With the cease-fire proving tenuous, negotiations between the two nations are in flux, but have advanced to outline potential paths forward on difficult questions about Iran’s nuclear program.

© Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

MOSCOW and ST. PETERSBURG – On Monday, June 1^st, on Power Shift, a new independent geopolitical platform, Zulfiqar Ali, Larry Johnson and myself revealed what for all practical purposes is an uber-bombshell piece of information: if long dark clouds keep coming down, Tehran is ready to pivot from nuclear ambiguity to actually detonating a nuclear device on Iranian soil.

Less than a week later, the Power Shift page was censored on YouTube – with no explanation and no appeal. Yet what we revealed had already been detailed in several podcasts and interviews throughout last week, as in here and here (with myself and Larry); here; and at the St. Petersburg forum, here.

I published a detailed background preceding the release of the information, written just before Iran’s negotiating team suspended the exchange of all (italics mine) texts and messages with the U.S. via mediator Pakistan.

When it comes to the redaction of perhaps the final draft of an endlessly debated Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Iran and the U.S., it suddenly became crystal clear that it’s all about Lebanon.

Iran repeatedly reiterated it was ready to ditch the already comatose “ceasefire” if the death cult in West Asia proceeded with its threat of bombing Dahiyeh, the Shi’ite-majority suburb of southern Beirut.

Confronted by Trump, the leader of the death cult was forced to back down. For only a few days. Trump desperately needs an MoU and an extended ceasefire to be marketed as “Victory”. His (italics mine) Victory.

All that was happening, fast and furious, on the trail of a fateful, extremely sensitive, 105-minute phone call on Thursday, May 28, between Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Islamabad is the sole functioning and trusted head-of-government back-channel between Tehran and Washington. Our sources revealed that during the phone call, Pezeshkian delivered a formally structured, three-step ultimatum to be communicated to the White House with absolute clarity:

1. No more nuclear talks. As in the priority is the end of all wars, against Iran and the Axis of Resistance.
2. No more prospective nuclear treaty framework. As in no discussions leading to a possible, diluted JCPOA 2.0; only after settling the end of the wars and the status of the Strait of Hormuz.
3. If U.S. threats persist, Pezeshkian said, that would lead to the “detonation of a nuclear device on Iranian soil” – executed not as an act of war, but as an irreversible, sovereign demonstration of capability to control escalation dominance.

What is particularly stunning is none of the above is about diplomatic posturing. What we had is the President of Iran relaying what is essentialy a decision by Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, signaling that if Washington crosses the next threshold, Tehran would pivot instantly from nuclear ambiguity to undeniable demonstration.

And that would imply a permanent rupture of the global non-proliferation system – with unforeseen consequences.

The China-Iran-Pakistan strategic alignment

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif obviously did the math on the scale of such intelligence. He immediately told Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar – who was in New York for UN Security Council sessions – to deliver the information to Washington.

Dar bypassed the whole bureaucratic apparatus, directly calling U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in New York. The message, from Tehran to the Trump administration, was stark: the escalation ladder now features a terminal rung.

Rubio “may” (and that’s the operative word) have recognized the supreme gravity of what is in fact a formal nuclear ultimatum. He briefed Trump. The day after, May 29, Trump abruptly stopped any further kinetic action. And his incendiary rhetoric was instantly toned down.

This had nothing to do with a sudden fit of strategic restraint in the War-a-Lago/Oval Office axis. It was the direct, downstream result of the Sharif-Dar-Rubio back-channel.

On the morning of May 29, Dar arrived in Washington for a one-day official visit.

Sitting across from Rubio, he delivered the detailed briefing that the New York phone call had only previewed.

He placed two massive bombshells on the negotiating table:

1. Iran will not surrender any of its Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). Nothing. Zero. And that’s final.

It’s all about sovereign independence (two concepts at the center of the recent Russia-China joint declaration signed in Beijing during Putin’s official visit to Xi Jinping).

So Tehran will not surrender its stockpile, whatever the terms, temporarily or not, just to comply with a face-saving mechanism designed for a U.S. domestic audience. From the point of view of Iran’s leadership – with Mojtaba at the helm – HEU goes way beyond a technical asset; it’s the ultimate fusion of sovereignty, deterrence, leverage, and political survival.

2. China has delivered state-of-the-art strategic defense systems to Iran – including shoulder-fired MANPADs – routed covertly through third countries (and that’s why I could not get any official confirmation two weeks before in Shanghai).

The breakdown: a total, operationally active China-Iran-Pakistan strategic alignment is in effect.

Is an Islamabad Accord still possible?

As it stands, none of us – including our sources – know whether a nuclear weapon detonated on Iranian soil would have been developed exclusively by Iran [they do have the scientific capability]; or with possible Russian, Pakistani or North Korean help. All options are plausible.

According to Prof. Ted Postol at MIT, Iran could easily convert 450 kg of 65% uranium hexafluoride into approximately 85% weapons grade: all that is needed for a low yield weapon, to be mounted into at least 10 missile delivery systems capable of reaching Israel. That means, at a minimum, 10 nuclear bombs.

Technically this sort of low yield weapon can be designed, Postol explains, with the use of a neutron reflector made of depleted uranium – or beryllium/tungsten carbide – and positioned immediately around the fissile core. It reflects escaping neutrons back into the nuclear material to increase fission efficiency, and reduces the required critical mass. In a nutshell: less material and more bombs.

Very important: a draft of this column was submitted earlier last week to a top Iranian official, part of the extremely tight circle around Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. His reaction: “I won’t comment on this matter”.

Beyond this no-response response, what became instantly clear is the verified transmission of the most consequential back-channel communication of the no war/no peace crisis.

It goes like this: Pezeshkian talks to Sharif; Sharif talks to Dar; Dar talks to Rubio; Rubio talks to Trump; Dar talks to Rubio face to face (during his Washington briefing).

All that throws new light over the – subsequently broken – 60-day ceasefire, the fragile off-ramp desperately needed by Trump. This framework has been organized by Pakistan and structurally backed by China – as I confirmed in Shanghai.

Tehran has insisted on the order of the proceedings, over and over again. First, all wars must stop, especially the offensive by the death cult over Lebanon. Then enter the modalities to restore trade traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The third and last stage is to resume some sort of meaningful nuclear dialogue.

On The Big Picture, a serious structural rewrite is already on – whatever nasty ceasefire-breaking surprises may lie ahead.

As it stands: the Abraham Accords are for all practical purposes dead; Saudi Arabia has frozen all back-channel Israel “normalization” discussions; Qatar and Oman are quietly drafting military transition timelines to phase out the U.S. from West Asia. And most crucially, a new West Asia security architecture is rapidly coalescing outside the American “protective” umbrella, driven by The Four Sunnis: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt.

Last Thursday, again on Power Shift (our YouTube page was still active), Zulfiqar Ali, Larry Johnson and I identified a possible Islamabad Accord as the emerging framework for ending the U.S.-Iran war – way before Western MSM had recognized it as the organizing architecture.

We also identified the mechanism driving it: non-stop Pakistani shuttle diplomacy, quietly but decisively backed by China.

We laid out the two-phase roadmap: first, an immediate ceasefire and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz (Iran agrees with both); second, a short negotiating window to finalize the broader political and financial settlement.

We reported that the extremely contentious release of Iran’s frozen assets was not a speculative talking point, but an active lever in the process. That asset release and possible sanctions relief were being treated as concrete confidence-building measures.

We also reported that a high-level Iranian delegation – including Parliament leader Ghalibaf, FM Abbas Araghchi, and Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati – would travel to Doha in connection with the frozen-funds track.

That was later confirmed across the spectrum, including the fact that the central-bank component was tied directly to frozen assets.

We also advanced that Islamabad could become the stage for the final political act, including a possible Trump visit, alongside Pezeshkian: yet now that possibility seems as remote as ever.

China is just watching the river flow

These are the facts, as it stands:

Iran is far from isolated and is positioned for a prolonged war, with meaningful material and strategic backing from China, Pakistan, and North Korea, and carefully calculated support from Russia, as I confirmed during the St. Petersburg forum.

The U.S. is paralyzed. The Trump administration may appear to want an off-ramp; but it is totally constrained by pressure from the death cult in West Asia – as we’ve seen this weekend; exhausted escalation pathways; and the absence of a decisive military option that can alter the chessboard without creating an infinitely more unmanageable crisis.

The Gulf petro-monarchies are terrified about a possible resumption of the war – with the principal exception of the UAE.

The leaves Islamabad as the only exit route in town, with Field Marshal Asim Munir positioned as the indispensable intermediary; and Beijing and Moscow following everything closely, in some respects actively shaping the outer frame.

The bombing of southern Beirut on June 6 was perpetrated once again at a critical moment in the negotiations, as pointed out by Mohammad Mokhber, a top advisor to Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and a member of Iran’s Expediency Council:

“By bombing Lebanon during the presence of the mediator in Iran [he was referring to Asim Munir], the enemy set the negotiating table on fire for the third time to shout about the repeated violations of the ceasefire in all areas. We speak to the violators with the language of ‘power’; the axis of resistance is a unified body, and they will definitely receive a heavy and painful price for this aggression in the field.”

The death cult bombing of southern Beirut led to a frankly surrealist spectacle: the Trump administration scrambling after the Pakistani mediator in Tehran, begging him to intercede with the Iranians for de-escalation. The Emperor who wanted to destroy Iranian civilization had to ask Pakistan to salvage what could still be salvaged.

That means, as we reported, that with Iran setting the terms of escalation and raising its deterrence potential, and with Trump left with no cards at all, the only possible solution lies with diplomacy via Islamabad.

This week on Power Shift, in three consecutive shows from Monday to Wednesday, we will dig deeper into the intel and the diplomacy beneath these tectonic twists.

And then, of course, there’s the intriguing Chinese angle.

U.S. Think Tankland will become totally paralyzed when they finally realize that by injecting advanced military hardware into the Iranian theater of war, Beijing is actively road-testing the limits of American hegemonic coercion.

And if push comes to shove, and Iran is forced into a nuclear demonstration for all the world to see, China will acquire an inexorable proof-of-concept that U.S. deterrence is hollow.

One has to marvel at the engineering of such a massive strategic masterclass – without firing a single shot.

President Trump is grappling with his own version of the sort of Middle East crisis that beset his predecessors, and that he promised to avoid.

© Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

On a rare visit to North Korea, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, projected unity but also sought to remind Kim Jong-un that he is the senior partner in their alliance.

© Pedro Pardo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

He used the pandemic to ruthlessly tighten his grip on the country. Then he energized its economy by leveraging Russia’s war in Ukraine.

© Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

In a lengthy interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the president again vowed that gas prices would go down when the war in Iran ends.

© Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

President Trump’s boasts of securing a commitment from Iranian leaders not to develop a nuclear weapon have puzzled nuclear experts who note that Tehran has made that pledge for more than 50 years.

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

As Xi Jinping visits Pyongyang, he faces an emboldened North Korean dictator, whose alliance with Russia has reduced his dependence on China.

© Florence Lo/Reuters

The Director of National Intelligence is reigniting the debate over risky research conducted outside U.S. territory, accusing the Biden administration of having concealed the true extent of American involvement.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has announced the launch of a large-scale investigation covering more than 120 biological laboratories operating in approximately thirty countries and receiving U.S. government funding. More than forty of these sites are located in Ukraine. The initiative, led by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), is part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to overhaul research practices related to gain-of-function studies involving dangerous pathogens.

Serious Accusations Against the Previous Administration

In her official statement, Gabbard sharply criticized officials from the Biden administration as well as former senior health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci. She accuses them of having deliberately downplayed — or even concealed — the true scope of U.S. involvement in overseas research on high-risk pathogens.
“The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the catastrophic global impact that research on dangerous pathogens conducted in biological laboratories can have,” said Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence.
Under the new directive, intelligence agencies are tasked with reviewing all laboratories in question: what pathogens are being studied, what experiments are being conducted, and whether this work poses a threat to public or national security.

Ukraine at the Center of Tensions

The investigation also reignites the controversy surrounding Ukrainian biological laboratories. During the Russian invasion in 2022, the Biden administration had denied the existence of any American installations in Ukraine — until Victoria Nuland, a senior State Department official, acknowledged in congressional testimony the existence of biological research sites, whose contents U.S. authorities feared could fall into Russian hands.
According to U.S. authorities, some of these laboratories were originally funded under the Pentagon’s Cooperative Threat Reduction program, established after the Cold War to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

A Murky Financial Record

The Pentagon’s oversight body had previously determined that more than $1.4 billion had been committed abroad for gain-of-function-type research between 2014 and 2023. It also acknowledged its inability to fully account for all experiments conducted on potentially enhanced pandemic pathogens.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) had separately concluded that research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology between 2014 and 2021 had violated the terms of its grants, having increased the infectivity of bat coronaviruses by up to 10,000 times — while formally denying any direct link to the origin of the pandemic.

The Pentagon’s Response

“The previous administration funded dangerous gain-of-function research and foreign biological laboratories with American taxpayer money, then deliberately hid it from the American people. The era of lies and betrayal is over,” added Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth expressed his full support for the initiative, aligning himself with the rhetoric of rupture championed by the Trump administration since the beginning of its term. President Trump had also previously signed an executive order banning federal funding for gain-of-function research in countries deemed insufficiently regulated, such as China and Iran.

Sources: ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence), Pentagon, congressional hearing transcripts.Sonnet 4.6Adaptatif

Ukraine : The Pentagon’s biological laboratories exist

L’article Biological Laboratories: Investigation into 120 Sites Funded by Washington est apparu en premier sur FrenchDailyNews.

The US is considering increased deployment of nuclear weapons to additional NATO member states across Europe, as it seeks to reassure allies that a reduction in American troops would not weaken its security commitment.

US officials have indicated they are open to considering an expansion beyond the six countries that currently host aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The highly confidential talks may not lead to any policy change. However, they come as European allies grow increasingly uneasy over President Donald Trump’s moves to withdraw American troops and key weapons systems from the continent.

NATO weighs wider US nuclear weapons role in Europe

A possible expansion would allow more allied countries to host dual-capable aircraft, which can carry both conventional and nuclear weapons, according to the Financial Times. People familiar with the discussions said Washington wants to demonstrate that it remains committed to NATO’s nuclear umbrella, even as European governments face pressure to shoulder a larger share of conventional defense spending.

Countries on NATO’s eastern flank have shown particular interest, including Poland and some Baltic states. Warsaw has repeatedly said publicly that it hopes to host nuclear weapons, while former Polish President Andrzej Duda previously called for NATO’s nuclear-sharing program to be extended to Poland.

Sources cited by the newspaper said the issue remains under discussion within NATO structures. Countries closest to Russia’s borders appear to be the most willing to participate.

Russia’s war in Ukraine drives nuclear deterrence debate

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, alongside repeated references by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Moscow’s nuclear capabilities, has increased interest among NATO allies in hosting such facilities.

Still, people following the talks stressed that an agreement to expand the current hosting arrangements for US nuclear weapons does not appear imminent. At present, NATO’s nuclear-sharing program includes Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The weapons remain under US control, and Washington retains sole authority over any decision to activate them.

US troop reductions concerning for allies

The Trump administration’s recent decisions to cancel the deployment of major weapons systems in Europe and withdraw troops have unsettled several NATO allies. The moves form part of a broader shift of US military resources toward Asia and other strategic theaters.

Although European defense spending has increased, many allies still view the American nuclear deterrent as an irreplaceable pillar of European security. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte recently said that, despite the gradual shift of US strategic attention toward other geopolitical fronts, “the overall deterrence and defense capability in Europe must remain unchanged.”

“If anyone is foolish enough to attack us, the response will be devastating,” Rutte said.