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Seventy national security professionals and former administration officials wrote a letter on Monday to President Joe Biden expressing “grave concerns” over the administration’s consideration to revoke the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ terrorism designation.
The letter’s authors argued that removing the designation would give the IRGC a “green light to murder Americans and attack our allies” and “would cause irreparable harm to the families of American victims of terrorism who are engaged in civil lawsuits against banks and companies that may have criminally conspired with the IRGC’s agents to launder billions of dollars through the U.S. financial system.”
Signatories include former Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Mark Kirk (R-IL), former Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Elan Carr, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Mary Beth Long and former Special Representative for Iran Elliott Abrams.
Fourteen Republican senators wrote to Biden on Monday with a similar message, arguing that revoking the IRGC’s terrorism designation would be “wildly misguided” and “betray our partners and allies.”
Sen. John Kennedy(R-LA) organized the letter, and was joined by Sens. Mike Crapo (R-ID), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Tim Scott (R-SC), Steve Daines (R-MT), Mike Braun (R-IN), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) and Roger Marshall (R-KS).
Over the weekend,video surfaced of Mahmoud-Reza Aghamiri, a senior Iranian nuclear engineer, discussing Iran’s nuclear program. “If our nuclear capability was at the level of 1997-1998, who would bother to negotiate with you? It is natural to have the power, the might, and the capabilities that would make your enemy succumb to your demands in the negotiations,” he is heard saying.
First-quarter fundraising numbers are coming in ahead of the April 15 deadline, the final filing deadline before a number of primaries over the next several months.
In the member-on-member Democratic primary in Illinois’ 6th Congressional District, Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) announced he had raised $784,000. His challenger, Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL) has not yet announced her Q1 fundraising numbers.
In the newly redrawn 11th Congressional District in Michigan, another member-on-member Democratic primary is shaping up to be one of the most expensive races in the nation. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) pulled in $2.5 million, while Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI) raised $1.2 million.
Steve Irwin, a Democrat running for a House seat in Pennsylvania, pulled in $613K.
Also hitting the $600K club is former Trump administration State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, who announced her haul a month and a half after entering the Tennessee 5th District race with former President Donald Trump’s endorsement.
post script
Israeli ambassador urges ‘deterrence’ as best strategy to prevent nuclear Iran

Incoming Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog
The best strategy for preventing a nuclear-armed Iran is “serious deterrence,” Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog said in a Monday virtual event with The Washington Post, reports Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch. “I do believe that if you reinstate deterrence, you will prevent war. I certainly believe that if you show assertiveness vis-a-vis Iran, as Israel has shown in the last few years in the region, you will deter Iran,” Herzog said. When pressed by Post national security correspondent Souad Mekhennet to explain what deterrence looks like, Herzog did not offer specifics.
Wait and see: “We maintain our options open, we will build our capabilities to counter Iran, we will maintain our freedom of action. And we’ll decide in due time what action to take,” said Herzog. He added that the main thing he would hope to see in a nuclear agreement is “a deal without sunsets, or if at all, sunsets in a very far distance,” referring to the so-called “sunset clauses” in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, whereby certain terms of the agreement expire after a predetermined number of years.
Expert negotiator: Before becoming ambassador late last year, Herzog served for decades as a member of Israel’s negotiating team and played a role in talks with Palestinians and Jordanians. He touched upon that experience when the conversation turned toward Israel’s normalization agreements with several Arab states. Why, Mekhennet asked, is peace with the Palestinians so much harder to achieve than the agreements reached with the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain?
Conflicting narratives: “We’re talking about two national movements with claims to the same piece of territory with conflicting narratives,” Herzog said of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, drawing a distinction to Israel’s new regional partners with whom it does not share borders. “It’s extremely difficult to bridge over these gaps. It’s not that we haven’t tried. We tried for many, many years, and there were all sorts of offers on the table.”
Russia response: Herzog also addressed Israel’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and criticism from some other Western nations that Israel’s early response was weak. “It took Israel, though, a bit longer to condemn the actions, or at least this was how the rest of the world felt about it,” said Mekhennet. “Why did it take so long for Israel to condemn Russia?”
Back to reality: “I disagree with the premise of your question. It took Israel a day or two, but we condemned unequivocally,” said Herzog, but he added, “We do have some constraints because we have a Russian military neighboring us in Syria, and it’s critical for Israel to maintain freedom of action against Iran in Syria.”