Mark Dubowitz

President Trump should direct his intelligence community to develop a plan to provide maximum support to the Iranian people, aimed at crippling the regime. My latest in @nypost on the futility of talks with the Islamist regime:

China specialist Bill Hayton publicly asked whether a Singapore-based geopolitical advisory firm approaching Western security analysts was a Chinese intelligence front. This led to @FDD_CCTI’s discovery of a wider network of suspicious consulting websites. Read here: fdd.org/analysis/2026/…

🚫 CLAIM: The Iranian commander for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Navy recently said on state-owned media that no foreign vessels may pass through the Strait of Hormuz without being identified, tracked, and monitored by Iranian forces. ✅ FACT: Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz. It remains an international waterway. U.S. forces are positioned and prepared to keep it that way.

There is a time for politics and a time for respect. The day a beloved U.S. senator who devoted his life to defending America dies is the latter. Rise above your differences. Be classy. Don’t be like this.

The Strait of Hormuz is open to all vessels seeking to lawfully transit the international waterway. U.S. forces are positioned and prepared to ensure that freedom of navigation remains available despite unwarranted Iranian aggression, harassment, threats, and arbitrary declarations. Iran does not control the strait. Traffic is flowing.

“Is there a rising Democrat who will give this speech — the one that says that Democrats stand for freedom and fairness, not radicalism and self-righteousness; the one that never disdains tradition even if it seeks to improve it; the one that knows that utopianism is no substitute for pragmatism, and that purity is not superior to compromise? That Democrat needs to stand up now, before his party gets swept away by the flood it vainly believes will soon recede.”

Democratic Socialists Are on the Rise. We’ve Seen This Movie Before. nytimes.com/2026/07/07/opi…

ICYMI: Tehran’s terror threats against Trump persist against a backdrop of instability in the Middle East and Strait of Hormuz. How serious are these threats and what do they mean for the road ahead? I joined @FWhitfield on @CNN Sat afternoon before the escalation to unpack.

Here is a picture of @RoKhanna in Hebron. The mayor of Hebron is a Palestinian named Tayseer Abu Sneineh. In 1980, he murdered 6 people, including 2 Americans. I wonder if Ro ever brought that up.

Such sad news. May his memory be a blessing.

I love Canada but its current path is truly suicidal. I tried my best for more than three decades to speak openly and honestly about some of the deeply troubling issues plaguing the country. Hopefully others will now continue the battle for the soul of Canada.

Had the JCPOA remained in effect, Iran would have built its missile, drone, military programs and proxy network even faster and necessitated military action. It was destined to collapse under its own contradictions. The JCPOA-provided nuclear expansion would be legal—no snapback sanctions, thousands of advanced centrifuges, no limit to enrichment. The former capabilities are now degraded, the latter nuclear ones are banned and buried. Takeaway: don’t feed the beast, ever. We are wasting time and leverage re-learning this lesson. fdd.org/analysis/2026/…

We just released a report on June 10 showing significant, new attempted reconstruction activity at Taleghan 2, based on new imagery. Links are in a separate post. High resolution Airbus satellite imagery obtained by the Institute and @vantortech imagery provided to the Institute by @CNN from June and early July of the Taleghan 2 site, located within the Parchin Military Complex, shows significant activities indicative of an Iranian commitment to repair and reconstruct the site. The Vantor imagery were shared with the Institute by CNN and are part of a CNN video report that aired on June 10. While imagery from early June indicates damage assessment and clean-up, including the removal of debris and temporary covering of the three impact holes of the buried facility, the newer imagery shows renewed activity at the impact holes for more permanent sealing as well as additional concrete hardening of the site.   This would be the second attempt of reconstruction at the site. The facility at Taleghan 2 was first destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2024, razed, and subsequently rebuilt with visible construction efforts starting in May 2025.  The construction site was not attacked in June 2025, and it is not clear whether the facility had reached operational status by the time Israel destroyed it again in March 2026.  At that time, Iran was still working on hardening the site further, following the encasement in concrete and coverage by earth.  When the IDF attacked the site, it described the site as one “used by the Iranian regime to advance nuclear weapons capabilities,” and “used in recent years to develop advanced explosives.” These advanced explosives are needed in Iran’s nuclear weapon initiation system called the shock wave generator, an innovative system that allowed for a miniaturized implosion design. The shock wave generator was fully developed in the Amad Plan in the early 2000s with help of at least one former Soviet nuclear weapons compression expert. The high purity high explosives used in the shock wave generator degrade and must be replaced periodically, necessitating ongoing manufacturing.

Turkey is not being denied the F-35 because of bureaucratic delay or anti-Turkish prejudice. Rather, the aircraft is being denied because it knowingly introduced a Russian intelligence-collection risk into NATO’s defense ecosystem and has refused to reverse course, writes @SinanCiddi: fdd.org/analysis/2026/…

The Selfie Generation Is the Baby Boomers’ Mistake wsj.com/opinion/the-se…

Iran oil stuck at sea surges as China's teapots turn to rival Middle East supplies, traders say reuters.com/business/energ…

As the Erdogan regime in Turkey’s aggressive rhetoric is matched only by its military deployments across the region, arming it with F-35s contrary to U.S. law is a head-scratcher. on.wsj.com/4perQsx

Looks like Vahidi survived this B2 strike in April during the U.S. F-15 rescue. Will he survive the next one? foxnews.com/world/centcom-…

🎙️ NEW Foreign Podicy: This week Iran fired on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz—violating the MOU which now appears to be a dead MOU. @zriboua of the @HudsonInstitute joins @CliffordDMay on the rising ideology reshaping global politics 👇 youtube.com/watch?v=DExP3f…