Olivia
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Behnam Ben Taleblu بهنام بن طالب لو
@therealBehnamBT
Iran prgm senior director & senior fellow @fdd | Iran & MENA security 🚀☢️/politics📜🛢️+ US FP | 1st gen Iranian-American | RT & follows not endorsement
DC (in exile from NYC)
Joined March 2025
6.8K Following
10.7K Followers
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Where are we now in US-Iran policy after a turbulent 2026 featuring protests, crackdowns, internet shutdowns, a region-wide war, a tenuous ceasefire, negotiations, and now an MoU? I joined @carinemhajjar of @washingtonpost’s @themimsshow podcast to unpack!
Following another escalation in US-Iran fighting since Friday, what is the status of the Memorandum of Understanding and ceasefire that was supposed to be making things more, not less, peaceful in the Middle East? joined @VictorBlackwell on @CNN this AM to explain. 👇
🚨🚨🚨Another death threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran against @POTUS/@DonaldTrump and PM @netanyahu.
This regime is the DJ Khaled (cc: “another one”) when it comes to Fatwas, incitement to violence/terror, and death threats against Western officials. Deal or no deal, war or no war, these threats persist.
Here’s a statement from the Assmebly of Experts, the all clerical body that just “selected” Khamenei jr. as the next SL, from a few hours ago with my explainer in brackets.
“The matter of identifying the aggressor and naming those as Mahdur al-Dam [aka the red circled portion in the highlighted text below. This, in Islamic legal terms, means a person whose blood is deemed forfeit and can be spilt without penalty] the perpetrators of the unprecedented crimes of the recent imposed war, especially the criminal President of the United States and the vile Prime Minister of the Zionist regime, and punishing them and avenging the blood of the martyred Imam of the Ummah [reference to global Islamic community], must under no circumstances be neglected or ignored. It is incumbent upon anyone who gains access to them to send these criminals to their doom.”
![therealBehnamBT's tweet photo. 🚨🚨🚨Another death threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran against @POTUS/@DonaldTrump and PM @netanyahu.
This regime is the DJ Khaled (cc: “another one”) when it comes to Fatwas, incitement to violence/terror, and death threats against Western officials. Deal or no deal, war or no war, these threats persist.
Here’s a statement from the Assmebly of Experts, the all clerical body that just “selected” Khamenei jr. as the next SL, from a few hours ago with my explainer in brackets.
“The matter of identifying the aggressor and naming those as Mahdur al-Dam [aka the red circled portion in the highlighted text below. This, in Islamic legal terms, means a person whose blood is deemed forfeit and can be spilt without penalty] the perpetrators of the unprecedented crimes of the recent imposed war, especially the criminal President of the United States and the vile Prime Minister of the Zionist regime, and punishing them and avenging the blood of the martyred Imam of the Ummah [reference to global Islamic community], must under no circumstances be neglected or ignored. It is incumbent upon anyone who gains access to them to send these criminals to their doom.”](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HL3ufNAXkAAc81_.jpg)
Shot: US strikes on Iran in response to Iranian drone attacks on Bahrain in response to US strikes on southern Iran in response to Iranian drone attacks on a tanker.
Chaser: More Iranian missile and drone attacks at Kuwait and Bahrain.
Another ceasefire filled Saturday night.
🚨 BREAKING: The U.S. strikes Iran again -- 2nd straight night. The military says it's a "direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping," after a tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz this morning @ABC
This marks the IRGC’s 16th distinct missile attack from its own territory in 2 years (Jan 2024-present).
From the end of the Iran-Iraq War (Aug 1988) until Dec 2022, Iran had launched 13 such attacks with missiles. Tell me we are in a new world without telling me we are in one.
The IRGC said its forces carried out a joint missile and drone strike between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m., targeting eight US military sites at Ali Al Salem base in Kuwait and the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, claiming they were destroyed in response to recent US “aggression.”
Khamenei Sr. promised no war, no negotiations, and no deals w/ Trump. Yet his regime was forced into all 3.
It is mind boggling why a US administration that likes “owning” its political opponents has failed to leverage this political point against the Islamic Republic.
@gbrew24 @yarbatman @AlexVatanka points out that for some in the Iranian system, just engaging in talks w the U.S. was a huge concession and demonstrates how badly they need this deal…
Explosions have been reported around Sirik each time the US has looked to punch back at the Islamic Republic. If reconstituted air defenses, what parts (Radar? Launcher? Command Unit…) and why was Iran’s capacity to do this also not targeted during the 40-Day War?
I asked a senior defense official why the US has had to go back and restrike these sites that have been hit multiple times since February 28 when the war began. I was told Iran has reconstituted its air defense and missile systems along the Strait of Hormuz since the US bombing campaign ended on April 7.
That, the source said, is why the US military is now having to restrike areas like Qeshm Island and Sirik which they had struck in the past.
“In the time since the cease fire on 7 April, Iran has reconstituted — thus the targets around the Strait of Hormuz,” a senior US defense official tells me. “There is a LOT that is damaged… a LOT… but they moved things around.”
It’s been 10 weeks since the April ceasefire was announced.
A must listen to podcast by @noam_dworman & @k_tajbakhsh!
As a New Yorker (sadly now in exile), a stand up comedy fan, and professional Iran Watcher, this episode hits all the rights notes and interest zones.
We had a terrific interview with Iran expert and new friend of the show Professor Kian Tajbakhsh @k_tajbakhsh.
Starting at the end: Tajbakhsh spent 8 years as a political prisoner in Iran, and this quick, subtle exchange is the interview moment I'll remember most.
Absolutely expected. Absolutely necessary. But absolutely insufficient.
Tit-for-tat strikes do not only fail to deter the other, but they prolong the cycle of violence, leading to face-saving risk-taking that could be misread.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — US military says it has struck multiple targets in Iran as ceasefire is strained by second day of attacks
🚨IRGC claims to have responded against the US in the region (unconfirmed target/weapon) but is standing down by saying its attacks will be “broader” in the case of “repeated aggression.”
We are back to face saving while trying to keep one’s head.
True, but informal and ad-hoc mechanisms existed anyway.
For example, in Zarif’s latest memoir, hours before Iran launched missiles at US bases in Iraq in Jan 2020 after the killing of IRGC-QF chief Soleimani, Iran decided to tell the US via 2 routes: the Iranian foreign ministry told the Swiss Amb, and the IRGC told the government of Iraq.
This has not been independently corroborated, however.
Those lines can be used in various ways. One is to tell to the adversary that we are going to hit you. Keep your head down, and scores have been settled.
Iranian state TV, IRIB, claims 2 projectiles were fired at a telecommunications tower in/near Sirik (in Hormozgan province).
The deconfliction hotline has either failed its first stress test or has fallen flat before even being set up.
Iranian drone attacks on commercial vessels. US strikes on Iranian missile storage and coastal defense sites.
Man, it reminds you of the 67 day ceasefire (war), no?
Iran’s IRGC spox Brig. Gen. Hossein Mohebbi calls US Vice President JD Vance’s claim of plans to set up a US military—IRGC deconfliction cell in Qatar “an outright lie.”
“[S]uch a thing has neither happened nor will it happen,” Iran’s Fars News quotes Mohebbi as saying.
The (67 day) ceasefire turned MoU is going swimmingly, no? While these strikes are necessary to punish the Islamic Republic for drone attacks against a tanker and breach of the MoU yesterday, the ability of one-off strikes to deter the regime post-war is questionable at best.
https://t.co/W4zjNqnmCt
Was it a false alarm? Or proof of Iran’s regional strategy in action: a knife (coercion) and a handshake (diplomacy)?
APNewsAlert: DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (@AP) — Authorities sound an incoming missile alert in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
In Sept 2024, @RyanBrobst_ , @Brad_L_Bowman and I warned in @LongWarJournal about the threat Iran’s drones and SRBMs posed to over-concentrated US forces and bases in the region. The answer is not to vacate, but replicate further west and south.
https://t.co/jDK5n3kKRT
The military is now considering revamping the base in Bahrain, reducing the U.S. presence in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and moving some bases or base functions west, farther from the reach of Iranian missiles and drones, according to the officials familiar with the deliberations
“Until the IAEA can get a full declaration from Iran and be empowered to investigate Iran’s bombed facilities and nuclear claims, there will be no way to meaningfully police any deal or ensure the country’s program is peaceful.” - my 2 cents to @ElizHagedorn of @AlMonitor.
https://t.co/ZultwbZ9GN
“There is a world of difference between doing what you can to stop the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism from getting more dollars, to turning a blind eye to literally enabling it.” - my 2 cents to @CaitlinDoornbos of @nypost on the Iran sanctions waiver.
https://t.co/foB35rcwku
“The enemy gets a vote.”
There is no returning to kinetic action against Iran by President Trump. And if not by Trump, then by no future president.
As Freud taught, we all need to come to terms with the reality principle.
با حلوا حلوا گفتن دهن شیرین نمیشه
In his speech Qalibaf referred to Iran as an "investment paradise."
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