Siaxares 🇮🇷 🇺🇸

I am posting from inside Iran, bypassing several layers of blockage to post this. The Iranian people want this regime gone and are willing to pay the price, because the price of the regime staying in power is higher. That is all. That's the tweet.

Second day in a row, the Houthis fired cruise missiles at Riyadh. Saudi air defenses say they shot down all three. The Houthis say they hit the airport. That same evening, Ghalibaf tells Al Jazeera that Iran is ready to help settle things between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis. The arsonist is offering to mediate the fire. These missiles are Iranian designs built with Iranian parts. Tehran doesn't get to arm the Houthis by day and play peacemaker by night.

Vance is considering sitting down face to face with Mohsen Rezaei, and Trump is open to it. Rezaei ran the IRGC for 16 years. Argentina still wants him for the 1994 AMIA bombing that killed 85 people, and there's an Interpol red notice in his name. Today he threatened US bases in Europe. On the same day, Ghalibaf went on Al Jazeera with Tehran's price for even talking: the blockade lifted, oil sanctions gone, frozen money released, extra US forces out of the region, the war called off for Hezbollah and the rest of their "resistance front," and Hormuz never going back to how it was before the war. That isn't a negotiation. It's a surrender list handed to America. The blockade is the only reason they're at the table. Keep it. And don't sit across from a man Interpol is looking for.

Trump today: "America did not start a war with Iran. Iran has been waging war on America since 1979." He's right, and it's the sentence the "end the war" crowd keeps skipping. 444 days of American hostages. The Marine barracks in Beirut. The roadside bombs that killed US soldiers in Iraq. The RAF Fairford plot this year. He also says he wants "a total victory, not a 93% victory." Then don't hand them the last 7% at a negotiating table. This regime has never kept a deal. Keep the blockade, finish the IRGC.

The G7 just put it in writing. All seven, United States included, condemned the Islamic Republic's attacks on its neighbors and its war on shipping in Hormuz, told it to stop arming its proxies, backed Britain's finding that Tehran was behind the RAF Fairford plot, and committed to enforcing every UN sanction snapped back last year. Rubio, behind closed doors: "We won't do a stupid deal." No return to war, no bad deal. Just the blockade, the sanctions and Iron Gate, with no end date. "The President is not under false time pressure." The regime planned to wait out Trump and the midterms. That just got harder. Now enforce it. A communication never cleared a single IRGC mine. Keep the forces in place and the target list current. When the IRGC lashes out to break the squeeze, and it will, hit them where it hurts.

Ghalibaf's advisor just told you the plan: attack the naval blockade before Congress changes. The easiest way, he says, is to "contain" the UAE. The blockade is working as intended. That's why they're in a hurry to smash it. Anyone who still claims the Islamic Republic is not a threat only has to look at what regime officials are saying out loud.

Reply 'Bibi' to hear the rest of the Adhan.

The US blockade has kept more than $25 billion of Iranian oil from leaving by sea. So the Islamic regime is using the back door: the Caspian. ISW reports Tehran and Moscow are now coordinating to get around US efforts to stop arms shipments over the Caspian and land routes. It's the same route Russian weapons came through during this war, the one Ukraine hit in July. CENTCOM set up Task Force Iron Gate last week to go after exactly this. Good. A blockade with an open back door isn't a blockade. Shut it. And make Moscow pay for every shipment. Russia has its had full with Ukraine and it will not help Islamic Republic if it becomes risky.

In a few hours the UN General Assembly is set to give the Islamic Republic a seat on the committee that shapes UN priorities on women's rights, human rights and counter-terrorism. A cruel joke. The same regime that killed thousands of protesters in January and is sentencing 20-year-olds to death for protesting right now. It goes through by acclamation, in seconds, unless one country calls for a vote. In April, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Australia and the rest stayed silent. Only the US objected. One objection is all it takes. Who will make it?

Qatar sells itself as a neutral mediator between America and the Islamic Republic. It isn't. It hosted Hamas leaders for years. It shares the world's largest gas field with the regime. This week it was reportedly carrying an $8 billion deal into the Oval Office, with the nuclear program not even on the table. Today Doha talked about "positive responses from both sides." The same day, tankers burned in Hormuz and Houthi missiles flew at Riyadh. I was in Iran in January when this regime gunned us down in the streets. Any deal Qatar brokers puts billions of dollars back in the killers' hands. A mediator this close to Islamic Republicisn't a mediator. It's the regime's lawyer. #QatarFundsTerror #ExposeQatarLobby

Rubio told the G7 today that the US will keep imposing devastating costs on the Islamic Republic, and that there are options beyond going back to war or giving in to Tehran's demands. That's the right call. Pressure staying is far better than any deal. Here's why. Hegseth said it today: "We didn't start this war. Iran did 47 years ago." Hostages in 1979. Beirut in 1983. Khobar Towers. The IEDs that killed US troops in Iraq. And it never stopped. Nikki Haley says the IRGC paid a man to kill her. That's not her opinion. A Brooklyn jury convicted Asif Merchant in March, and he admitted the IRGC sent him to hire hitmen to kill Trump, Biden or Haley. This regime threatens everyone it can reach. American politicians on American soil. IRGC-linked hackers in water systems across 12 US states. Houthi missiles over Riyadh. 700 French supermarkets whose fridges the IRGC sabotaged. And first of all, 90 million Iranians. I was there in January when it opened fire on us in the streets. A deal hands that regime billions and a lifeline. It has never honored one and never will. Keep the blockade. Keep the pressure. No deal.

Trump says the Islamic Republic "would like to make a deal," and that the next strike could be about five times bigger than the last. He also says the war is "effectively over." The last 24 hours say otherwise: Houthi missiles over Riyadh and an Aramco tower in the capital damaged. France summoning Tehran's ambassador after the IRGC turned 700 supermarkets' fridges into ovens. US planes pulled out of a British base over an Iranian threat. Israel's Foreign Ministry said it right: anyone who thinks Iran is no longer a threat needs a reality check. Of course Islamic Republic wants a deal. A deal is how this regime survives. It has never honored one, and it never will. No deal. Not under any circumstances. The right move is to hit the IRGC, the regime's leaders and its critical military targets. If that's off the table, then keep the blockade, keep US forces in the region at full strength, and keep watching and hitting the regime and its proxies every time they move. And be ready, because Iranians will rise again. When we do, America should be ready to strike any threat and stand with the people in the streets. It's not over until the IRGC is.

Araghchi says this war won't end through military pressure or sanctions. Only through "the language of respect" and America acting on Iran's demands. Translation: the blockade is working, and they want it lifted for free. This is the regime that gunned us down in the streets in January. It has never honored a deal and it never will. Keep the blockade. Keep the pressure.

Rubio just said what most Western officials still won't: the Iranian people are great, and the people ruling them are "a small core of violent maniacs." I was inside Iran during the January massacre. Those are the people who opened fire on us in the streets. Now make the policy match the words. No $8 billion, no blockade relief, no deal with the men Rubio himself calls maniacs. xitter.twitterapi.xyz/StateDept/status/21198…

Qatar's prime minister spent today in the Oval Office selling Tehran's offer: lift the blockade and unfreeze the $8 billion reportedly sitting in Doha. Qatar shares the world's largest gas field with the Islamic Republic. It hosted Hamas's political leadership for years. And now it wants to be the honest broker deciding how this war ends. A mediator with that much riding on the regime's survival isn't neutral. Iranians see it. Washington should too. #QatarFundsTerror

Turkey's intelligence chief says Qatar will host JD Vance and Mohsen Rezaei in Doha next week. Rezaei ran the IRGC when the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires was bombed in 1994. 85 people were killed. He has had an Interpol Red Notice since 2007, and Argentina is trying him in absentia. And the Vice President of the United States is willing to sit across the table from him. That alone hands the regime a win before a word is spoken. What exactly does Vance think he'll get? A signature from the Islamic Republic is worth nothing. It broke the JCPOA's spirit while cashing its checks, lied to the IAEA for decades, and gunned down thousands of its own people in January. It will not honor any deal. It never has. You don't negotiate with a man wanted for mass murder. You put him on trial.

Israel Hayom reports Qatar is walking an $8 billion deal into the Oval Office today. Iran reopens Hormuz, the blockade ends, the money flows. Nuclear program? Not even on the table. Bessent, Rubio, Hegseth and Lutnick reportedly oppose it, and one official said it would save the regime at the last minute. They're right. This regime is broke. Inflation is through the roof. Pezeshkian is moving his office to save electricity. That's exactly why they want this money now. We already watched cash for calm in 2015. It bought missiles and Hezbollah, and in January it bought the bullets they used on us. Don't throw them a lifeline when they're this close to drowning.

The foreign minister of a regime that gunned down thousands of its own people in January now wants to tell Americans how they feel about Israel. I was in Iran during that massacre. Nobody dragged Iranians into anything. The Islamic Republic did it to us, then spent decades exporting the same war to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza. Araghchi doesn't speak for Americans. He doesn't even speak for Iranians.

The IRGC now says it "destroyed enemy navigation aid systems" on the southern side of the Strait of Hormuz, and that no ship used the "illegal route" overnight. Look at a map. The southern side of Hormuz is Oman. So either the regime just admitted to sabotaging navigation equipment near a neighbor that has spent years mediating for it, or state TV invented another victory. Either way, this is what the mullahs call "keeping the strait safe." Or perhaps this is fake news to pump oil prices since markets open today. Freedom of navigation isn't the regime's to grant. It's the world's to defend.

This morning a White House spokesperson told Fox: "Iran has been decimated." Things will go "the easy way or the hard way," and President Trump "holds all the cards." A few hours later Trump told CNN that new strikes are "highly unlikely" if Tehran makes progress on a deal and reopens Hormuz. "They want to make a deal so badly." Of course they do. By his own count the regime has 10% of its missiles and 15% of its drones left. A deal is the only thing that can save it now. Mojtaba Khamenei gloated after the midterms that "the process of the US's collapse has accelerated." The mullahs think a bad election night saved them. Every time the Islamic Republic was cornered, the West gave it talks. Every time, it used them to buy time and rebuild. You hold all the cards, Mr. President. Don't throw the mullahs a lifeline. Finish the job.