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President Biden: The Mullahs Are More Cowardly Than You Think
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with commanders and a group of members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
This week marks a sinister day in contemporary Iranian history, when the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, was forced to flee. In his place, a cunning Shia mullah returned to Iran, assuming power without the people’s vote, declaring himself God’s representative on Earth, and naming his rule as the governance of Allah on Earth. Today, however, the entire world recognizes that the most corrupt, bloodthirsty, and tyrannical “government of Allah” on Earth has turned Iran into a prison for 88 million people. Each month and week, its bloodthirsty rulers execute a young person on the gallows, perhaps to extend the religious dictatorship’s hold on power and wealth in Iran a bit longer.
The fake representatives of God on Earth have plunged the entire Middle East into chaos, spending all of Iran’s wealth, benefits, and resources on regional terrorism, sectarianism, pyrotechnics, and baseless, ominous attacks on America and Israel.
The financial resources of the Iranian people are squandered on funding Islamic terrorism. Iran’s name has vanished, and the term terrorism has become so intertwined with the name of Iran’s civilized and historical people, that it may not be possible to separate these two names and characteristics for another half-century.
The people of Iran have risen 18 times against religious despotism and their incompetent rulers like Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei. However, when they received no international support and faced brutal suppression by the fake representatives of God on Earth and criminal “holy men,” a dark cloud of despair and anger overshadowed the Iranian people.
Before the ominous Hamas attack of October 7th began, Ayatollah Khamenei promised the destruction of Israel, and the commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) threatened to attack America.
For years, these terrorists have looted the table of the Iranian people, and the nation’s budget. This money is spent on tunnels, grenades, bullets, and missiles for terrorists, instead of being spent on development, industry, agriculture, and the education of the Iranian people.
After October 7, the mullahs feared an Israeli attack and pressed the denial button, insisting they knew nothing about the incident. The world believed them, but the Iranian people know that the nature of the mullahs is intertwined with lies.
Then last week, American soldiers were brutally attacked, and again the mullahs were afraid and denied, and American security officials also heard, but ordinary people in the villages of Iran also know that behind all these crises and wars are the servants of Russia and China, namely the mullahs of Tehran.
This time, the Biden administration responded, attacking Iranian satellites in the region, and said that more reprisals would come at a time and place of America’s choosing. In the past Democratic regimes have believed the mullahs, and not acted strongly enough against them — Carter, because of Khomeini, betrayed the Shah; Clinton, because of the reformists who are the other side of the coin of the hardline conservatives, was pleased with President Khatami; Obama wrote letters to Khamenei in the middle of the Iranian people’s uprising; and Biden, instead of supporting the Iranian people’s desire for regime change, said he was open to another nuclear deal.
But Iran has always been a threat to America and the world — not just Israel, or those inside Iran who want freedom. President Biden should know that the mullahs in Iran are more cowardly, and weaker, than he thinks. The US should continue to use all its tools to rebuff Iranian aggression, and push for an eventual change in regime. The Iranian threat is not going away; it’s time we combat it.
Erfan Fard is a counter-terrorism analyst and Middle East Studies researcher based in Washington, DC. He is in Middle Eastern regional security affairs with a particular focus on Iran, counter terrorism, IRGC, MOIS and ethnic conflicts in MENA. He graduated in International Security Studies (London M. University, UK), and in International Relations (CSU-LA). Erfan is a Jewish Kurd of Iran, and he is fluent in Persian, Kurdish, Arabic and English. Follow him from this twitter account @EQFARD
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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