America's Iran dilemma, why left's 'No Kings' protests are a Trojan horse and more
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By Fox News Staff
Published June 20, 2025 Welcome to the Fox News Opinion Newsletter.
JESSE WATTERS – Fox News host discusses how President Donald Trump is weighing his options regarding Iran… Continue watching…
HUGH HEWITT – There is a lot of news, but only one 'story' history will focus on… Continue reading…
DON'T BE FOOLED – 'No Kings' rallies are a Trojan Horse for radical, violent Leftists… Continue reading…
REP. RO KHANNA – A commonsense, bipartisan plan for immigration… Continue reading…
MIKE POMPEO – Fox News contributor and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggests 'the world will be safer' after Israel targeted Iranian nukes… Continue watching…
WORDS MATTER – The Left's dehumanization of Trump is pushing people over the edge – with disastrous consequences… Continue reading…
SEEN AND UNSEEN – Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo calls out the 'ultimate threat to democracy' in Los Angeles and dissects a musical glorifying accused United Healthcare CEO killer Luigi Mangione on 'The Ingraham Angle.' Continue watching…
ART OF THE DEAL – Trump's Middle East moves actually follow a brilliant master plan… Continue reading…
STEVE MOORE – The good, the bad and the ugly in the Senate's 'big beautiful' tax bill… Continue reading…
AMERICA'S IRAN DILEMMA – How to strike Fordow without losing sight of China threat… Continue reading…
CARTOON OF THE DAY – Check out all of our political cartoons…
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18 minutes ago
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MAGA is divided over Trump's decision to bomb Iran. Will it last?
Stephen K. Bannon sounded uncertain as he absorbed President Donald Trump's strike on Iran and his national address explaining it. 'An interesting talk,' Bannon said warily on his 'War Room' podcast, adding that he was not quite sure that it was what 'a lot of MAGA wanted to hear.'
CNN
27 minutes ago
- CNN
Early assessments raise questions over whether US destroyed bulk of enriched Iranian nuclear material
President Donald Trump declared that Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities were 'completely and totally obliterated' following this weekend's air strikes, but the US appears to have held back its most powerful bombs against one of the three facilities included in the operation, raising questions about whether it finished the job. In Isfahan, where nearly 60% of Iran's stockpile of already-enriched nuclear material is believed to be stored underground, according to a US official, a US submarine hit the site with Tomahawk cruise missiles, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine said Sunday. But unlike the other two Iranian facilities targeted in the operation, B-2 bombers did not drop massive 'bunker-buster' bombs on the Isfahan facility, multiple sources told CNN. The damage to the facility appears to be restricted to aboveground structures, according to Jeffrey Lewis, a weapons expert and professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies who has closely reviewed commercial satellite imagery of the strike sites. Even if the US was successful in destroying Iran's facility at Fordow — another underground site that housed centrifuges needed to enrich uranium, which the US hit with 12 bunker busters — the obvious survival of Isfahan has raised questions about whether Trump achieved his stated goal of 'a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's No. 1 state sponsor of terror.' 'This is an incomplete strike,' Lewis said. 'If this is all there is, here's what left: the entire stockpile of 60% uranium, which was stored at Isfahan in tunnels that are untouched.' A satellite image taken by Airbus shows significant damage to the Isfahan site and signs that the underground portion of the facility was hit, according to the Institute for Science and International Security, which analyzed the image. But there are layers of tunnels at the facility, so it's unclear how far the damage goes. When reached for comment, the office of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told CNN, 'We do not have anything additional to share at this time.' Vice President JD Vance told ABC News' 'This Week' on Sunday that the administration plans to 'work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel and that's one of the things we're going to have conversations with the Iranians about.' 'What we know is they no longer have the capacity to turn that stockpile of highly enriched uranium to weapons-grade uranium, and that was really the goal here,' Vance added.'Enriching uranium up to the point of a nuclear weapon — that was what the president put a stop to last night.' But multiple sources familiar with the latest US intelligence on both sites and the Trump administration's objectives in launching the strikes told CNN that Isfahan's underground facilities — which likely remain intact — must be addressed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. And on Thursday, the UN nuclear watchdog said that Iran was building a new nuclear enrichment plant at Isfahan that Tehran has said it will soon bring online. The Iranians 'have the material, they still have the capacity to make centrifuges, and they still have at least one giant underground centrifuge facility where they can install their centrifuges,' Lewis added. 'So, it's just not done.' It remains unclear why US military planners decided against using bunker busters — officially known as Massive Ordinance Penetrators, or MOP, on Isfahan. The bombs are designed to penetrate deep underground, and sources say the tunnels under Isfahan are even deeper than those at the other two locations. But even before the strikes were carried out, some US officials had raised pointed doubts about whether the MOPs was even capable of destroying the deeper tunnels. While there were some questions about whether US bunker busters were capable of destroying the underground portions of Fordow — which had been the focus of the administration's planning for the operation — multiple sources familiar with the discussions told CNN the likelihood of successfully doing the same at Isfahan was an even bigger question. At Fordow, the depth of the facility almost certainly requires several MOPs that impact in nearly the exact same spot, something that would normally be a tall order except that Iran's air and missile defenses are functionally disabled, one US official familiar with the matter said. But, 'Isfahan is a challenge,' another source familiar with the latest US intelligence told CNN. 'The tunnels at Isfahan are just so deep,' Lewis said. The MOP was designed to handle a site like Fordow. 'If they put something deeper, we either gotta design a new bomb or we have to use a nuclear weapon.'
Newsweek
31 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Iran Lawmakers Eye Page From North Korea Nuclear Playbook After US Strikes
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A senior Iranian lawmaker has stated that fellow members of the Islamic Republic's parliament were considering a withdrawal from a multilateral treaty aimed at curbing the proliferation of nuclear weapons after a series of unprecedented U.S. strikes. To date, North Korea is the only nation to have acceded to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and subsequently withdraw. One other country, South Sudan, opted not to accede to the treaty after gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, joining India, Israel and Pakistan as the world's only non-NPT states. Pyongyang officially left the NPT in January 2003, just two months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, citing concerns that the United States was planning a preemptive attack against North Korea, and went on to conduct the nation's first nuclear weapons test in 2006. Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons and has yet to signal any shift in its official doctrine. However, officials and lawmakers have increasingly questioned the nation's commitment to the NPT and other international obligations in the wake of a campaign of strikes launched by Israel last week and joined by the U.S. on Saturday. In what may be the most serious indication that such a move was being weighed, the semiofficial Tasnim News Agency cited Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesperson for the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, as saying Sunday that "a review of the NPT treaty and Iran's non-membership in it were among the common demands" of lawmakers, which "are scheduled to be on the parliament's agenda." He also said that "most members of the committee strongly criticized the performance of the International Atomic Energy Agency and called for the cessation of cooperation or suspension of relations with this institution." Newsweek has reached out to the Iranian Mission to the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for comment. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian addresses members of parliament in Tehran on March 2. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian addresses members of parliament in Tehran on March 2. ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images Rezaei has previously urged for Iran's withdrawal from the NPT on several occasions amid the deepening Iran-Israel conflict that has rocked the region since the Palestinian Hamas movement's surprise attack against Israel on October 7, 2023. He has reiterated this call after Israel commenced a still-ongoing series of strikes targeting facilities and personnel tied to Iran's armed forces and nuclear program last Thursday. According to Article X of the NPT, which first came to effect in 1970, "each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country." In such a scenario, the country "shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other parties to the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance," including "a statement of the extraordinary events it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests." Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei stated last Monday that Tehran would "take an appropriate decision" in relation to Iran's NPT membership amid the Israeli strikes and that a bill was being prepared in parliament. Still, he emphasized Iran's public commitment against developing nuclear weapons. Despite Iranian denials, Israeli officials have alleged that Iran had already obtained enough nuclear material to produce up to 15 nuclear weapons. The country has ramped up enrichment since President Donald Trump withdrew from a multilateral nuclear deal with Iran and major powers in 2018. As of March, U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard had assessed that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. Trump has since repeatedly characterized her assessment as "wrong" as he defended Israel's campaign, which came in the midst of U.S.-Iran nuclear talks, and prepared to order U.S. strikes against three key Iranian nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Fordow and Natanz. Despite the official ban, debate has intensified in Iran about the prospect of obtaining a nuclear weapon throughout the worsening conflict with Israel, with which Iran had twice traded direct strikes prior to the current battle. Iranian experts and former officials have previously told Newsweek such a move could not be ruled in the event that the Islamic Republic's leadership felt the survival of the state was under threat. Last week, Tehran-based security analyst Alireza Taghavania told Newsweek that the Israeli operations, backed by Trump, have "strengthened the position of those in Iran who wanted to build nuclear weapons," and that, "Now, most Iranians want to build nuclear weapons." In May 2024, the Iranian Mission to the U.N. told Newsweek that "in the event of an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, all of which are subject to monitoring and inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, there exists a possibility of Iran reconsidering its collaboration within the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA." The IAEA is the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog and is tasked with verifying the compliance of member states with the NPT. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi had previously accused Iran of failing to uphold its non-proliferation agreements, though he has also warned that "attacks on nuclear sites in the Islamic Republic of Iran have caused a sharp degradation in nuclear safety and security in Iran." "A diplomatic solution is within reach if the necessary political will is there. Elements for an agreement have been discussed," Grossi told an emergency U.N. Security Council session on Friday, a day before the U.S. strikes in Iran. "The IAEA can guarantee, through a watertight inspections system, that nuclear weapons will not be developed in Iran. They can form the basis of a long-standing agreement that brings peace and avoids a nuclear crisis in the Middle East." "This opportunity should not be missed," he added. "The alternative would be a protracted conflict and a looming threat of nuclear proliferation that, while emanating from the Middle East, would effectively erode the NPT and the non-proliferation regime as a whole." The U.S. strikes have divided the world's eight other nuclear powers. China, Russia and Pakistan have condemned the strikes; the United Kingdom offered cautious support and joined France and India in calling for de-escalation and a return to diplomacy, while Israel has praised Trump's move. North Korea has yet to issue an official response to the U.S. raid but has repeatedly condemned Israel's operations in Iran as well as U.S. support for them. "The international community is strictly watching the U.S. and Western forces who fan up the flames of war by taking issue with the legitimate sovereign right and the exercise of the right to self-defence of Iran, the victim, far from condemning Israel for getting frantic with the territorial expansion, pushing the situation in the Middle East to an uncontrollable catastrophic phase," a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement published Thursday. The spokesperson added: "The Zionists who brought a new war to the Middle East and the behind-the-scene forces who zealously patronize and support them will be held totally responsible for destroying international peace and security." Meanwhile, Russian Security Council Deputy Chair Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday that among the consequences of the U.S. attacks would be "the enrichment of nuclear material—and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons—will continue."
