeo-Christian values. Tehran’s tentacles run deep here. During the Bosnian war, IRGC operatives smuggled arms; trained mujahideen fighters, including Al-Qaeda affiliates; and flouted U.N. embargoes. Three decades on, CIA-linked reports warn that IRGC elements linger in the federation, embedding themselves like a cancer.

Iran’s Sarajevo embassy, bloated with more than 400 staff (far exceeding any legitimate diplomatic footprint) serves as a hub for this infiltration. Republika Srpska leaders have repeatedly sounded alarms about a terrorist training camp in Pogorelica, allegedly used to groom militants for European attacks and even the terrorist attacks against America on Sept. 11, 2001.

The political fallout is unmistakable. During Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, Palestinian flags fluttered from Sarajevo’s government buildings, massive pro-Palestinian rallies clogged the streets, and officials hurled “genocide” accusations at Israel. Last June, pressure forced the Conference of European Rabbis to flee Sarajevo for Munich. Weeks later, 47 Israeli tourists were left stranded when hotel staff in Muslim-majority areas reportedly trashed their passports—a petty act of hostility that screams intolerance.

Sarajevo has been subject to a calculated radicalization, greased by Iranian influence.

Members of Congress must reject this charade outright.

Attending the so-called seder would lend legitimacy to Iranian-backed actors who cloak themselves in Jewish victimhood while peddling hatred. It’s time to call out the weaponization of our heritage, demand the Haggadah’s return and starve Tehran’s soft-power machine of oxygen. America’s lawmakers owe it to history—and to the truth—not to play along.

Marc Zell, Dana Levinson

Marc Zell is an international attorney practicing in Washington, D.C., and Jerusalem. He is the chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel and vice president of Republicans Overseas, Inc.

Dana Levinson is a political analyst and Middle East researcher focusing on Iran, its nuclear program, regional security and geopolitical influence.  

Source: https://www.jns.org/opinion/how-irans-shadow-looms-over-the-sarajevo-haggadah-and-a-sham-seder-in-congress

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Iraqi Kurdistan Needs Air Defenses - Sirwan Kajjo

 

by Sirwan Kajjo

Strengthening Iraqi Kurdistan’s Defenses Would Help Alleviate Pressure on U.S. Personnel in the Region

 

Kurdish soldiers in Erbil, Iraq. Shutterstock 

Iraqi Kurdistan is increasingly entangled in the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict. Iran and its Iraqi proxies target three elements in Iraqi Kurdistan: U.S. bases, peshmerga, and Iranian Kurdish opposition groups headquarters.

Since the onset of the U.S.-Israel war with Iran on February 28, 2026, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Iraqi proxies have launched more than 300 ballistic missile and drone attacks against U.S. military and diplomatic facilities in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region, as well peshmerga bases, and camps belonging to Iranian Kurdish groups. These attacks so far have killed at least four civilians and wounded almost three dozen. As the strikes against Iranian regime targets continue, so do Iran’s retaliatory attacks across the Middle East, including in Iraqi Kurdistan.

As the strikes against Iranian regime targets continue, so do Iran’s retaliatory attacks across the Middle East, including in Iraqi Kurdistan.

While U.S. air defenses at Erbil airport, Harir airbase, and the U.S. consulate have intercepted most of these missiles and drones, others have successfully struck peshmerga positions and Iranian Kurdish forces. That is because the United States maintains C-RAM, Patriot, and THAAD defense systems to protect its facilities, while the Kurdistan Region lacks such defensive capabilities. That must change.

The United States must take concrete steps to ensure that Iraqi Kurds acquire air defense systems that would allow them to protect civilian lives and critical infrastructure, while also preserving a reliable security partnership with Washington as it faces an aggressive Iranian regime.

Coupled with Iraqi Kurdistan’s geographic proximity to Iran and its proxies, the lack of air defense capabilities by peshmerga forces makes the Kurdistan Region more vulnerable than any other U.S. regional ally. Iran and its proxies have exploited this gap repeatedly, long before the outbreak of the current hostilities.

According to the Iraqi constitution, the peshmerga are part of the country’s defense structure. Yet the central government in Baghdad has not established air defenses anywhere in the Kurdistan Region. Procuring air defense system is a sovereignty issue that falls under Baghdad’s authority. This means that even if the Kurdistan Regional Government had the financial capacity, it cannot independently acquire them.

However, when the Khor Mor gas field came under attack in November 2025, Iraqi Kurdish leadership asked for U.S. and other international actors to provide the Kurdistan Region with defensive equipment to deter future attacks by Iranian proxies.

The United States has the leverage to pressure the Iraqi government to deploy defense systems to Kurdistan. If Baghdad cannot rein in the terrorist groups, some of which fall under its own defense ministry, it should at least allow the Kurdish Region to have some defense capabilities.

The U.S. administration should support the Kurds both politically and financially to acquire their own defense capabilities, even if Baghdad remains hesitant.

With a disoriented and ambiguous Iraqi stance on the current conflict between the United States and Iran, Washington should go further. Kurds may prefer a more direct U.S. approach, given longstanding mistrust of the central government. The threats facing Iraqi Kurdistan will persist, and the U.S. administration should support the Kurds both politically and financially to acquire their own defense capabilities, even if Baghdad remains hesitant. Strengthening Iraqi Kurdistan’s defenses would help alleviate pressure on U.S. personnel in the region by reducing the need to divert resources from offensive operations to force protection.

Iraqi Kurds are navigating a delicate situation as the conflict grows more complex. Without clear and sustained U.S. support, it will be difficult for them to maintain a firm stance against Iran and Iranian-backed militias.

This is not only a matter of helping the Kurds defend their autonomous region; it is also a question of broader regional stability. Strengthening Kurdistan Region’s defensive capabilities would limit the operational space of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Iraqi proxies.

Sirwan Kajjo is a journalist and researcher specializing in Kurdish politics, Islamic militancy, and Syrian affairs. He has contributed two book chapters on Syria and the Kurds, published by Indiana University Press and Cambridge University Press. His writings on Syrian and Kurdish issues have appeared in the Middle East Forum, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and other prominent think tanks and publications. Kajjo is also the author of Nothing But Soot, a novel set in Syria. He holds a BA in government and international politics from George Mason University.

Source: https://www.meforum.org/mef-observer/iraqi-kurdistan-needs-air-defenses

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Who Was Cesar Chavez—and Who Will He Become? - Victor Davis Hanson

 

by Victor Davis Hanson

The canonized legacy of Cesar Chavez is collapsing under revelations that recast a sainted activist as a deeply flawed—and possibly predatory—man the Left can no longer easily defend.

 

 

Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers, eventually became the symbolic leader of the entire Mexican American community of the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed, he was eventually enshrined in the pantheon of modern leftist activists and civil rights leaders alongside Saul Alinsky, Martin Luther King Jr., and Betty Friedan. His Chavez Foundation today emphasizes Chavez’s saintlike status as “a genuinely religious and spiritual figure.” His Tehachapi redoubt remains a national monument.

In public, Chavez stressed nonstop his common-man roots, his strong Catholicism, and his devotion to wife and family, and thereby turned the struggle to provide a livable wage and humane working conditions for farm workers into a broader civil rights movement—led by the Christlike martyr Cesar Chavez himself. He carefully constructed an image of the long-suffering moralist, at odds with greedy capitalist “growers,” whom Chavez often publicly said he loathed.

Chavez frequently quoted Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and went on well-publicized fasts and nonviolent marches. The Camelot Kennedys made yearly hajjes to California to meet with the holy man. 1960s college students ensured that table grapes were banned in campus cafeterias.

In 1971, as a bumbling freshman farm kid entering UC Santa Cruz, I can remember being confronted my first day on campus by screaming students outside my dorm door for bringing to my new room a tiny box of grapes I picked on our small 120-acre farm.

Trying to explain to furious (mostly) wealthy white kids from Los Angeles that family raisin farming had little to do with the labor fireworks over table-grape production in Delano was a waste of time. To these suburbanites, Chavez was a god. And anyone anywhere who grew any type of grape for any reason was Satanic. So effectively had Chavez spread his gospel of evil farmer oppression to the estates of Brentwood, Palos Verdes, and Malibu.

Yet even then, there were always elements of the mythical Chavez that did not quite ring true. The supposedly nonviolent Chavez sent his toughs down to the southern border to form a “wet line” to stop and sometimes assault illegal aliens—in a way that would make ICE today look tame. But assaulting such “scabs,” Chavez preached, was necessary to ensure cheap nonunion “strikebreakers” did not drive down his union’s wages.

Rumors in small farming towns swirled—and were tossed off as “grower” lies—that he was a serial adulterer with a string of female liaisons, an image at odds with his carefully cultivated shy and introspective persona.

Nonviolence was his ostensible Catholic-Gandhian creed. But, in reality, his union strongmen salted packing-house driveways with nails, sometimes rushed into the fields to interrupt harvests and drive out workers, sabotaged produce shipments, and used illegal secondary boycotts. A table-grape vineyard besieged at harvest by an army of UFW union strongarms was a frequent and scary spectacle. All that was to be justified for La Causa—the effort to accord farm labor the same rights enjoyed by other union workers.

Despite the rhetoric, most of the table-grape growers of Delano in the central San Joaquin Valley whom Chavez fought were not so easily caricatured as evil billionaire corporate predators. Most were successful family-run farms and packing houses, founded in the Depression by tough first-generation immigrants who came with nothing from Sicily, Croatia, and Serbia.

The private Chavez’s own authoritarian habits and intolerance only grew more severe as his inept union leadership and forays into socialist utopianism lost members and misused state and federal funding. Finally, Chavez brought on the violent, wacky Synanon cult to indoctrinate his top echelon through bizarre group therapies, characterized by screaming sessions of profanity and ridicule. Synanon kooks as Chavez’s enforcers did not go over well with either his college-educated white leftist lieutenants or his inner circle of long-serving traditionalist Mexican American deputies.

Chavez’s growing paranoia and his hounding of “disloyal” union subordinates coincided with the late 1980s and 1990s, when farm mechanization, open borders, radically improved farmworker conditions, higher pay, and the changing nature of California agriculture had largely made the once-feared Chavez UFW irrelevant.

No matter—following his premature death at 66 in 1993, Chavez was canonized, as his postmortem reputation reached angelic status. There is hardly a major California city today that does not have a street named after him. His name is emblazoned on state and federal buildings. His birthday, March 31, at least for now, is still a California holiday. There is a USNS Cesar Chavez cargo ship. Chavez statues dot California campuses. Until recently, few have ever questioned the canonization of Chavez.

But this past week’s recent disclosures—long known among his inner circle and always suppressed for the supposed greater good of the union movement—have revealed that Chavez was a hero with feet of clay.

His top aide, the now-95-year-old but once fiery Dolores Huerta, has just revealed she was raped in a grape field by her boss over a half-century ago. And she was coerced into sex on another occasion, along with being sexually and emotionally abused by Chavez. Two of her own children were fathered by Chavez—a secret kept for over sixty years.

Yet the most disturbing revelations were that Chavez sexually molested and groomed at least two small girls, both reportedly during their preteen and underage teenage years. Some of his victims are now in their sixties. What was once whispered is now a disturbing confirmation of the dark side of the so-called humanist Chavez and the trauma he inflicted on the most innocent and vulnerable.

Further disclosures and victims are promised, but for now, Cesar Chavez, iconic hero of the oppressed, may well have been a longtime pedophile, chronic sexual abuser, and rapist—in other words, an oppressor on the wrong side of the victim/victimizer binary. How and why these dark secrets were kept hidden reflects the cult of Chavez holiness, the fear of retribution from the St. Cesar industry, and the moral bankruptcy of the Left.

So the embarrassed Left has gone into hyperdrive to separate from its fallen hero, rather than seeking to defend him. Why?

The disclosures did not come from far-right conspiracy theorists. The charges arose from among his closest and most intimate union associates, who were no longer willing to remain silent and perpetuate the decades-long myth. And their stories surfaced initially only from the investigative reporting of the left-wing New York Times.

No one from the Chavez inner circle has come forward with angry denials. Instead, they are either silent or quietly confirm the victims’ narratives that Chavez’s abuse was a well-kept secret in Chavista circles for decades.

After the #MeToo movement and the political weaponization of the Epstein files, the Left established the precedent for all others that mere allegations of sexual harassment earn mandatory political and social erasure, characterized by Soviet-style name-changing, statue-toppling, damnatio memoriae, and the complete eradication of the fallen hero from the public consciousness. Indeed, already, impending Chavez Day festivities have been canceled and his statues on campuses hooded.

The Left, however, which had even stripped the names of liberal icons like Woodrow Wilson and Earl Warren from iconic campus buildings for their purported racial offenses, will have some difficulty applying the same unpersoning methods to Chavez. After all, in today’s terms, he was a Latino champion of the DEI movement and not a proverbial “old white guy” on the wrong side of the victim/victimizer ledger. Will that fact save Chavez from being relegated to Harvey Weinstein status?

So, the Left is on the horns of a dilemma. It was one thing to erase a liberal jurist like Earl Warren or a progressive president like Woodrow Wilson, given that they were white guys whose alleged sins came from their “privilege” as white males.

But what does the Left do in these cases of intersectional conflicts of interest, when a noble male of color is accused of violating noble women of color, and there is not a white male oppressor to be found amid this sordid mess?

In the case of the civil rights giant Martin Luther King Jr., it had long been alleged by his close aide Ralph Abernathy that King watched—and did not intervene, perhaps even egging on the attacker—when one of his subordinates raped a woman in a hotel room. And his biographer David Garrow has reluctantly chronicled the dark side of Reverend King as a promiscuous serial adulterer who, again, allegedly got violent with some of his liaisons.

Yet for the Left, the world retains a Manichean divide between all the noble oppressed, now defined by their innate race, gender, and sexual orientation, and all the evil oppressors, mostly white, male, and heterosexual.

Leftists toppled or removed statues of genuine heroes like Christopher Columbus, Ulysses S. Grant, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and George Washington; what, then, will they do with Chavez, who, as a figure of the modern age, was well aware of the norms, mores, laws, and customs of the late twentieth century?

The Left has ended any talk that a person’s life is a sum of good and bad, to be weighed somehow one against the other. In their past record of blanket ostracism, they were incapable of assessing anyone outside their ideological circle as a terrible private person, but one who, nevertheless, as a public figure, did some good things, much less consider the context of the times in which the fallen hero had lived.

But will they then apply that reductionism to Chavez or King, or even to John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton?

Or will they revert to keeping quiet, as they surmise that, in order to make a good progressive omelet, inevitably even the most hallowed leftist saint regrettably sometimes callously breaks a few eggs and so should be forgiven for the collateral damage of a few utterly ruined lives?

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004, and is the 2023 Giles O'Malley Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush, and the Bradley Prize in 2008. Hanson is also a farmer (growing almonds on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author of the just released New York Times best seller, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, published by Basic Books on May 7, 2024, as well as the recent  The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump, and The Dying Citizen.

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/03/24/who-was-cesar-chavez-and-who-will-he-become/

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Trump admin looks to streamline permitting, lower costs to help make home ownership more attainable - Kevin Killough

 

by Kevin Killough

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said that the landowners know better than the government how best to rebuild, and this will empower individuals and the private sector.

 

Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin confirmed Monday the Trump administration wants to intensify efforts to get state and local regulators to drop burdensome, costly zoning laws — including on homes built on assembly lines — to help the next generation afford the American dream of home ownership.

The Palisades Fire in Southern California last year destroyed roughly 13,000 homes in the Palisades and Eaton neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Over a year later, a little more than 3,000 rebuilding permits have been issued and only a few dozen homes have been built, according to The New York Post. 

Zeldin detailed Monday on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast the challenges homeowners are facing in trying to rebuild their homes, which includes wading through the bureaucracy of California’s building permit authorities. 

“There are so many lessons to be learned here, and as far as the permitting process goes, making sure that you have one-stop shop permitting in one location as close to the disaster site as possible, that you have as few boxes that have to get checked, and as little red tape and bureaucracy to go through in order to get your permit approval. And you have as many building companies engaged as possible,” Zeldin said. 

Zeldin said that the landowners know better than the government how best to rebuild, and this will empower private individuals, as well as the private sector. 

“Limiting government's role as much as you can. It shouldn't be any more than what is necessary,” he also said. 

Removing housing barriers

President Donald Trump earlier this month signed the “Removing Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Home Construction” executive order. The order states that layers of unnecessary regulatory barriers, slow permitting processes and mandates at all levels of government delay construction and drive up new housing costs. 

The order in part directs the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to create a series of regulatory best practices for state and local governments. Such practices are intended to streamline permitting processes for housing development by capping permitting fees and limiting permitting timelines. 

The suggested guidelines will also allow third-party inspections by certified entities to ensure swift resolutions when disputes arise between government agencies and builders. The best practices would also curtail mandates for green-energy requirements. 

Creating certainty and efficiency 

Zeldin said that the self-certification provision is important. 

“When you're setting your rules ... don't force somebody to have to rebuild their entire house because of some regulation," he said. "Be efficient, so that the building owner has to pay as little as possible."

Additionally, the president wants to examine restrictions on manufactured housing that are a matter of construction-method preference and aesthetic requirements – rather than safety standards. 

“You certainly don't want to see any government elsewhere getting too involved in preventing people from utilizing that technology," Zeldin continued. 

"As a matter of fact, it should be quite the opposite. We should be empowering Americans to be able to achieve the American dream, to have home ownership. And for many Americans, home ownership means getting into one of those manufactured homes that were manufactured elsewhere.'

Federal permitting streamlined

Trump’s executive order also aims to streamline federal permitting requirements for residential development. It directs the Secretary of the Army, along with the EPA administrator, to review and revise requirements related to stormwater, wetlands, lakes, rivers and other bodies of water. 

The streamlining attempts to reduce housing construction and ownership costs, property tax burdens, and make homes more insurable, the order explains. 

The order also asks the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the secretaries of the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development to consider eliminating unnecessary and burdensome rules and reform programs that limit residential development and impede housing affordability. 

The order also directs the chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality to offer guidance to federal agencies on implementing the National Environmental Policy Act to establish categorical exclusions to reduce burdens on housing construction and preservation, as well as the construction of infrastructure that supports housing, such as roads, water, sewer and other projects.  

Kevin Killough

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/regulation/trump-administration-looks-streamline-home-permitting-and-bring-down

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Education department, seeking more transparency, starts portal disclosing foreign funding - Esther Wickham

 

by Esther Wickham

“America’s taxpayer-funded colleges and universities have both a moral and legal obligation to be fully transparent with the U.S. government and the American people about their foreign financial relationships,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said.

 

(The Center Square) -

The U.S. Department of Education held a virtual briefing on Monday to unveil a new portal allowing American colleges and universities to disclose foreign funding.

Deputy General Counsel Paul Moore presented the portal as a tool to increase transparency around foreign financial contributions to U.S. institutions, Executive Order 14282, which Trump signed titled “Transparency Regarding Foreign Influence at American Universities,” calling for stronger safeguards against foreign exploitation of U.S. research and students.

The department reported that, so far, $72.1 billion in foreign funding has been disclosed across 559 institutions. A February investigation by the Trump administration found that U.S. colleges and universities received $5.2 billion in foreign gifts and contracts in 2025 alone.

“America’s taxpayer-funded colleges and universities have both a moral and legal obligation to be fully transparent with the U.S. government and the American people about their foreign financial relationships,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said.

The media was excluded from the briefing, and the Department of Education has not responded to The Center Square’s request for comment.

Under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, colleges must disclose foreign gifts or contracts exceeding $250,000. Republicans have long argued that some institutions fail to report such funding and have called for stricter oversight.

The department also released newly compiled data from institutional disclosures, documenting more than 8,300 transactions totaling over $5.2 billion in reportable foreign gifts and contracts. Qatar was the largest source in 2025, accounting for about $1.1 billion, bringing its total to $8.8 billion. Other top sources included the United Kingdom, China, Switzerland and Japan.

Other top sources included China, Germany, Saudi Arabia, England and Japan.

Between 1986 and 2025, Harvard University received more foreign funding than any other institution reporting to the department, totaling nearly $4.48 billion, including over $630 million from China alone.

The Center Square reached out to the University of California system for a comment, but did not receive a response. 

Esther Wickham

Source: https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/education-department-starts-portal-disclosing-foreign-funding

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