Ayal Frank

Public affairs world. Washington communications. Do the right thing. Liverpool football to the end.

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

@Joyce_Karam Try to enjoy the Cup and the matches. It is the best tournament in the world 🙂

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

@piersmorgan Move on man. Go England!

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

@SohrabAhmari We made critical mistakes and didn’t mark in the back on all 4 goals.

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

@Matty_West64 @thatboydidit @piersmorgan Poetic justice is what I say. That wasn’t a red.

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

@Matty_West64 @piersmorgan Tell that to the Brazilians who won the World Cup that year.

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

@thatboydidit @piersmorgan The point I’m making is that this is not the first time FIFA reversed a decision on a red and playing the next game in the Cup.

[U.S. Soccer Men's National Team @USMNT]

Doesn’t get much more American than this. 🤳🇺🇸

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

Absolutely magnificent hit. The U.S. can beat the Belgians w/o Balogun. Believe.

[USMNT Only @usmntonly]

THE TELEMUNDO CALL OF THE MALIK TILLMAN FREE KICK IS THE BEST THING YOU'LL EVER HEAR 🇺🇸🦅❤️

[Taylor Twellman @TaylorTwellman]

People think it’s ‘the last defender,’ but the law says ‘the second-last opponent.’ Because the GK had come so far off his line, he wasn’t one of the two deepest defenders. Iran’s scorer was beyond the second-last Egyptian player, so even with one defender on the goal line, he was still offside. It’s a rarity but the right call. #WorldCup

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

@rmslim Iran created Hezbollah, a little different, but these are different times, so you may be right.

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

@h17253 I don’t think so.

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

@citrinowicz The Kurds of Iran would never march to Tehran. This line simply feeds into a false narrative that the Kurds are separatists who want to break the country up, which in turn creates fears among other Iranian communities and only strengthens the regime. It is untrue. Good work.

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

@Joyce_Karam “More hardline” compared to when? 6-8 weeks BEFORE the war started, it killed tens of thousands of its own citizens! Is that less hardline Joyce?

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

@gscott1233 @John_Hudson https://t.co/XnlP1nlQ2Q

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

@gscott1233 @John_Hudson Hamas started a war on Oct. 7, '23 in which over a thousand innocent civilians were killed. Iran started a war against its own people this January in which tens of thousands of innocent civilians were killed. The Palestinian and Iranian people have suffered for far too long.

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

The idea that the regime was becoming more moderate in 2025 and that the war that began in late Feb. this year made it more hawkish, both at home and abroad is absolutely ludicrous considering that the regime killed tens of thousands of its own citizens in Dec. 2025-Jan. 2026. Shame on you.

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

There is no better expert than @DAVIDHALBRIGHT1 on Iran’s nuclear program.

[David Albright @DAVIDHALBRIGHT1]

I recently saw a revival of an old JCPOA propaganda talking point that the JCPOA was the most extensive/intrusive verification regime ever negotiated. Surprised that this exaggeration would be dredged up. The denuclearization and verification arrangements covering Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War were both more extensive and intrusive, by far. No one doubts today that under that arrangement, Iraq completely denuclearized, and its many undeclared nuclear materials and activities were found by the inspectors.

In contrast, the JCPOA had particular failings on verification. It did verify the hell out of declared programs but failed to find the undeclared uranium and activities that is known to exist. It did not provide the leverage or even advocate for the IAEA to go out and show the existence of undeclared materials or ensure their absence.  In the JCPOA, the P5 tended to see the IAEA’s mandate to seek a complete nuclear declaration as potentially rocking the boat on the JCPOA. Moreover, the JCPOA in practice provided no effective leverage to address the issue of a well-documented lack of a complete Iranian nuclear declaration or to ensure the presence or absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities. 

Freed of constraints, and with a new Director General, the IAEA did post-JCPOA identify undeclared uranium and activities that were there during the whole period of the JCPOA.

The IAEA finding grew out of the information in the Nuclear Archive, revealed in 2018, in the months before the US left the JCPOA. Would the IAEA have acted on the new information in the Nuclear Archive that was key to the its findings on undeclared material and activities, if the JCPOA had continued? Very unclear. The IAEA was very slow to act in any case. And when the archive was revealed the JCPOA parrots quickly cawed “Nothing new.” How wrong they were, but it was a clear message to the IAEA not to rock the boat. It likely took the US leaving the JCPOA for the IAEA to have the headroom to act on the information in the archives.

The world has moved beyond the JCPOA; it is archaic, hardly a comparative benchmark. Already, the wars have accomplished what the JCPOA never could; Iran is no longer enriching. And Iran’s remaining enriched uranium stocks are bottled up in caves, and its nuclear weaponization capabilities, untouched by the JCPOA, are in ruins. Under the JCPOA, Iran would today be increasing its enrichment capacity and safe in keeping its nuclear weaponization materials and activities free of that bothersome IAEA meddling.

But the struggle to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions and efforts is not finished. The remnants remaining in Iran are dangerous and unverified. Rebuilding, while time consuming, can be done. In that effort, any new nuclear deal should rhyme with the 1991 Iraqi verified denuclearization arrangement, not the JCPOA.

[Ayal Frank @AFIntl3]

@IranIntl_En @Doranimated Spot on @zriboua. Controlling the straits and the exports that go thru the Gulf also provides the U.S. a strong card in it’s bilateral relations w/ China.