Iran and the MAGA Response

Can Trump disarm Iran in the nuke of time?

By: Brian Mark Weber

The Patriot Post

March 14, 2025

President Donald Trump inherited a hot mess when he returned to the White House in January. To name a few of the fires, runaway inflation, rising consumer prices, widespread crime, and an open southern border all plagued our nation.

Amongst the plethora of problems Trump inherited are hotspots around the world where regional conflicts could turn into global war. One of these hotspots is Iran, a country whose desire to become a nuclear power was thwarted for many years, only to have American presidents pave the way for their nuclear ambitions.

Instead of putting pressure on Iran’s leaders, Barack Obama and Joe Biden gave them a nuclear deal and ransom money for hostages to boot. This appalling appeasement of Iran only emboldened them to grow into a legitimate threat to the region and global stability. Now, as Miranda Devine writes at the New York Post:

“After four years of shady appeasement by the Biden administration, Iran’s bloodthirsty regime is under pressure again — and just in the nick of time, before it finesses its nuclear weapons capability.”

That capability is stronger than ever.

“Iran has sharply increased its stockpile of highly enriched uranium in recent weeks, according to a confidential United Nations report, as Tehran amasses a critical raw material for atomic weapons,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “Iran is now producing enough fissile material in a month for one nuclear weapon, according to the report.”

Increased pressure is coming from the Trump administration, which finds itself responsible for cleaning up Obama and Biden’s mess and stopping the situation in the Middle East from exploding. Recently, President Trump sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, seeking a deal to keep Iran from further developing a nuclear program that’s reaching a critical point of no return.

Time magazine reports:

 “Trump’s overture comes as both Israel and the United States have warned they will never let Iran acquire a nuclear weapon, leading to fears of a military confrontation as Tehran enriches uranium at near weapons-grade levels — something only done by atomic-armed nations.”

In the letter, Trump vowed to pressure Iran to come to a deal regarding its nuclear program and asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to go for the jugular by crippling Iran’s economy.

 “Bessent accused Iran in a statement Thursday of using its oil revenues to fund the development of a nuclear program, produce ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles and support terrorist groups in the Middle East,”CNBC reports.

But sanctions alone may not suffice to impede Iran in continuing its nuclear program.

Politico reports:

“Trump has said he prefers to make a deal with Iran rather than ‘bombing the hell out of it,’ but his top security adviser, Mike Waltz, stressed more recently that ‘all options’ remain on the table and that Washington will be satisfied with nothing less than a total dismantling of Tehran’s nuclear program.”

Still, Trump made this clear in his letter, of which he said: 

“Something is going to happen one way or the other. I hope that Iran — and I’ve written them a letter, saying I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing for them.”

Another approach to initiate change in Iran is from within by restoring democracy. According to Just the News:

 “[A] coalition of over 150 bipartisan lawmakers … introduced a bill that supports the Iranian people’s resistance movement, which is fighting for regime change in the Middle Eastern country. The resolution supports National Council of Resistance of Iran President-elect Maryam Rajavi’s 10-point plan for the future of Iran, which hopes to establish a secular, democratic and non-nuclear Iranian republic.”

It’s a complicated situation that requires strong leadership, but Trump wants peace above all else. Is there any reasoning with Iran?

“Even Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, in a speech in September opened the door to talks with the U.S., saying there is ‘no harm’ in engaging with the ‘enemy,’” according to PBS. His “enemy” at the time, though, was helping to fund all of the Iranian octopus arms of terror. He may have changed his tune now that he has a real enemy. Time will tell.

There might be a glimmer of hope. Just last month, Reuters reported:

“Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said that U.S. concerns about Iran developing nuclear weapons were not a complicated issue and could be resolved given Tehran’s opposition to weapons of mass destruction.”

Or maybe he’s just blowing a lot of hot air.

Either way, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Those actions were a lost cause as long as Obama and Biden gave Iran a long leash, but President Trump’s strong leadership might be enough to shorten that leash a lot. If he can pull it off, the world will be a safer place, and Trump might just cement his place in history as one of the singular presidents of peace.

Setting the Precedent:

Mahmoud Khalil’s Deportation Case

By: Emmy Griffin

The Patriot Post

March 14, 2025

Former Columbia University grad student Mahmoud Khalil is the first student agitator to be arrested and hopefully deported in connection with the riots on the Ivy League campus. Khalil was taken into custody last Saturday and was moved to Louisiana to facilitate a swift deportation. However, that deportation was stayed by Southern District of New York Judge Jesse Furman, who stated that Khalil won’t be deported “unless and until the Court orders otherwise.” His hearing was last Wednesday.

In the interim, we have learned more about Khalil. He was born in Syria to Palestinian parents and is an Algerian citizen. He received his undergraduate degree from the American University of Beirut, worked for the British government at its embassy in Beirut, and worked for an NGO called Jusoor as well as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which should be classified as a terrorist organization. UNRWA workers aided in the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and even held hostages for Hamas.

This was Khalil’s résumé, and yet he was still allowed into the country on a student visa to complete a master’s degree at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Khalil argues that ICE falsely arrested him. He holds a green card and is not currently in the United States on a student visa. When ICE took him into custody, it purportedly told him that his student visa, not his green card, had been revoked.

While it is unclear how long Khalil has held a green card, he likely applied for it during the process leading up to his marriage (his wife is a U.S. citizen). Regardless, the essential point is that because of his role in the Columbia campus “protests” (read: riots), his permission to reside in the U.S. is being revoked.

“If you tell us that you are in favor of a group like [Hamas] … we would deny your visa,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained. “No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way. So when you apply for a student visa or any visa to enter the United States, we have a right to deny you for virtually any reason.”

Khalil’s other argument is that his acting as a negotiator and participator in the “tentifada” and other illegal protests on camps were within his rights. As a green-card holder, he asserts that his ideological positions, free speech, and freedom of association were violated.

Much of his arguments hinge on his rights as a noncitizen of the U.S. As National Review’s Andrew McCarthy explains, Khalil is a lawful permanent resident (LPR), “a status in which the alien enjoys the most robust protection that our law provides for non-Americans.” However, an LPR does not have the same rights as an American citizen. Free speech and freedom of association don’t apply. The biggest perk of being an LPR is that you have due process rights and are entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge who makes the final call regarding deportation.

Many have speculated that the grounds for revoking Khalil’s green card were based on supporting and promoting terrorists like Hamas. However, Secretary Rubio has decided to lay the grounds for deportation on the provision in §1227 of immigration law subsection ((a)(4)(C)), which states:

In general, an alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.

Mahmoud Khalil does represent a national security risk. Furthermore, his actions do adversely affect foreign policy, as he and others like him denigrate America’s staunchest Middle East ally, Israel.

Khalil is fighting back in other ways apart from his immigration hearing. On Thursday, he sued Columbia University and its women-only institution, Barnard College, for releasing disciplinary records to the House Committee on Education and Workforce. The committee was interested in knowing which students had expressed or acted on anti-Semitism to the extent that they faced disciplinary action.

Khalil and seven other anonymous individuals are claiming they have been doxxed and otherwise harmed by this student list being given to the committee.

While this legal drama plays out, pro-Hamas “protests” have erupted all over the U.S. yet again. The imbroglio that garnered the most attention this week happened yesterday when rabble-rousers invaded Trump Tower and occupied the dining hall. The group, Jewish Voice for Peace, is about as Jewish as a ham sandwich; its members wore red shirts with slogans like “Jews Say Stop Arming Israel” and sported signs that read “Fight Nazis not students.”

Ninety-eight people were arrested by the NYPD.

Khalil’s immigration hearing will hopefully culminate in deportation and be the first of many. These leftist agitators have been a terrible blight on American university campuses, and administrators have only themselves to blame for not immediately quashing them the second the already reprehensible protests turned into destructive riots.

If you do not take an interest 

in the affairs of your government, 

then you are doomed to live under 

the rule of fools.

Plato