McMASTER WARNS – AT 3:30 P.M. ET:  Are we forgetting Iran?  Some of our European allies, with their substantial business interests in Iran, would like us to.   But it's hard to forget the world's largest sponsor of terror, which is rapidly developing ICBM's, and will eventually have the nuclear warheads to top them.  The president's national security adviser is sounding a hard line on Iran, and it is entirely appropriate.  From Reuters: 

MUNICH (Reuters) - U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster called on Saturday for more forceful action to halt Iran’s development of what he said was an increasingly powerful network of proxy armies in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

McMaster accused Iran of escalating a campaign to increase its influence in the Middle East by building and arming “Hezbollah-style” proxy armies in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere as it has done in Lebanon.

The goal was to weaken Arab governments and turn the proxy forces against those states if they pursued policies that ran counter to Tehran’s interests, he said.

“So the time is now, we think, to act against Iran,” he told the Munich Security Conference, calling on U.S. allies to halt trade that was helping underwrite the expansion of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the most powerful military and economic force in the Islamic Republic.

Note the phrase, "The time is now..."  Mere words?  Or are specific actions coming?

The United States deems Lebanon’s Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

“What’s particularly concerning is that this network of proxies is becoming more and more capable,” he said.

Iran has denied accusations that it meddles in the affairs of its Middle East neighbours and has dismissed suggestions it stop supporting groups such as Hezbollah.

McMaster also railed against the 2015 nuclear accord signed by Iran and six other countries, saying investments made by German firms and others were helping fund Iran’s missile program and its other activities in the Middle East.

A remarkable statement.  It's time Germany was called out publicly.  Only the Trump administration is doing it.  The United States sent tens of billions of dollars to Iran, under Obama, as part of the nuclear deal.  We recall that we sent scrap iron to Japan before World War II.  It came back to us in the form of bullets.

Echoing President Donald Trump’s view, he said it was time to address “serious flaws in the Iran deal and counter Iran’s destabilising activities including its development and proliferation of missiles.”

COMMENT:  That is a serious speech, and McMaster is a serious man.  An Iranian proxy recently sent a military drone into Israel, crossing a red line that had never been crossed.  The Iranians are on the move, and the Europeans are just cashing in.

February 17, 2018