TOP STORIES
America’s four great adversaries — China, Iran, North Korea and Russia — are increasingly acting in unison to undercut US interests, the intelligence community revealed Tuesday.
“Khamenei remains the final decisionmaker over Iran’s nuclear program, to include any decision to develop nuclear weapons.” The report did note that Iran is likely continuing work on “chemical and biological agents” for military use, with Tehran regime scientists showing special interests in “chemicals that have a wide range of sedation, dissociation, and amnestic incapacitating effects, and can also be lethal.”
Nuclear Watchdog Hints at Iran Talks as Trump Sets Deadline | Bloomberg
The United Nations nuclear watchdog said its latest talks with a senior Iranian official failed to yield a breakthrough in its years-long atomic probe, underscoring the urgent need for a diplomatic solution to a tense standoff between the Islamic Republic and the US. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said Tuesday he may be “returning soon” to Tehran to continue talks with Iranian representatives. “We are at a very important juncture,” he told Bloomberg television in an interview.
US Sanctions 3 Iranian Officials Linked to Death of Ex-FBI Agent Robert Levinson | Times of Israel
The United States has imposed sanctions on three Iranian intelligence officers for their alleged involvement in the disappearance of former FBI Special Agent Robert Levinson, the US Treasury and State departments said in press releases on Tuesday. The sanctions on Reza Amiri Moghadam, Gholamhossein Mohammadnia, and Taqi Daneshvar of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security are the latest linked to the disappearance of the former FBI agent, who Washington believes was abducted in Iran and died in captivity.
UANI IN THE NEWS
UANI Policy Director Jason Brodsky joins i24News to Discuss Iran’s Nuclear Program
Tulsi Gabbard tells the Senate there is no indication that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, 'but the absence of evidence of a nuclear weapons program is not necessarily the evidence of absence,' Jason Brodsky tells i24News.
For the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic, questions are now arising as to whether members of the “hard base”—which make up the foot soldiers of the suppressive apparatus—will continue to defend the regime unquestioningly if unrest once again erupts. Such questions have already invoked panic across the senior oligarchy of the Islamic Republic, who know all too well that it was the demoralization and, ultimately, the abandonment of dictator Bashar al-Assad’s suppressive forces that resulted in the collapse of the Baathist regime in Syria.
NUCLEAR DIPLOMACY & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Gabbard: Iran Is Not Currently Developing Nuclear Weapons | Jewish Insider
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Tuesday that the intelligence community maintains its assessment from prior years that Iran is not currently actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, but that open discussion of nuclearization has increased inside the regime. Gabbard added, “In the past year, we have seen an erosion of a decades-long taboo in Iran on discussing nuclear weapons in public, likely emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decision-making apparatus. Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.” Gabbard also said that the full impacts of renewed sanctions on Iran are not yet in effect, but that the “message … is certainly heard.”
US-Iran Nuclear Diplomacy Remains Stuck in Old Patterns | Iran International
The back-and-forth between Iranian and US leaders over Tehran’s nuclear program and the prospect of negotiations has changed little since at least 2016.
SANCTIONS, SHIPPING, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
Standard Chartered Fails to Narrow £1.5bn Lawsuit over Iran Sanction Breaches | Financial Times
Standard Chartered has failed in its attempt to narrow the scope of a £1.5bn lawsuit over claims that its breaches of sanctions against Iran were more widespread than it has acknowledged. Standard Chartered agreed to pay $1.1bn in 2019 to settle charges that it violated Iran sanctions and ignored red flags about its customers. The settlement included a guilty plea by a former bank employee. That came seven years after the bank first paid a $667mn fine and signed a deferred prosecution agreement with US prosecutors to avoid criminal charges for breaching Iran sanctions. However, the investors claim the misconduct was broader than Standard Chartered has acknowledged. In documents filed with the High Court they accused the bank of engaging in a “systemic course of conduct” in “developing its Iran business in breach of sanctions.”
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Iran Shows Off Missile City Packed with Ballistic Weapons | Times of London
Iran has unveiled another “missile city” in a video showing an underground complex purported to house thousands of ballistic missiles. The video was released on Tuesday by the semi-official Tasnim news agency, which identified the site as “one of the hundreds of missile cities” operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
US Military Buildup in Indian Ocean Raises Fears of Iran War | Iran International
The US is significantly expanding its military presence at Diego Garcia, a strategic Indian Ocean airbase, as Washington ramps up its rhetoric against Iran and continues its bombing campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen. The highly strategic British territory has seen a forward deployment of numerous B-2 stealth bombers, C-17 cargo planes and 10 aerial refueling tankers in the last 48 hours, defense industry outlet The War Zone reported citing satellite imagery.
After Leak Furor, Trump Says Attacks Sent Iran-Backed Houthis Reeling | Iran International
As controversy over leaked attack plans gripped Washington, US President Donald Trump said the strikes had successfully battered the Houthis in Yemen and that their Iranian patrons must soon negotiate a nuclear deal or else. “The Houthis are absolutely on the run, the worst of them have been killed,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “This is not an incompetent group of people. They make their own missiles. They get their missiles also from Iran. It’s an offshoot of Iran, another offshoot.” “You have Hamas, you have Hezbollah, you have the Houthis. You’ve got a lot of stuff going on with Iran, and we sent a letter to Iran. You’re going to have to be speaking to us one way or the other pretty soon, because we can’t let this happen.”
Iran has strategically wielded its nuclear program as a dual-purpose tool: a bargaining chip in international negotiations and a deterrent against adversaries like Israel and the United States. But as threats mount of a possible Israeli strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities, paired with a weakening of its numerous proxies since the Gaza war, the Islamic Republic could turn towards transnational terrorism absent a more coordinated approach from Washington and its allies.
ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON, & IRAN
Israel’s Dermer Meets Witkoff, Discusses Iran and Gaza During US Visit | Al-Monitor
Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, the country’s chief negotiator in the now-defunct Israel-Hamas ceasefire, met Tuesday in Washington with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, days after Egypt put forward a new proposal to temporarily end fighting in the Strip.
The U.S. intelligence community's annual 2025 report warned that it anticipates "]”the situation in Gaza, as well as Israel-[Hezbollah] and Israel–Iran dynamics, to remain volatile," warning that Hamas will continue to pose a threat to Israel's security "even in degraded form.”
MISCELLANEOUS
Azerbaijan-Armenia Peace Deal Could Unite Many Countries | Jerusalem Post
The prospects of a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan could unite a number of countries that are not usually on the same side of issues. This is because it appears that the US, Iran, Russia, Turkey, and many others in the region would like to see a deal between Baku and Yerevan. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran welcomes the conclusion of a draft agreement between the Republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, according to the Iranian state media on March 26.