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A federal judge in Louisiana has struck down regulations that would have forced most U.S. employers to provide workers with time off and other accommodations to kill babies in abortions.

The ruling, issued Wednesday by U.S. District Judge David Joseph, invalidated a provision of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) regulations under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), which had been pushed during the Biden administration.

The PWFA, passed with bipartisan support in December 2022, was designed to ensure employers with 15 or more employees provide reasonable accommodations for pregnant workers, such as time off for medical appointments or relief from heavy lifting.

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However, the EEOC’s 2024 rule, approved in a 3-2 vote along party lines, sparked outrage among pro-life lawmakers and groups by classifying abortion as a “related medical condition” to pregnancy and childbirth.

Pro-life advocates argued this overstepped the law’s intent, forcing employers to facilitate the termination of unborn lives against their moral or religious convictions.

Judge Joseph, appointed by President Donald Trump, ruled that the EEOC exceeded its authority, stating that Congress did not explicitly include abortion in the PWFA’s scope, especially given its “enormous social, religious, and political importance.” He sided with plaintiffs, including the attorneys general of Louisiana and Mississippi, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic University, and two Catholic dioceses, who argued the rule violated state sovereignty and religious freedoms.

The ruling protects employers from being compelled to support abortions.

The vacated rule had required employers to grant time off for workers to obtain, prompting lawsuits from 17 states, including Tennessee and Arkansas, alongside pro-life organizations. Pro-life advocates, including the National Right to Life Committee, condemned the EEOC’s rule as an attempt to impose a “national abortion-accommodation mandate” under the guise of pregnancy protections.

While the abortion-related provision was struck down, the rest of the PWFA remains intact, ensuring accommodations for pregnancy-related needs like prenatal care. However, pro-life leaders see the ruling as a critical step in resisting federal overreach.

The post Judge Overturns Biden Rule Forcing Employers to Allow Time Off for Abortions appeared first on LifeNews.com.

The suspect reportedly drove towards the spy agency’s main gate and ignored orders to stop

A shooting unfolded outside the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters near Washington, DC on Thursday, according to multiple US media reports. The suspect, a young woman, was wounded by security guards and taken into custody.

The incident reportedly happened at around 4am, when security spotted a vehicle driving towards the main gate of the spy agency’s campus. The woman driving reportedly failed to stop when ordered and was shot, sustaining “nonfatal” injuries before she was arrested. Some media reports said the woman crashed a vehicle into the gate.

The CIA acknowledged a “security incident” at its compound and directed its employees to use alternate entrances but provided no detail on the nature of the situation.

“The front gate at Headquarters is closed until further notice. Please use alternate routes for Thursday, May 22nd,” the agency said in a statement. It has provided no further updates so far, and the gate closure order apparently remains effective.

The woman involved has been preliminarily identified as 27-year-old Monia Spadaro, NBC News reported, citing two senior law enforcement officials. The suspect is known to police and has at least one conviction for driving under the influence.

It was not immediately known whether the woman was intoxicated at the time.

Back in March, a person was arrested after allegedly making threats and pointing a gun outside the gate of CIA headquarters.

It prompted a massive emergency response, with numerous law enforcement officers responding to the scene, including agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Fairfax County Police Bomb Squad. The standoff was ultimately defused peacefully however, and the suspect was taken into custody with no shots fired.

Kiev has urged the bloc’s members to directly fund the country’s military

Ukraine has proposed that EU member states allocate a fixed portion of their GDP to fund the country’s armed forces. The bloc’s leaders have pledged continued military support for Kiev despite a policy change by US President Donald Trump, who aims to mediate a truce.

Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko outlined the proposal during this week’s G7 finance ministers meeting in Canada, according to a Facebook post published on Thursday.

“What we are proposing is partner participation in funding Ukraine’s Armed Forces, which would effectively integrate them into Europe’s defense structure,” he wrote.

Marchenko added that the cost “would represent only a small share of the EU’s GDP” and could be distributed among countries willing to join the initiative. Kiev wants to launch the new scheme in 2026, with contributions counted toward NATO defense spending targets.

Marchenko’s appeal comes as Ukraine struggles with rising fiscal pressure and an uncertain outlook on foreign assistance. On Tuesday, MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak said the country’s 2025 budget includes a shortfall of 400–500 billion hryvnias ($9.6–12 billion) for financing its armed forces.

Fellow lawmaker Nina Yuzhanina warned that military support was at a critical level and called for sweeping domestic budget cuts to redirect resources.

Ukraine’s mounting debt has also raised alarm. Total state debt is approaching $171 billion, with public debt nearing 100% of GDP. Earlier this month, Marchenko said the country would be unable to repay foreign creditors for the next 30 years but intends to continue borrowing.

Since the escalation of the conflict with Russia in 2022, Ukraine has received billions in military, financial, and humanitarian aid and loans from the US, the EU, and other donors. Brussels’ approach has drawn criticism from some EU member states, including Hungary and Slovakia.

The US, Ukraine’s largest donor, has moved to recoup its financial aid to Ukraine by signing a natural resources deal with Kiev. The agreement, pushed by Trump, grants the US preferential access to Ukrainian mineral resources without providing security guarantees.

Trump, who has repeatedly called for a swift resolution to the conflict, has pledged to mediate a truce rather than expand military support. Ukrainian lawmakers have warned that the military aid package approved under former President Joe Biden will run out by summer, and no talks on further US deliveries are currently underway.

Russia has consistently condemned Western arms shipments to Ukraine, declaring that they will only prolong the conflict without changing its outcome, while also being an additional economic burden for ordinary taxpayers.

So, having said all this, let’s hazard a general summary of the various “clans of Tradition.” At the risk of oversimplifying, I’m going to break the clans into three. The reason is that this is a helpful historical framework, because it provides a general historical concept, which then allows us to identify various subsets, or “families” which fall under each clan. As I said in part II…

Source

A resolution submitted to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) gives the nation’s largest Protestant denomination an opportunity “to speak with moral clarity” against the fastest growing method of abortion, said David Closson, director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview and the resolution’s primary author. “Currently, more than 60% of abortions in the United States are carried out using chemical abortion pills. These drugs are fatal to unborn children and pose serious health risks to women,” he told The Washington Stand.

For two days (June 10-11), messengers from Southern Baptist churches will convene in Dallas, Texas, for their annual convention. Closson submitted the resolution to the SBC Committee on Resolutions before the May 22 deadline. The committee may “combine, title or retitle, and reword submitted resolutions” before presenting them to the full convention for discussion and approval.

This year, the Committee on Resolutions is chaired by Dr. Andrew Walker, professor of Christian ethics and public theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who has publicly commented on the dangers of the abortion pill. But the committee is comprised of 10 members from seven states, and it remains to be seen which resolutions these 10 people will agree to prioritize.

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“Southern Baptists have consistently affirmed the value and dignity of every human life, and recent resolutions reflect our strong pro-life convictions,” Closson explained. The Southern Baptist Convention has approved at least 25 pro-life resolutions condemning abortion and supporting mothers and their children, dating back to 1980.

“To date, however, the Southern Baptist Convention has not adopted a resolution focused solely on the issue of chemical abortion,” Closson added.

The proposed resolution, “On the Medical Dangers and Moral Evil of Chemical Abortion,” attempts to fill that gap. The draft urges “the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to immediately reevaluate and suspend its approval of the two-pill chemical abortion regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol.” In the interim, it encourages the FDA “to immediately reinstate the full Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) that was originally established in 2011 for the regulation of mifepristone.”

The proposed language further implores “elected officials at every level of government to enact policies that prohibit the sale or distribution of chemical abortion drugs, including the mailing of such drugs across state lines in violation of duly enacted pro-life laws.” On January 31, a Louisiana grand jury indicted a New York-based physician who mailed abortion pills across state lines, sending a teenage mother — who was coerced into taking the pills — to the hospital with severe complications. New York authorities subsequently refused to extradite the accused.

In addition to these government actions, the proposed resolution also contemplated action by Christians. It condemned “the use, promotion, and expansion of chemical abortion as a grave moral evil that ends the lives of innocent preborn children and exploits women.” On this basis, it lamented and grieved the ongoing travesty of abortion, encouraged pastors and churches “to equip their congregations to care for women facing unexpected pregnancies with compassion, practical support, and the life-giving hope of the gospel,” and committed “to pray for the end of all forms of abortion.”

It laid out the ethical basis for these calls to action, beginning with Scripture’s teaching that “all human life is sacred, created in the image of God from the moment of fertilization (Genesis 1:27; Psalm 139:13–16).”

The proposal also noted with alarm the growing prevalence of chemical abortion, which “now accounts for the majority of abortions in the United States, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of preborn children each year,” and “severe adverse events” for more than 10% of women who ingest the drugs according to recent studies. Easy access to chemical abortion drugs supports their use “without direct medical supervision” and allows “malefactors” to exploit women, it continued.

“Scripture commands God’s people to ‘rescue those being taken away to death’ and to ‘hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter’ (Proverbs 24:11),” the proposed resolution declared.

Resolutions approved by the messengers of the Southern Baptist Convention are not binding on Southern Baptist agencies or churches. Southern Baptists practice congregational church polity, which means that each individual church has its own independent governmental structure. The denomination only exists to promote “friendly cooperation” over issues such as sending missionaries, preserving doctrinal fidelity, and — to a lesser extent — speaking with a united voice to pressing cultural issues where Christian ethics are implicated.

However, Closson argued that “resolutions matter because they give our convention a unified voice to speak with moral clarity on urgent cultural and policy issues.” In 2024, the SBC passed one “On the Ethical Realities of Reproductive Technologies and the Dignity of the Human Embryo,” which articulated a pro-life, Christian perspective on in vitro fertilization (IVF) and related reproductive technologies while these procedures were being debated both in Congress and state legislatures. Closson noted that the Southern Baptist IVF resolution was reported on widely, even in mainstream media.

Chemical abortion remains a cultural flashpoint and a politically live issue. Earlier this year, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised Republican senators that he would “study the safety of mifepristone,” the first of two drugs used in chemical abortion, and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary agreed to review new evidence regarding the safety of mifepristone. Kennedy further stated last week that he has ordered the FDA to conduct a “complete review” of the abortion drug.

The Trump administration is the first to assume office since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in its decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022). As Closson detailed in his recent book, “Life after Roe,” the Dobbs decision reshaped the legal and political landscape of the life issue. The Trump administration is still grappling with the implications of this decision.

For its part, the Southern Baptist Convention has not approved any pro-life resolutions since Dobbs. At the 2024 Southern Baptist Convention, a proposed resolution “On the Pro-Life Ethic in a Post-Roe Society” called for “robust regulation with the ultimate goal of abolishing all abortions including the dangerous, life-ending chemical abortion drugs used in elective abortions.” That resolution was not among the eight approved by convention messengers, reportedly due to time constraints. Besides the 2024 IVF resolution, the convention last passed a pro-life resolution in 2022, which anticipated the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Closson hopes that the proposed chemical abortion resolution would play a role similar to the IVF resolution, applying Christian doctrine to live cultural and political controversies in an eye-catching and influential way. “My hope,” he told TWS, “is that the messengers in Dallas will have an opportunity to take a clear and courageous stand against what has become the dominant method of ending unborn lives.”

LifeNews Note: Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand, contributing both news and commentary from a biblical worldview. Originally published by The Washington Stand.

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Microsoft employees claim that emails mentioning “Palestine” or “Gaza” are being blocked

Microsoft is reportedly under fire from employees following claims that its internal email system blocks messages containing terms such as “Gaza,” “Palestine,” and “Genocide.” The restrictions, reported by The Verge, have sparked accusations of censorship and discrimination, particularly amid mounting criticism of the company’s ties to Israel.

The claims come from No Azure for Apartheid (NOAA), a protest group of current and former Microsoft workers. The group says “dozens of employees” have been unable to send emails internally or externally if these words appear in subject lines or message bodies.

In contrast, words such as “Israel” or alternate spellings like “P4lestine” are reportedly not filtered. “This is an attempt to silence worker free speech,” said NOAA organizer Hossam Nasr, who accused Microsoft’s leadership of discriminating against Palestinian employees and their supporters.

Microsoft confirmed that it had made email-related changes aimed at reducing internal political messaging. A company spokesperson said the measures were taken to limit mass political emails, noting that “emailing large numbers of employees about non-work topics is not appropriate” and that such communication should go through opt-in forums.

The controversy comes amid ongoing protests over Microsoft’s cloud and AI contracts with Israel, which media reports say support military operations in Gaza. While the US company has acknowledged working with the Israeli government, it claimed in a May 16 statement that “no evidence” has emerged showing its tools have been used to cause harm—though it also admitted it lacks visibility into how its software is deployed on private systems.

READ MORE: Netanyahu’s forever war is killing Israel faster than its enemies

The internal dissent has played out publicly in recent weeks. At the Microsoft Build developer conference, employee Joe Lopez interrupted CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote speech, accusing the company of enabling war crimes. Lopez was later fired after sending a mass email to thousands of staff members calling for action.

Some 125,000 pounds (62.5 tons) of munitions were dropped by naval warplanes in Somalia, Admiral James Kilby has said

The US Navy conducted the largest-ever airstrike from an aircraft carrier during an operation in Somalia earlier this year, Admiral James Kilby, acting chief of naval operations, has said.

The USS Harry S. Truman and its strike group “launched the largest airstrike in the history of the world – 125,000 pounds (62.5 tons) – from a single aircraft carrier,” the US Navy’s top admiral claimed at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in Washington on Monday.

A defense official told Business Insider on Wednesday that the bombing run took place on February 1 and involved 16 F/A-18 Super Hornets.

According to US Africa Command, a total of 25 airstrikes against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and Al-Qaeda affiliate group Al-Shabaab have been carried out by American forces in Somalia since January.

The Truman carrier strike group, which had been deployed to the Middle East in the autumn, left the Red Sea earlier this month to participate in NATO drills in the Mediterranean before heading back to its home port of Norfolk, Virginia.

Over the last half a year, it has played a key role in US efforts to prevent Houthi fighters from targeting shipping off Yemen’s coast. The Truman conducted 670 strikes against the Houthis and intercepted around 160 enemy drones and missiles during the period, Kilby said.

The Houthis “are not China, but they are a threat, and they are hunting our ships. Understanding that and not being dismissive about that and being prepared is what we are focused on now,” the admiral stressed.

The Truman’s stay in the Red Sea was marred by several incidents. In December, one of the warships in its strike group shot down an American F/A-18 in what the US military later described as an “apparent case of friendly fire.”

READ MORE: How Moscow’s legendary S-400 missiles helped India outgun Pakistan

In late April, an F/A-18 and a tow tractor fell overboard from the carrier’s hangar bay as the ship was maneuvering to avoid an attack by the Houthis.

Earlier this month, the Truman’s arresting cables failed during the landing of another F/A-18, sending the jet, which costs an estimated $60 million, overboard.

Brussels keeps slapping ever more penalties on Russia, even while Washington holds back

What’s going on between the US and the EU right now over Ukraine feels like you and your buddy agreeing to go skydiving on a dare.

You count “1-2-3-jump,” and leap – only to realize your friend’s still up in the plane. That friend is US President Donald Trump. And the EU parachute looks like it was stitched together with recycled climate summit lanyards and blind optimism. Emphasis on “blind.”

On May 19, a German government spokesman assured the press that Washington would be joining the EU in yet another round of sanctions on Russia. But fast forward to today, and Brussels has leapt out of the plane solo while Trump is still standing at the hatch, waving goodbye and checking the minibar.

And Berlin seems to be pretending not to notice – at least for the purpose of keeping up appearances. “Europe and America are very united on this point: We will closely support Ukraine on its path toward a ceasefire… We agreed on this with [Trump] after his conversation with Putin,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz tweeted.

Translation: The EU went, “Hey Trump, we’re slapping more sanctions on Russia. Cool with that?” And Trump probably thought, “Oh, you mean the sanctions that nuked your economy, dried up your trade, and left you addicted to overpriced American LNG? Be my guest, Einsteins.”

Sure enough, Trump has since made it clear he’s not feeling another sanctions round. The vibes are off. He’s not jumping. But if the EU wants to swan dive into its own economic crater, well – godspeed. “Because I think there’s a chance of getting something done, and if you do that, you could also make it much worse,” Trump said.

Trump keeps saying that he wants peace and trade with Russia – the exact opposite of Brussels’ Cold War cosplay. But let’s be honest: would the EU even be playing sanctions hardball if it hadn’t been cheered down that road by the Biden administration? Highly unlikely. Trump sees the whole mess as a Biden boondoggle – a “European situation.”

What’s more interesting is how Team Trump is framing this not as a retreat, but as the dawn of a “peace first” presidency. One that’s allergic to forever wars. Secretary of State Marco Rubio even suggested that God’s on board. “We have a president of peace,” Rubio said at a recent Trump-hosted event, before recounting a chat with a Vatican cardinal for Pope Leo’s papal mass. “You know, it’s very unusual for us. We have an American president that wants peace, and it’s some of the Europeans that are constantly talking about doing war stuff.”

Trump, Rubio, J.D. Vance, they’re all singing the same tune: get a peace deal done pronto, or the US checks out. Ukraine and Russia can slug it out without Uncle Sam in the ring. And Europe? It can handle its own geopolitical hangover, assuming it can still stand up straight.

Meanwhile, Brussels is starting to realize its wallet has limits. That whole “whatever it takes” energy? It’s starting to sound more like “whatever we can still afford.” Ursula von der Leyen even admitted it. “Over the past five years, our budget has punched above its weight. And we must also see now… we have reached the limits of what is possible.”

Translation: The ‘check engine’ light on the EU economy has been blinking for a while, and now the dashboard’s on fire.

But never mind that – they’ve just pulled the trigger on yet another sanctions round. The 17th. And there’s already an 18th bullet getting loaded in the chamber. Because if you miss the target 17 times, the 18th is going to be the charm, right?

This time, they’re targeting Russia’s “shadow fleet,” which – minor detail – delivers oil to countries outside the EU, so the EU, in all its usual brilliance, can then buy it at a markup from middlemen countries.

Also not Russian? The ships themselves. And many of the newly sanctioned companies, which are in places like China (the EU’s top trade partner), Serbia (an EU candidate), Türkiye (the EU’s refugee babysitter), the UAE (gas hookup), Vietnam, and Uzbekistan. Way to win hearts and minds. Taking the long way around in sticking it to Putin, by ticking off the rest of the world.

And while they’ve long denounced Trump’s tariffs on EU goods, guess who’s now crushing on tariffs? Yep, the EU has just introduced new ones on Russian agricultural imports.

But wait, didn’t they already ban nearly everything Russian? Not quite. Some imports still sneak through the back door, like fertilizer, which supports the EU food system. In fact, Russian fertilizer imports rose 12% in January alone. Even the EU’s own Eurostat agency pegs the annual increase at 25%. Just explain that one to the farmers protesting Brussels’ rules while watching their markets flood with Ukrainian grain.

The EU also imports Russian enriched uranium: the lifeblood of nuclear reactors that generate about a quarter of Europe’s electricity. And now, naturally, Brussels is considering tariffs on that, too.

Apparently, if the ship’s on fire, the EU’s first instinct is to throw out the lifeboats. Then rummage around in the back to make darn sure there aren’t any more hiding in a closet somewhere.

With nuclear negotiations between the Trump administration and Iran’s Reformist government at a standstill, I held two separate, lengthy background conversations in Tehran this past week with a pair of seasoned Iranian diplomats with detailed knowledge of the talks in Muscat, Oman.

Like most Iranians, the diplomats were eager for a durable deal that would provide sanctions relief. But they said their side could not seem to break through to a Trump team they described as dithering, divided, distracted by other conflicts, and incapable of holding to a consistent position. Worse, as the negotiations drag on, the Trump administration is defaulting toward the hardline Israeli position which rejects all uranium enrichment, even for civilian purposes, violating a right Tehran considers sacrosanct.

The Iranian diplomats have now begun to suspect the Trump administration held an ulterior motive for engaging in talks, and is exploiting the meetings in Oman as a instrument for generating instability to weaken Iran’s economy and foment social strife.

Their comments to me echoed a warning issued by the Leader of Iran’s Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khamenei, as Tehran considered a request from Trump for nuclear talks last March. “Negotiating with this US administration won’t result in the sanctions being removed,” Khamenei declared. “It will cause the knot of sanctions to become tighter and pressure to increase.”

Following two months of political confusion and a significant escalation of US financial warfare, the Ayatollah’s words have proven prescient. Iran’s Reformist government now risks repeating the folly of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action, or JCPOA, which failed to deliver meaningful sanctions relief in the brief period before Trump shredded the deal, and ultimately led to a regime of “maximum pressure” culminating with the US assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani.

Iran’s government entered the latest round of talks under heavy pressure, with Trump dispatching a B-2 bomber strike force to the Diego Garcia Airbase to enforce his demands. The negotiations also took place in the shadow of the post-October 7 wars, in which Iran’s regional allies had suffered serious setbacks and with the last retaliation it vowed against Israel, True Promise III, still unfulfilled. Iranian public opinion researcher Ebrahim Moehseni told me his polling at the time showed that a majority of Iranians from all social sectors supported the talks.

According to the two diplomats I spoke to in Tehran, Iran’s negotiating team arrived in Oman with a sense of pessimism, but quickly grew more positive as they realized the Americans were not introducing demands for Iran to sever relations with its allies in Lebanon and Yemen, scrap its long range ballistic missiles, or destroy its reactors in Natanz and Fordow. But after each encouraging exchange, they watched key Trump negotiators issue bellicose statements to media immediately after returning to Washington, essentially reversing the positions they had taken in Muscat. The Iranians suspected Trump’s team, led by real estate lawyer Steve Witkoff, was kowtowing to Israeli assets like the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and its top donor, Miriam Adelson.

During each round of talks, the Iranian team introduced concrete proposals to bridge disagreements and maintain momentum. But according to the diplomats I spoke to, they found themselves waiting for a week or more to receive a reply from the Americans. They described Witkoff as distracted by other diplomatic assignments and said he often put Iran on the back burner while he tended to Ukraine-Russia negotiations or the Gaza war.

The diplomats were especially concerned by the apparent power struggle between Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. They suspected that Rubio was exploiting US media appearances to project control over the negotiations, and worried that his apparent rivalry with Witkoff would prevent Trump’s team from reaching a consensus on the nuclear issue.

One Iranian diplomat referenced historian Robert Dallek’s book, The American Style of Foreign Policy, to elucidate his view that the Trump administration’s counter-productive approach reflected a deeper crisis in the US establishment. The 1983 book argued that domestic pressures and social shifts at home have placed US foreign policy makers on a persistently irrational trajectory. The diplomat pointed to former Secretary of State Tony Blinken as a case study in Dallek’s thesis, recalling how Blinken routinely moved the goalposts on previous agreements with Iran in order to prevent negotiations from taking concrete form during the Biden years. His implication, as I read it, was the preponderance of pressure from the Israel lobby and military industry had been too overwhelming to allow either the Biden or Trump administration to execute a lasting deal.

Both diplomats I spoke to brought up recent reports revealing that Witkoff had promised Hamas he would force Israel to lift the starvation siege on the Gaza Strip if they released the US-Israeli captive Edan Alexander. They were dismayed that Witkoff had reneged on his promise and allowed Israel to slaughter hundreds of civilians in an apocalyptic frenzy throughout the week. Trump’s bad faith tactics with Hamas have cast a pall over the negotiations in Oman, fueling Iranian pessimism about a workable deal.

But perhaps no statement was more damaging to the prospect of a deal than Witkoff’s proclamation on ABC’s ‘This Week’: “We have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability.”

The comments fit the pattern of Trump negotiators sabotaging progress in Oman by issuing onerous demands and threats immediately after returning to Washington. And few issues are more central to the Islamic Republic’s sense of independence than its civilian nuclear program.

A tour of Tehran’s nuclear reactor illustrates the ‘battle of wills’

While in Tehran, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) invited me and a small group of journalists and academics to tour the city’s Nuclear Research Center, an active reactor originally constructed with US assistance under the Shah.

Once inside the vast facility (without our phones, as recording devices were strictly forbidden), we were treated to an exhibition touting the many lifesaving products of Iran’s nuclear program, from advancements in radiotherapy to the production of anti-cancer drugs to the sterilization of medical devices and protection of agriculture.

The visit was clearly designed to illustrate the importance of nuclear energy to Iran’s national development, and the absolute commitment of its leadership to continuing the project despite the continuous threat of assassination, sabotage and all-out war.

Touring the Tehran Nuclear Research Center this May 2025

Following our tour, we met with Beyrouz Kamalvandi, a veteran Iranian diplomat now serving as spokesman for the AEOI. Like the other Iranian diplomats I spoke to, Kamalvandi volunteered his country’s desire to abide by all its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But he viewed Iran’s civilian nuclear program as the key to consolidating its technological edge, and an absolute right under international law.

“They want to do with us what they did with Gaza, where the entire society is besieged,” Kamalvandi proclaimed. “But we have a great civilization, and it’s only a matter of time before they realize we won’t submit. This is not just a battle over enrichment, it’s a battle of wills.”

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi during our tour of the Tehran Nuclear Research Center

At one point during the meeting, Kamalvandi pointed to a young man seated in the back row of the conference room, asked him to stand, and identified him as the son of the Iranian quantum field theorist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, who was assassinated by a Mossad asset in 2010. Ten years later, Iran lost the godfather of its nuclear program, Mohsen Fakrizadeh, when the Mossad smuggled a machine gun drone into the country and stationed it along a road to attack Fakrizadeh’s convoy. Kamalvandi, for his part, was injured and hospitalized in 2021 while inspecting a part of the Natanz reactor that had been damaged by an Israeli attack.

In the eyes of Iran’s leadership, Witkoff’s demand to end enrichment was not only a recipe for squandering decades of technological advancement, it was an insult to the top tier scientists cut down by Israeli assassins. If this is the new baseline for a deal, negotiations are an exercise in futility. And yet the show goes on.

Economic sabotage behind the guise of negotiations

Since negotiations began, the value of the Iranian rial has fluctuated wildly against the dollar, improving in value after the first round of positive exchanges, then depreciating following each wave of bellicose threats from Trump and his team. I personally witnessed Iran’s financial chaos each time I attempted to exchange dollars for rials, as business owners consulted their phones for the new rate, which seemed to shift from day to day depending on the US president’s rhetoric. A friend joked that I would have paid a substantially lower rate to book a hotel room for my family if negotiations were not currently taking place.

Trump’s statements about the negotiations have also roiled oil markets. On May 16, when Trump claimed he was “getting close to maybe a deal” with Iran, the price of oil plummeted by 3.4%. Then came Witkoff’s call to cease enrichment, and on May 20, US intelligence leaked a warning that Israel was planning to attack Iran’s oil facilities, causing a sudden surge in oil prices.

The American president’s ability to manipulate financial markets both inside and outside Iran with his bluster has contributed to a sense that entering the negotiations have weakened Iran’s political position. Meanwhile, Trump’s crude insults to Iran’s sense of national honor and sovereignty have disrupted whatever goodwill existed when talks began.

The president’s announcement on May 7 that he was considering renaming the Persian Gulf to “the Arabian Gulf” fueled outrage across Iran — uniting everyone from pro-government principlists, to reformists, to pro-regime change monarchists in opposition to the insult to their national pride. Tehran responded with a billboard campaign condemning the change and a lawsuit against Google for abiding by the name change on its Maps applications.

Trump’s speech in Riyadh deepened the enmity, as he attempted to pit the Iranian public against its leadership, praising his unelected, monarchic hosts for supposedly having “turned dry deserts into fertile farmland,” while accusing Iran’s leaders of “turn[ing] green farmland into dry deserts, as their corrupt water mafia…causes droughts and empty riverbeds. They get rich, but they don’t let the people have any of it.”

Two days after Trump’s address in Riyadh, dust storms from the growing deserts of Saudi Arabia gusted into Iran, clouding the skies over Tehran and keeping many residents indoors. The irony did not escape those who heard Trump’s praise for the House of Saud’s supposed green miracle. Meanwhile, there is a growing sense that war clouds are gathering as well.

One well-connected Iranian academic in Tehran told me he expected his country to be on the receiving end of Israeli sabotage and confrontation throughout the summer. Both diplomats I spoke to insisted that in such a scenario, True Promise III was an option on the table.

Reprinted with permission from The Grayzone.
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