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Willie Carver| Opinion Contributor

I have been a public school teacher since 2009, and Ive seen plenty of silencing. Im not proud to say that Ive even partaken in some, when I thought I had to keep quiet myself just to keep my job. But the censorship persists: I have been chastised directly by male colleagues for being too feminine, Ive been pulled aside by a principal who said that if I chose to be open about being gay I would be crucified and undefended, and, most recently, Ive been bluntly told that people felt that my LGBTQ student advocacy lending a listening ear, or sponsoring student-led clubs was being shoved down their throats.

Still, none of this comes close to the silencing we are now experiencing in the Kentucky classroom. It is so bad that the future of free speech and our students empathy and self-image hang in the balance.

Whereas most of my silencing has been behind closed doors, whispered only to me, this new censorship is boldly proclaimed as moral or even best practice. And it goes far beyond squelching LGBTQ experiences: It silences huge swaths of people and entire eras of history by banning discussion of anything related to race.

All of this is framed in the controversy over critical race theory, a term hyper-conservative politicians have hijacked to try and censor the painful truths of our nations history. Although CRT is a concept limited to university-level study, that has not stopped the introduction of legislation that is preventing K-12 educators from teaching honest history or discussing its connection to systemic racism and discrimination today.

Censoring tactics like the Krause list, a list of 850 books Texas state Rep. Matt Krause wants schools to track because of content related to sexuality, race, or anything that may cause discomfort or psychological distress, and Kentucky House Bills 14 and 18, which hope to outright ban certain topics and books from schools under the guise ofavoiding division between, or resentment of, a race, sex, religion, creed, nonviolent political affiliation, social classor class of people are causing major damage to free speech. In the schools themselves, local decrees, made in fear of these proposed bills, are just as damaging, if not more so, due to their vague nature. My schools English department has been instructed by multiple administrators in the last year not to teach anything racial, and our superintendent has requested anything sexual or racial be discussed with administrators before being presented to students.

The people behind this censorship are firmly rooted in the current zeitgeist, and their views are shared by administrators across the country: They believe the presence of race, genderand LGBTQ identities to be potentially problematic or disruptive. That silences teachers who want to be team players or just keep their jobs.

Given these circumstances, how willing is a teacher to read excerpts from The Bluest Eye? Not very. Why? Because Black author Toni Morrison describes racism through the eyes of a little Black girl. Might the same teacher read The Great Gatsby? Yes. Why? Because white author F. Scott Fitzgerald focuses on privileged white people. Herein lies the issue.

The censors say they are offended that race should matter at all. But if we eliminate all discussion of race which censors equate with all discussion of anything Black we whitewash the entire curriculum and erase the students in our classrooms, our own communities, and history itself. We deny our students the tools they need to see the world clearly.

More: Kentucky lawmakers file dozens of education bills each year. Ones to watch in 2022

I worry most about the students. In a system that disincentivizes even references to race, gender, or LGBT identities, in which two-thirds of the books on Krauses list are LGBTQ-centered and one-tenth discusses racism, how can students learn about themselves as part of a system? And how ourwhite, straight, cisgender students to learn about the experiences of people who are different from them experiences that are, essentially, illegalized in schools?

The First Amendment ensures that freedom of speech may not be abridged, and our understanding of speech has evolved tremendously since its writing. Legally, speech has been expanded to mean actions, workand even the free use of money by corporations. Academically, we also understand that speech involves the opportunity to listen: Hearing and reading are essential and fundamental aspects of free speech. Censorship denies students this very right: to hear someone talk about themselves, to know more about the human experience, to better understand their place in relation to each other, to partake in the sharing of the marketplace of ideas.

I urge teachers, administrators and stakeholders to become aware of the extent to which curricula include people of color and LGBTQ people, and I urge them to speak up when voices would silence that inclusion. I fully support legislation and am thankful for advocacy by groups like the American Federation of Teachers that guarantee and fight for students rights to access voices in their classroom regardless of their gender, sexuality, raceor political beliefs and that protect those teachers who share them. I believe strongly that when any of us is not allowed to be heard, all our voices are threatened.

Willie Carver teaches French and English at Montgomery County Schools in Mount Sterling, KY. He is the 2022 Kentucky Teacher of theYear.

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Japanese politician, writer, and former Governor of Tokyo Shintaro Ishihara passed away this morning at 89 following a relapse of pancreatic cancer. He is remembered as an extremist, ultranationalist, xenophobe, and censor.

Ishihara was born in 1933 and rose to popularity as an author. While still in college, he was awarded one of the nations most prestigious literary awards, the Akutagawa Prize, for his novel Season of the Sun (published as Season of Violence in English). He entered politics in 1968 following his reporting on the Vietnam War.

Ishihara joined Japans Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled Japan almost continuously since 1955. The party is broadly conservative and nationalistic, though Ishihara would define his own extremist ideology under no uncertain terms as a rising star in the party and the governor of Tokyo from 1999 to 2012.

As Crunchyroll reports, his views range from xenophobia towards Japans neighbors to war crime denialism to homophobia. He was also closely involved in Tokyos bid to host the Olympic Games as governor and then as Chairman of the Japanese Olympic Committee.

And in his last of four terms as governor, Ishihara infamously stoked tension with China by pushing the LDP to stake claims in the East China Sea and notably amending the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Regarding the Healthy Development of Youths to expand the governments control over the publishing industry. Despite widespread opposition to the bill from publishers and writers, the bill passed and has been enforced since 2011.

While in office, Ishihara split from the LDP, forming a faction of far-right politicians under the banner of the Sunrise Party (named for his novel). After he left office, the party would undergo several splits and mergers, all of which have dissolved in the years since. He retired following a lost election in 2014.

The Japan Times reports former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, another controversial conservative figure, praised the late politician.

He is survived by his four sons.

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Former Tokyo Governor, Infamous for Manga Censorship, Passes Away - We Got This Covered

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Joe Rogan may be the most popular broadcaster in the English-speaking world right now. Every episode of his podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience" reaches about 11 million people, and some of the episodes get an audience many times that. How many people is that? It's a lot.

For perspective, last night, CNN's highest-rated show had a little over 700,000 viewers total. So Joe Rogan is big, and unlike CNN, he's not especially political. His show covers pretty much everything: comedy, science, nutrition, the paranormal, recreational drug use, exercise, mixed martial arts, music, Hollywood and a huge range of other topics, often with guests you've never heard of.

Rogan is not a reactionary, unlike most people in the media, he doesn't think he already knows everything. He's genuinely curious, and so he lets his guests speak. His longest interview lasted for more than five hours with a standup comedian. When Rogan does talk about politics, it's pretty clear he's not an ideologue. He interviews everybody. Liberals and conservatives, as well as a lot of people like Mike Tyson, who could be either one. And he does it most of the time with respect and self-deprecation.

He's not an expert on politics. He's not pretending to be one. Rogan just asks questions, and he notes the obvious. It's this last quality that makes the people in charge hate and fear Joe Rogan. If you're trying to sell an absurd, obviously untrue idea, it is possible that Joe Rogan is going to call you on it. Not because he's a partisan, he's not. But because he just can't help but notice. That's his secret. A few months ago, Rogan watched the White House press secretary lie about the FDA's approval process for Pfizer's COVID vaccine. So he said something about it. Watch.

ROGAN: Jen Psaki's talking about misinformation online and combating misinformation. She distributed misinformation, because she said that it's approved by the FDA and their gold standard.

JOE ROGAN'S RESPONSE TO CRITICS LEAVES MANY LIBERAL PUNDITS UNSATISFIED

Yeah. What he said was true. Rogan's pretty literal, actually. It's one of the reasons people trust him. And he was right in this case. Jen Psaki was lying to the country, and it wasn't even an especially clever lie. Anyone with internet access could have verified that what Jen Psaki said was a total crock, from the podium, too. But when Joe Rogan points this out, it really stings. A lot of the people listening to him believe him. And the White House took notice. So what happened next? Well, here's Jen Psaki from yesterday calling on Joe Rogan's employer to censor him. Watch.

PSAKI: This disclaimer, it's a positive step, but we want every platform to continue doing more to call out misinformation and disinformation, while also uplifting accurate information. But ultimately, you know, our view is, it's a good step, it's a positive step, but there's more that can be done.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

There's more that can be done? Hey, you little fascist, that's a threat. That's exactly what it is. Politicians and their spokes chicks didn't use to talk this way. They were not allowed to talk this way because the First Amendment explicitly prohibits it. You're not allowed to use government power to shut down broadcasters who criticize you. Period. And now that's exactly what they're trying to do.

So far, Joe Rogan's employer, Spotify, hasn't caved to the pressure. Rogan still has a job, but the company is bending. It's deleted more than 20,000 COVID-related podcast episodes made by other Spotify hosts. Spotify claims they "cause harm." How exactly can a podcast cause harm? Spotify didn't explain, because, of course, they couldn't explain.

HOW JOE ROGAN BECAME PUBLIC ENEMY NO. 1 TO MEDIA LIBERALS IN THE BATTLE OVER COVID MISINFORMATION

Podcasts don't cause harm, weapons cause harm. Anyone who knows anything about American business right now understood what's actually going on. In a moment like this, it is virtually impossible to run a public company, no matter how hard you try. It's not just in podcasting, it's not just Spotify. It's any company with shareholders; from breakfast cereal manufacturers to tennis shoe retailers. The political pressure is coming at these companies from all sides; from activist investors, from the media, from their own employees. Every day is a brand-new crisis. Imagine the emails between the CEO and the PR department. They never stop. And under those circumstances, it's impossible to think clearly, to stand on principle, or even to consider your own best interests long-term. That's what's going on with Spotify. They probably don't want to censor anybody. They're being pushed to. In their case, pressure to censor Joe Rogan over his views is coming from other content providers on the site, and most of them are D-listers, you should know.

The other day, that annoying fake duchess from L.A. and her brain-dead husband threatened to walk if Spotify refused to muzzle Joe Rogan. "Hundreds of millions of people are affected by the serious harms of rampant mis- and disinformation every day," they yelped through a publicist. But of course, they don't mean that, they're not going anywhere. These two grifters have a $25 million podcast deal with Spotify for essentially no work. So far, we believe they produced just over 30 minutes of content. That means these two have been paid about a million dollars for each minute of talking they've done. That's a good gig. It's too good to leave. But their performance does raise the question, what exactly about Joe Rogan's podcast has caused "serious harm?" We're literal, too. So we scoured his archives to find out. And it turns out, as usual, the opposite is true. Joe Rogan is actually a force for safety in this world. Watch this clip in which he warns the public about the dangers of approaching gorillas in the wild. It turns out, sneaking up on a gorilla, as Joe Rogan pointed out, could lead to actual serious harm.

Spotify announced that it will begin to put a disclaimer at the beginning of Joe Rogans show when he discusses COVID. (Photo by: Vivian Zink/Syfy/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

ROGAN: We're so soft, we think it's okay to look at a wild animal in its eyes, that's how stupid we are. "Hi, hey, we're cool, man, we're from National Geographic Society, we're just going to make sure your baby's okay." Crazy, 800-pound silverback is bursting through the trees. It's right in your face. He's got fangs and only eats vegetables. The fangs are only designed to f--- you up. And you couldn't even imagine what an 800-pound gorilla strength is like because you would think of it as like an 800-pound man, but it would really be more like a 3,000 pound man.

JOE ROGAN BREAKS SILENCE AFTER NEIL YOUNG'S SPOTIFY CONTROVERSY

He's interested in animals, by the way, and he's curious, that's part of the allure. People in the media are paid to be curious, to ask questions, to wonder about other people. None of them do. They just want to lecture you. This guy actually is interested. But no one who is criticizing him seems to know that, doesn't seem like they have actually listened to his show. Neil Young probably never has. Neil Young is an elderly folk singer from the nation of Canada. Young is already pulled his music from Spotify in protest of Rogan's open-mindedness. Does Neil Young actually own his own music? We don't know. But we know that the gesture received widespread applause from the usual morons who then revealed themselves to be even dumber than you thought they were. Variety Magazine, for example, which still exists, informed us that Neil Young stands against Joe Rogan, makes him "a hero" to the younger generations. Right. Because if there's one person kids of today revere, worship like a god, it's 76-year-old Neil Young. They take Neil Young over Joe Rogan any day because young people everywhere are anxious to side with the Biden administration and demand the firing of any podcast or interviews Kamala Harris disagrees with. It's hilarious. They're more out-of-touch than Neil Young is. But at CNN, they've convinced themselves it's all totally true because Joe Rogan is peddling misinformation. Therefore, he must be stopped.

BRIAN STELTER: You think about major newsrooms like CNN that have health departments and deaths and operations that work hard on verified information on COVID-19. And then you have talk show stars like Joe Rogan who just wing it, who make it up as they go along, and because figures like Rogan are trusted by people that don't trust real newsrooms, we have a tension, a problem that's much bigger than Spotify, much bigger than any single platform.

People are trusting Joe Rogan over eunuchs can you imagine? Damn the people. They should be watching CNN. CNN has departments and desks and entire operations designed to verify information and filter out misinformation. And that's why they described Ivermectin, which in Joe Rogan's case was prescribed by a human doctor as "horse de-wormer" and did on like nine different shows. And those same standards led them to suggest, famously, that a passenger jet must have been sucked into a black hole.

Spotify faces recent backlash over Joe Rogan podcast. REUTERS

DON LEMON: What if it was hijacking or terrorism or mechanical failure or pilot error, but what if them was something fully that we don't really understand? A lot of people have been asking about that, about black holes and on and on and on. Also referencing "The Twilight Zone," which is a very similar plot. That's what people are saying. I know it's preposterous, but is it preposterous you think?

We can't get enough. Yes, that clip was from eight years ago, but we watch it every single morning, along with our pilates and sauna just to get ready for the day. And if you want to watch a lot more like that, CNN has just announced you can subscribe to CNN+, and Don Lemon will be on there constantly, for a small extra fee. So that's their answer to Joe Rogan: more nonsense but the lowest-rated dummies in the entire TV business. Joe Rogan, meanwhile, consistently turns out interesting, informative programing just by being curious, just by asking obvious questions. That's all it takes. Care about what other people are saying. Watch the world around you. Take an interest in something beyond yourself. And when he does that, they don't like it. Watch this exchange with Dr. Robert Malone, who is one of the inventors of mRNA technology.

DR. MALONE: The how question of a third of the population basically being hypnotized, and totally wrapped up in whatever Tony Fauci and the mainstream media feeds them, whatever CNN tells them is true. The answer is mass formation psychosis. When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other and has free-floating anxiety in a sense that things don't make sense. We can't understand it. And then their attention gets focused by a leader or series of events on one small point, just like hypnosis. They literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere.

That was the interview that pushed CNN completely over the edge, not because it was false, but because it was entirely credible. "Hypnotizing the public?" "That's our job", they said. "Mass formation psychosis?" "Yeah, that's us." So of course, they immediately set about encouraging the tech platforms to ban that interview. Dr. Malone, again, one of the inventors of mRNA technology, being used in over a billion doses of vaccine, currently in people's bodies, that's the man who was talking. Credible? Yeah, no one more credible than that. And that's exactly why they hated it. That's exactly what they said you couldn't hear it. Now that same month, it was justthis past December, Rogan spoke to a doctor called Peter McCullough about Ivermectin. Watch

MCCULLOUGH: Sanjay Gupta and the CNN correspondent, there was no fair balance there. He parodied a talking point that our head of the National Allergy and Immunology branch parodied. They said that there was no data for Ivermectin. They said it was a horse de-wormer. Now, either they knew or they should have known the 63 supportive studies and the over 30 randomized trials.

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So those are facts. And if you think they're wrong, tell us how they're wrong. But why shouldn't people hear that? Why shouldn't they be allowed to? Well, because Dr. Peter McCullough, who certainly has the credentials to do it, criticize the people in charge. He mocks CNN for ignoring dozens of clinical trials, making fun of a drug that could have helped a lot of people, possibly saved lives. What do you think of that? Well, that's immoral, of course.

But notice what Joe Rogan didn't do in the face of that information. He didn't call for CNN to be censored because they spread disinformation. He didn't say we have to pull CNN off the air, they're killing people. Because he's not for censorship. You know who is for censorship? Weak people are for censorship. I can't handle what you're throwing at me shut up or else. That's exactly what they're saying. Strong people don't behave that way. Only the weak. Everybody knows that. They can smell it. And the reason Joe Rogan is successful? Because he's not weak. That's the truth.

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the February 2, 2022, edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

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Tucker Carlson: Youre not allowed to use government power to shut down people who criticize you - Fox News

Tehran, Iran As economists, politicians, and pundits mull the threat of swift and severe United States economic sanctions against Russia should the latter invade Ukraine, one country that has long been in Washingtons crosshairs does not have to ponder what such punitive measures can do Iran.

Some 655 Iranian entities and individuals were sanctioned under the administration of former US President Barack Obama, according to data compiled by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). But the most brutal punishment kicked off in 2018, after former US President Donald Trumps administration unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal with world powers and Irans banks were cut off from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication SWIFT, the global financial messaging system.

That was just the opening salvo in the Trump administrations maximum pressure campaign that aimed to force Tehran back to the nuclear negotiating table by crippling Irans economy.

In 2020 Washington levied more designations against Iranian banks, effectively severing the countrys financial sector from the rest of the global economy. That same year, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) the global money watchdog placed Iran on its blacklist.

And those were just the major headline grabbers. The Trump administration targeted Irans economy with more than 960 sanctions, according to CNAS a barrage that continued unabated as Irans healthcare system buckled under the most brutal waves of COVID-19 infections seen in the Middle East, and despite myriad appeals by world leaders to offer Tehran a temporary reprieve for humanitarian reasons.

All of those sanctions are still enforced by the current administration of US President Joe Biden.

Today, no sector of Irans economy has been spared by Washingtons punitive measures, which helped propel the country into a two-year recession and continue to impact every aspect of day-to-day life.

Annual inflation is running north of 42 percent, according to Irans statistical office. The national currency, the rial, has lost more than half of its value in the past three years. Oil exports fell from roughly 2.5 million barrels per day in 2017 to less than 0.4 million barrels per day in 2020, according to the US Energy Information Administration though they did start to slightly recover last year.

In a speech to a group of businessmen and manufacturers on Sunday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the data of the past decade, especially those for economic growth, inflation and foreign direct investments, are unsatisfactory.

But Irans economy did not totally collapse. It started to return to growth albeit from a low base last year, thanks to an easing of cross-border trade, COVID-19 restriction rollbacks, and a sharp rebound in the price of oil.

Having proven more resilient and diversified than some predicted, Irans economy grew 2.4 percent in 2020-21, said the World Bank, and is forecast to grow 3.1 percent in 2021-22.

The administration of President Ebrahim Raisi has set a considerably more ambitious goal. He is targeting a growth rate of 8 percent.

The conservative president aims to achieve that through the resistance economy doctrine, which mainly consists of boosting self-sufficiency, and trade ties with regional neighbours as well as China and Russia.

But even as that policy which includes nullifying sanctions in parallel to negotiating efforts in Vienna to lift them has returned the economy to a degree of growth, challenges remain.

A continuation of the banking sanctions and Irans FATF blacklisting will limit the potential of Irans international trade, says Bijan Khajehpour, managing partner at Eurasian Nexus Partners (EUNEPA).

A continuation of the banking sanctions and Iran's FATF blacklisting will limit the potential of Iran's international trade.

Bijan Khajehpour, managing partner, Eurasian Nexus Partners

Khajehpour told Al Jazeera that if the banking restrictions remain in place, the cost of financial transactions will remain high, making imports and exports more expensive. It would also limit the types of markets and companies Iran is able to engage with.

Therefore, the Iranian economy wont prosper, though it may be able to generate low-level growth, he said.

But to sustain that growth, Iran requires major infrastructure investments that Khajehpour says the country can only afford if sanctions are lifted.

Raisis proposed budget for the next Iranian calendar year beginning in late March, which assumes sanctions remain in place, is forecasting a boost in oil income and a 60 percent increase in tax revenues, including from combating rampant tax evasion.

Still, Iran is expected to run a sizable budget deficit a fiscal imbalance that existed even before Trumps sanctions.

The bulk of projected oil income is expected to come from China, which remains Irans top buyer.

Exact shipment data is unavailable as exports under sanctions are kept secret and the oil is marked as originating from Malaysia, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.

However, in mid-January, China officially announced its first import of Iranian crude oil since December 2020 in defiance of US sanctions.

And the market is still swinging in Irans favour. Last week, oil prices were at their highest level in more than seven years, thanks to tight supplies and concerns over escalating tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine.

The news came roughly at the same time as the Raisi administration announced its oil exports had increased by 40 percent compared to the final month of President Hassan Rouhanis administration in August.

January was also a busy month in terms of Iranian efforts to boost political and economic bilateral ties with China and Russia.

Irans Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said during a trip to Jiangsu, China that a 25-year comprehensive cooperation accord signed in 2020 has entered the implementation stage, although he did not elaborate on what exactly that means.

Meanwhile, Raisi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, where the two leaders backed closer ties, and their officials signed a number of agreements that the Iranian side said would have tangible results in the foreseeable future.

Warmer relations with China and Russia cannot however fully offset the stranglehold of US sanctions, says energy journalist and analyst Hamidreza Shokouhi.

There are rivalries between Russia and the US as we see now in Ukraine and China and the US, and these will naturally have some impacts, but it would be too optimistic to depend on these countries abilities to nullify sanctions, he told Al Jazeera. The more Iran becomes dependent on these countries, as it has already become to a degree, naturally it increases China and Russias maneuvering power on Iran and this is not a good thing for Iran at all.

In the energy sector, Shokouhi believes that for now, Iran can only depend on China for limited oil sales, and on Russia mainly for a potential development of and investments in energy projects, although sanctions are likely to curb that potential.

Last week, Irans Economy Minister Ehsan Khandoozi announced that Russia has agreed to allocate a new line of credit to develop the Sirik power plant in Hormozgan as a result of Raisis trip, but he did not disclose details.

The first agreements for developing the power plant were signed after the nuclear deal with world powers was initially clinched in 2015, but the plant has been among several similar energy projects undertaken by Russia and China that remain incomplete.

According to EUNEPAs Khajehpour, trade with regional neighbours can continue to contribute to Irans economic growth, but there are limits. For example, at times trade can entail barter agreements that are limiting for Iranian firms.

Nonetheless, experience has shown that companies which enter export markets, even regional ones, are likely to develop other international markets, he said.

So, one can view the growing regional trade as a medium-term platform for strengthening Irans exports to international markets.

But both Khajehpour and Shokouhi emphasise that Iran needs the nuclear negotiations in the Austrian capital to be successful if it wishes to unlock its economic growth potential.

It appears the people and the business community in Iran are all eager for an agreement on the nuclear deal so there can be a sliver of hope for the economy, said Shokouhi. If theres no agreement, I cant imagine a bright outlook for the economy under these harsh circumstances.

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Irans economy reveals power and limits of US sanctions - Al Jazeera English

February 01, 2022

WASHINGTON U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today took to the Senate Floor to deliver remarks to lay out his growing concerns with the Biden administrations latest round of negotiations over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) while Iran continues to rapidly escalate its nuclear program, which has brought it to the brink of having enough material for a nuclear weapon.

As someone who has followed Iran's nuclear ambition for the better part of three decades, I am here today to raise concerns about the current round of negotiations over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and Irans dangerously and rapidly escalating nuclear program that has put it on the brink of having enough material for a nuclear weapon, said Chairman Menendez, making an impassioned pitch for the Biden administration and our allies to exert more pressure on Iran to counter its nuclear program, its missile program, and its dangerous behavior around the Middle East. I have been cautiously optimistic about the Biden administrations initial efforts. I waited for the last year to see results. Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Secretary of State and others, senior members of the Administration, insisted they would look for a longer and stronger agreement. I have a pretty good sense of what I think longer and stronger means. Longer is obvious, more time. Stronger dealing with elements that had not been previously dealt with. However, a year later, I have yet to hear any parameters of longer or stronger terms or whether that is even a feasible prospect. And even when it seemed a constructive agreement might be possible last summer, upon taking office, the Raisi government abandoned all previous understandings and, as I mentioned, made absolutely clear that Irans ballistic missiles and regional proxy networks are not negotiable. Moreover, at this point, we seriously have to ask what exactly are we trying to salvage?

While some have tried to paint me as belligerent to diplomacy or worse I have always believed that multilateral, diplomatic negotiations from a position of strength are the best way to address Irans nuclear program, Chairman Menendez continued: We cannot ignore Irans nefarious support for terrorism or accept threats to American interests and lives. We must welcome legitimate and verifiably peaceful uses of nuclear power, but remain true to our nonproliferation principles and our unyielding desire to build a more stable, safer, prosperous world for the American people and all peace-loving people to thrive. In order to do so, Iran cannot and must not possess a nuclear weapon.

Find a copy of Chairman Menendezs remarks as delivered below.

Madam President, for nearly 30 years, first as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and to this day as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I have had the privilege of engaging in the most pressing foreign policy and national security issues facing our nation.

While we are all rightly focused on the crisis unfolding around Ukraine, we must not lose sight of how dangerously close Iran is to becoming a nuclear-armed state, for we know that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose an unacceptable threat to U.S. national security interests, to our allies in Europe and to overall stability in the Middle East.

As someone who has followed Iran's nuclear ambition for the better part of three decades, I am here today to raise concerns about the current round of negotiations over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and Irans dangerously and rapidly escalating nuclear program that has put it on the brink of having enough material for a nuclear weapon.

Three to four weeks. A month or less.

Thats how long most analysts have concluded it would take Iran to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if they choose to do so.

That is not a timeline we can accept.

That is why Im calling on the Biden administration and our international partners to exert more pressure on Iran to counter its nuclear program, its missile program, and its dangerous behavior around the Middle East, including attacks on American personnel and assets.

Before I continue, let me set the record straight.

While some have tried to paint me as belligerent to diplomacy or worse I have always believed that multilateral, diplomatic negotiations from a position of strength are the best way to address Irans nuclear program.

And I have always advocated for a comprehensive diplomatic agreement that is long lasting, fully verifiable, and with an enforceable snapback system of sanctions should Iran breach any terms.

It was for very specific reasons that I opposed the JCPOA back in 2015, as well as an underlying concern that I just could not shake: a sense that the deal itself was a best-case scenario hinging on good faith actors and overly-optimistic outcomes without enough consideration for the worst-case scenarios that might arise from the behavior of bad actors.

Today, many of the concerns I expressed about the JCPOA back in August of 2015 are coming back to haunt us in the year 2022.

First and foremost, my overarching concern with the JCPOA was that it did not require the complete dismantlement of Irans nuclear infrastructure.

Instead, it mothballed that infrastructure for 10 years, making it all too easy for Iran to resume its illicit nuclear program at a moment of its choosing.

The deal did not require Iran to destroy or fully decommission a single uranium enrichment centrifuge.

In fact, over half of Irans operating centrifuges at the time were able to continue spinning at its Natanz facility.

The remainder more than 5,000 operational centrifuges and nearly 10,000 not yet operational were to be merely disconnected. Instead of being completely removed, they were transferred to another hall at Natanz where they could be quickly reinstalled to enrich uranium, which is exactly what we have seen happen over the past year.

Nor did the deal shut down or destroy the Fordow nuclear facility, which Iran constructed underneath a mountain to house its covert uranium enrichment infrastructure. Under the JCPOA, it was merely repurposed.

Now, Iran is back in business at Fordow; spinning its most advanced centrifuges and enriching uranium to a higher level of purity than before it entered the JCPOA.

In the two years since President Trump left the JCPOA, Iran has resumed its research and development into a range of centrifuges, making rapid improvements to their effectiveness. Huge strides that we will never be able to roll back.

Today, Iran has more fissile materials 2500kg, more advanced centrifuges, and a shorter breakout time three to four weeks than it had in 2015.

This is exactly why I was so concerned over the JCPOA framework of leaving the vast majority of Irans nuclear program intact.

This is how Iran was able to rapidly rebuild and advance its enrichment capabilities once the agreement fill apart. That was a serious mistake.

Back in 2015, I also expressed my grave concern that Iran only agreed to provisionally apply the Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

The Additional Protocol is what allows the International Atomic Energy Administration to go beyond merely verifying that all declared nuclear material and facilities are being used for peaceful purposes and provides it with a verification mechanism to ensure states do not have undeclared nuclear material and facilities.

The Additional Protocol was particularly important because Iran has never fully come clean about its previous clandestine nuclear activities.

For well over two decades, mounting concerns over Irans secret weaponization efforts united the world.

The goal that we have long sought, along with the international community, is to find out exactly what Iran accomplished in its clandestine program not necessarily to get Iran to declare culpability but to determine how far they had advanced their weaponization program so that we would know what signatures to look for in the future.

David Albright, a physicist and former nuclear weapons inspector, and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security, said: Addressing the IAEAs concerns about the military dimensions of Irans nuclear programs is fundamental to any long term agreement an agreement that sidesteps the military issues would risk being unverifiable.

The reason he said that an agreement that sidesteps the military issues would be unverifiable, is because it makes a difference if you are 90 percent in terms of enriched material down the road in your weaponization efforts or only 10 percent advanced. It makes a big difference.

The state of Irans weaponization efforts significantly impacts the breakout time for the regime to complete an actual deliverable weapon.

So, this verifiability is critical. And in 2015, I explained the JCPOA did not empower international weapons inspectors to conduct the kind of anywhere, anytime inspections needed to get to the bottom of Irans previous weaponization program.

In February 2021, we saw the consequences of not insisting Iran permanently ratify the Additional Protocol.

Iran simply decided they were done with the Additional Protocol and refused to allow the IAEA to fully investigate locations where it found traces of uranium enrichment.

It is now obvious that the IAEA is significantly limited in its ability to determine the extent of Irans previous nuclear program and whether further militarization activities have continued all this time. Without the complete adoption of the Additional Protocol, the JCPOA did not empower the IAEA to achieve this task.

So that was then and this is now. And though I had my concerns with JCPOA, as I have expressed, I am also absolutely clear-eyed, as should everyone else in this chamber should be, that the way in which President Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal, with no diplomatic plan for constraining Irans nuclear ambitions, without the support of any of our allies, without any kind of serious alternative, emboldened Iran to pursue its nuclear ambitions like never before.

Now, we cant live in a counterfactual world where all parties remained in full compliance, but we do know that even for the first couple years of the JCPOA, Irans leaders gave absolutely no indication they were willing to look beyond the scope of these limited terms, and fought vigorously to keep their highly advanced nuclear infrastructure in place.

That was under a more moderate regime.

They continued their destabilizing activities and support for terrorism in the greater Middle East with abandon. So today, I ask why we would try to simply go back to the JCPOA a deal that was not sufficient in the first place and still doesnt address some of the most serious national security concerns we have.

Let me lay out specific concerns about the parameters of the JCPOA, which it appears the Biden administration is seeking to reestablish.

For decades now, Iran has pursued all three elements necessary to create and to deliver a nuclear weapon.

Producing nuclear material for a weapon. The fissile material. That is basically what we just talked about being three to four weeks away.

The scientific research and development to build a nuclear warhead. Thats why we dont know the full dimensions of what they were doing in terms of how advanced they got to the weaponization, the ability to have the nuclear warhead that makes the bomb go boom.

The ballistic missiles to deliver them.That, they already had.

If you think about it, they have the missiles capable of delivering, they are on the verge of having the fissile material necessary to create an explosion. The only question is the warhead. At what point are they there? And we dont fully know.

Since the Trump administration exited the deal, Iran has installed more than 1,000 advanced centrifuges, enabling it to enrich uranium more quickly.

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Chairman Menendez: We Cannot Allow Iran to Threaten Us into a Bad Deal or an Interim Agreement that Allows it to Continue Building its Nuclear...