Ryan calls for toughness as Iran deal starts to ‘unravel’

Ryan calls for toughness as Iran deal starts to ‘unravel’

http://thehill.com/sites/default/fil...?itok=Zjdd9Dbg

By Julian Hattem - 05/09/16 10:35 AM EDT

The Obama administration’s landmark nuclear deal with Iran is "starting to unravel" and needs to be quickly supplemented with tough U.S. action, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) claimed on Monday.

In an op-ed for the Independent Journal Review, Ryan promised that House Republicans will soon offer “an overarching vision for our national security” that includes measures targeting Iran.

“Our goal is to restore a more confident America that keeps its word and upholds its commitments,” Ryan wrote. “This is what we need to keep the peace, protect our homeland, and make the world a safer place for this generation and the next."The Iran agreement, which sets limits on Tehran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon in exchange for sanctions relief, is a hallmark of the Obama administration’s foreign policy legacy.

Yet even months after sanctions were lifted, Iran has refused to fall in line with broader tenets of the international order.

Among other points, the Iranian regime has conducted multiple ballistic missile tests, briefly held captive U.S. Navy sailors and continued tough rhetoric against Saudi Arabia and Israel — two American allies.

And the U.S. is only encouraging Iran’s behavior, critics say, by spending $8.6 million to buy Iranian heavy water — which is used in nuclear reactors — and suggesting that it might have some access to the U.S. financial system.

“The administration can spin it anyway it likes, but this was a bad deal,” Ryan wrote.

“Before this president leaves office, we must do everything possible to prevent his administration from making further concessions to Iran.”

This year, lawmakers must renew the Iranian sanctions legislation and block any effort to allow Iranian officials to trade in U.S. dollars, Ryan said.

The op-ed comes on the heels of new anger from critics of the agreement, who claimed that a New York Times Magazine story about deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes shows how the administration spun journalists and experts into supporting the agreement.

In the story, Rhodes described the average White House reporter as being “27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns.”

“They literally know nothing,” he said.

On Sunday evening, Rhodes was forced to defend the administration’s sales pitch on the nuclear agreement and deny that it had misled eager journalists and think tank experts.

“It wasn’t ‘spin,’ it’s what we believed and continue to believe,” he wrote in a blog post on Medium.

Though the Ryan op-ed was published on Monday, it was written before the profile of Rhodes went online last week, according to spokeswoman AshLee Strong.

While Ryan’s op-ed on Monday distanced itself from the Obama administration, any new GOP national security framework also threatens to reinforce the internal Republican divide over presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Trump’s unorthodox foreign policy vision — which has included questioning the role of U.S. alliances with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and nations from Asia to the Middle East as part of a somewhat isolationist “America First” ideology — has frustrated Republican establishment thinkers, who worry about his hand on the nuclear trigger.

More than 100 prominent GOP defense officials have pledged to oppose Trump, and they now find themselves adrift in the GOP.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-s...rts-to-unravel

Iranian Admiral Threatens to ‘Drown’ U.S. Warships in Persian Gulf

http://media.breitbart.com/media/201...fp-640x480.jpgPool / Iranian Supreme Leader Press Office / Anadolu Agency / AFP

by Edwin Mora10 May 2016

Iran would drown U.S. warships if they pose a threat to the Middle Eastern country, warns a commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy.

“Wherever the Americans look in the Persian Gulf, they will see us,” said Rear Adm. Ali Fadavi, commander of the IRGC Navy, on Monday night, according to Iran’s state-controlled media.

“They know that if they commit the slightest mistake, we will drown their vessels in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, or the Sea of Oman,” he added.

Rear Adm. Fadavi’s comments came while he was speaking on state television, notes the state-controlled Press TV.
The Islamic Republic’s enemies are not aware of the country’s full military capabilities, noted the commander, highlighting the Iranian Navy’s alleged defense might.

Fadavi, shedding light on the American military presence in the region, said, “The US has attracted regional and non-regional allies in the waters forming an unnatural military array,” reports the state-controlled Mehr News Agency (MNA).

“Passing through territorial waters is possible under certain regulations,” noted Fadavi adding, “Accordingly, they have not crossed Iranian waters for numerous years.”

He reiterated that U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf “is an absolute evil.”

Fadavi reportedly claimed that the IRGC has underground facilities equipped with surface-to-sea missiles and a number of vessels.

“Americans are aware that Iran would destroy their warships if they take a wrong measure in the region,” declared the IRGC Navy commander, rejecting the joint naval patrols in the Persian Gulf by “Britain, U.S. and France.”

“Upon Iran’s request, Persian speakers are present on almost all American warships in the Persian Gulf as most conversations were conducted in Farsi during recent detention of U.S. marines by the IRGC Navy,” added Fadavi.

Innocent passage in both water and air space of the Persian Gulf would not be granted to American vessels and drones, also warned the Iranian rear admiral.

“American officials need to improve their understanding of Iran though they currently possess an accurate and true understanding of executive aspects of the region,” he said, later stressing, “Undoubtedly, America’s threats against the Islamic Revolution have not declined even by the smallest degree.”

In mid-March, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter told lawmakers that Iran is demonstrating “reckless and destabilizing behavior,” adding that the U.S. seeks to counter the Islamic Republic’s aggression, counter its malign influence, and uphold our “ironclad commitments” to regional allies, namely Israel.
Fadavi criticized Carter’s recent comments about Iran.
“Iran’s great power has forced US to consider creation of deterrent capabilities,” claimed the IRGC commander.

“They once wanted to be the sole beneficiary of regional interests, but later felt the need to share the interests with other partners in exchange for more abilities,” he added.
In July 2015, Iran struck a historic nuclear deal with five world powers led by the United States.

Secretary of State John Kerry, in April of this year, said, “Iran deserves the benefits of the agreement they struck” on the nuclear deal, adding that he is not surprised by the country’s recent provocative behavior.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-se...reat/?AID=7236

WATCH: Army Col. Drops Bombshell About How Obama Got Sailors Released From Iran

see video at link -

A retired Army colonel told Newsmax TV Wednesday that he believed a $1.7 billion payment made to Iran just after several kidnapped American sailors were released by the Iranian military ostensibly constituted a ransom payment to Tehran.

The payment was made one day after 10 sailors were released by Iran in January, timing that Col. Derek Harvey believed very suspect.

“The timing is absolutely suspicious, and given the track record of the administration it does look like there is a quid pro quo,” Col. Harvey said.

Harvey was appearing on “Newsmax Prime” to help promote The No Impunity for Iranian Aggression at Sea Act, a bill being pushed by Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. That bill would force the White House to release a report on whether or not the $1.7 billion payment to Iran was, in essence, a ransom.

“After the Iranians captured 10 U.S. Navy sailors, President Obama mentioned these brave men and women only in passing in his last State of the Union address,” Rep. Pompeo told the Washington Free Beacon.

“Since then, instead of investigating whether the Iranians violated the Geneva Convention and the right of innocent passage, the Obama administration has only offered apologies and then fired an American naval officer.

“There has been no criticism of the Iranians, no public explanation of why these Americans were forced on their knees, hands on their heads, or why they were forced to confess — nothing from President Obama that would send a signal that this is an unacceptable way to treat American sailors.”

Col. Harvey said that if the administration had been transparent, there wouldn’t have been any need for this.

“They would not be having to respond to pressure from Congress,” Harvey said.

The idea that President Obama not only allowed our troops to be used as pawns by the sick Iranian government but then paid them $1.7 billion to get them out of hock shows how utterly impotent our government has become.

http://conservativetribune.com/col-b...ll-obama-iran/