This year is the 20th anniversary of the Six-Party Talks, established in 2003 to resolve the nuclear issue with North Korea. It’s an auspicious time for China, the host of the talks, to encourage North Korea to return to negotiations. Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the ensuing war there, the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the war in Gaza have diverted attention away from North Korea. North Korea is reportedly providing Russia with artillery shells and rockets for its war in Ukraine, and Hamas is reportedly using North Korean F-7 rocket-propelled grenades in its war with Israel. Hamas, a proxy of Iran, receives training, funding, and other support from Iran for its terrorist activities. North Korea continues to have a close relationship with Iran, having provided Tehran with rockets, missiles and weapons over the years in return for cash for its nuclear and missile programs. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been transparent in his relatively recent embrace of Russia. The warming of Russian-North Korean relations comes as North Korea has launched three intercontinental ballistic missiles this year. Since the failed Hanoi Summit in 2019, North Korea has eschewed any talks with the U.S. or South Korea while building more nuclear weapons and launching more sophisticated ballistic missiles, including hypersonic and cruise missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. And given the current alignment of North Korea with a revanchist Russia and Iran, chances are that North Korea may feel emboldened to challenge South Korea. Progress with China on the issue of North Korea, on the 20th anniversary of the Six-Party Talks, should be high on the list of President Biden’s priorities.

A U.N.-supported plan to rebuild Gaza without an Israeli occupation force, which would free the IDF to focus on other missions, would help drive a wedge between the irreconcilable Hamas terrorists and the Palestinians who deserve better. Planning and public messaging for post-Hamas Gaza should proceed in tandem with the IDF’s ground offensive. Second, following up on recent F-16 strikes against Iran-linked weapons and ammunition bases in eastern Syria, the U.S. must escalate its response to the recent spike in attacks from Iranian proxy militants on our forces in Syria and Iraq. A nuclear threshold state allied with Russia and China, Iran will continue to play regional arsonist as long as we allow it. The U.S. needs to reestablish dominance over Tehran by taking the fight more forcefully to its proxies. Third, the Biden administration should recognize Iran’s despotic mullahs have to deal with reformists in their own country. Iranians have a long history of protesting their country’s authoritarian rule, the latest example of which occurred after the September 2022 death of Masha Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police, after she rejected Iran’s hijab mandate for women. With their economy sputtering, many Iranians are opposed to spilling their country’s treasure to support proxy terrorists such as Hamas and Hezbollah, not to mention the Shiite militias in Iraq and Yemen’s Houthis. Iran is especially vulnerable to an information campaign directed against its miserable record on human rights at home and its barbaric warmongering overseas - if only the Biden administration would launch it.

Hamas will use both improvised explosive devices and explosively formed projectiles, which Shia militants in Iraq with links to Iran used to great effect against the U.S. military. While carrying out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s directive to “wipe Hamas off the face of the earth,” the Israel Defense Forces seek to spare the civilian population in Gaza and rescue hostages while avoiding fratricidal friendly fire. But scorning the international law of war principle about distinguishing between enemy combatants and civilians, Hamas will deliberately use the civilian Palestinian population as pawns to transform Gaza into a bloody kill zone. As the deadly blast at the Al-Ahil Baptist hospital in Gaza demonstrated, facts are in an uphill battle against the public narrative promulgated by Iranian, Hamas and Hezbollah spokesmen that Israel is deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians. The war in Gaza has upended, for the time being, any hope for a peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. should consider a three-pronged strategy to counter Iran based on lessons learned from the ill-fated U.S. 2003 invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. First, the U.S. needs to bring the full force of its diplomatic engagement with Israel and the region to ensure there is a postwar reconstruction plan for Gaza, one that addresses ordinary Palestinians’ legitimate grievances about economic opportunity, statehood and governance. Failure to do so in Iraq resulted in a bloody Sunni insurgency and the birth of al Qaeda there. The governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt are enemies of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot.

Back in 2010, the Arab Spring engulfed the Middle East, bringing with it levels of popular unrest not seen since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. It all started with a Tunisian fruit vendor’s self-immolation, after which protests, fueled by social media, spread rapidly, often in the form of a “day of rage” after Friday prayers, just like the one the leaders of Hamas called for on Oct. 13. Tunisia’s ruler at the time, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, fled to Saudi Arabia. In the ensuing regional turmoil, Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh were all deposed. The Arab Spring reflected a mass dissatisfaction that continues today, particularly among unemployed youth tired of a dearth of economic opportunities, endemic corruption and unresponsive government. The lessons of the period were not lost on Iran, which is exploiting Hamas’ war in Gaza to revive a social media-fueled information war to mobilize pro-Palestinian public opinion and weaken Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states. Iran’s strategic goals are to freeze the Abraham Accords normalizing Arab world ties with Israel, drive a wedge between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and undermine U.S. influence in the region. Hamas deliberately flooded social media with barbaric images of its murders of innocent Israeli men, women and children. Hamas knows Israel has no other choice but to mount a retaliatory ground offensive in Gaza. Hamas will continue to base its fighters in residential neighborhoods and use innocent civilians as shields, deploy snipers above ground while moving stealthily in underground tunnels.

Press China to minimize its support for Iran’s rogue regime. Washington should stress that unless Beijing encourages Tehran to compromise on its nuclear program and end its proxy attacks, Iran will likely continue along its current collision course with the U.S. and its allies. That could undermine Chinese economic interests in the region and disrupt regional oil exports that Beijing depends on. Enforce sanctions on China’s imports of Iranian oil. Washington should apply fresh sanctions targeting the shipping networks and Chinese companies that facilitate this oil trade. China’s economic future depends much more on stable economic relations with the United States than on its much smaller trade with Iran. Work with allies to undercut Chinese support for Iran. The Biden administration should boost the costs and risks to Beijing of closer ties with Tehran, not only in terms of Sino-American relations but also in terms of China’s relations with other states threatened by Iran. Chief among these are the Gulf Arab states and Israel. China currently has a much bigger economic and trade relationship with these countries than with Iran, and that imbalance is likely to grow further due to U.S. sanctions. The bottom line is that the Biden administration should end its self-defeating policy of eagerly seeking to revive the flawed 2015 nuclear deal by relaxing pressure on Iran. Returning to a maximum pressure approach is far more promising. Such a pivot on sanctions would not only improve the chances for a satisfactory outcome of nuclear negotiations with Iran, but would reduce Beijing’s economic incentives for building closer ties with Iran.

Iran’s theocratic dictatorship, locked into a confrontation with the United States, is drifting into China’s orbit. This has strengthened Iran’s ability to resist sanctions, eased its isolation and aided its efforts to achieve regional hegemony. But Iran needs China more than China needs Iran. Washington should exploit this asymmetry by driving up the costs to Beijing of close ties to Iran, reducing its economic benefits and curtailing the potential benefits to Tehran of close ties to China. The Biden administration should closely monitor Sino-Iranian ties and work with our allies to mitigate the dangers of this geopolitical alignment. Close cooperation with allies is necessary to enhance U.S. leverage over both China and Iran and help constrain, if not preclude, a full-blown Sino-Iranian alliance. Unwisely rejecting the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” sanctions strategy, the Biden administration has relaxed enforcement of many sanctions. This complacent and self-defeating policy has reduced U.S. diplomatic leverage over Iran. This, in turn, has diminished the prospects for a satisfactory outcome in the nuclear negotiations, encouraged a surge in illicit Iranian oil exports to China and lowered the barriers to greater Sino-Iranian cooperation. A return to the “maximum pressure” sanctions policy would not only increase the prospects of a satisfactory nuclear agreement with Tehran, but would diminish the perceived benefits for China of trade with Iran by reducing Iran’s ability to pay for Chinese imports and increasing the risk that the current Iranian regime will be overthrown by Iran’s long-suffering people. Ramping up sanctions also would undermine Tehran’s capacity to fund its military buildup and finance its network of proxy militias and terrorist groups.

In the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel, American politicians have lined up to see who can suggest the most aggressive response to the barbarity unleashed upon Israeli men, women and children. Moreover, Israel has always been a sturdy ally, and Israel deserves our support. Indeed, the attacks were no doubt encouraged by the Iranians. The Hamas attack on Israel were a conscious attempt to disrupt the trajectory in the Middle East toward peace and stability that has been carefully curated by American leaders for almost 50 years. It also goes without saying that no one should try to profit from the war crimes perpetrated by Hamas. Similarly, no one should try to profit from Russian war crimes. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell probably right. War can be profitable, especially for defense contractors. President Biden proposed combining spending ― more than $100 billion in total ― for the Ukrainians and the Israelis (and a token sum to defend our own border). Maybe it seems old-fashioned, but given that Mr. McConnell’s remarks that made the subtle part obvious ― that American companies and their lobbyists are cashing in from the war in Ukraine and now want to expand that profit center to a new war in the Middle East. Israel does not particularly need the cash. It already has the largest military in the Middle East, except for Saudi Arabia. Since Israel’s founding in 1948, the United States has given it $130 billion in military assistance. Mr. McConnell has noted that defense contractors stand to make a wheelbarrow full of cash on Ukraine funding.

This relationship was a two-way street as Iran provided North Korea with oil and missile test data. North Korean and Chinese teams frequently were in Iran to train and test, illustrating this toxic relationship. In 2010, Iran received 19 BM-25 missiles with a range of 2,000 miles (3,218 km), placing NATO countries under threat. North Korea’s ability to use Iran as a testing opportunity enhanced its own ability to develop long-range ballistic missiles. Thus, Iran and North Korea created a synthesis of production, experimentation, testing, development and deployment that allows both to become a nuclear weapons power with ICBM capabilities ultimately. This relationship is currently helping both parties develop submarine and cruise missile technology. The relationship has fostered cooperation and exchange in the realms of intelligence, underground facility production and special operations warfare. Both nations seem incredibly interested in potential EMP strikes against the United States. Further, this partnership extends to dangerous state and non-state actors such as Syria and Hezbollah. The nuclear threat looms large as another two-way street developed over centrifuge, enrichment, uranium and plutonium. It is clear that North Korea is facilitating Iran, becoming a nuclear weapons power One of the easiest paths of deception is to become obsessed with statistics rather than intent. We have understood the strategic intent of the North Korean and Iranian regimes for decades. There is long-standing proof of a toxic partnership directed at the heart of the American people. Future policies need to address the root of the problem, not become sucked into a vortex of never-ending debates about data points leading nowhere.

President Trump’s administration gave great attention to two toxic triangles that this author highlighted, though ignored by the mainstream media. They dubbed the first of these the “Axis of Resistance,” a self-declared malevolence of Iran, Syria and Hamas. The second underscored by then-National Security Adviser John Bolton was the “Troika of Tyranny” calling out Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. These were categories of evil that share duplicity, violence, atrocity, dictatorship and terrorism. We are now witnessing the debate of U.S.-Iran relations reach another fever pitch about Iran’s nuclear weapons program. This has always been a morass that deviates one’s attention from the actual story. As important as Iran’s weapons program’s issue is, it fundamentally misses the more significant point: the Iranian regime itself. The root problem is the Iranian regime. The symptom is their nuclear weapons program. However, not addressing the root problem leaves in place Iran’s Shiite empire-building in the Middle East, their collaboration and alliance with Syria and Russia, their state sponsorship of terrorism, their atrocities against their own people and their missile program. Related to the media’s misdirection over the Iranian situation is the relationship between Iran and North Korea. This relationship began with the fall of the shah’s government in 1979, when Iran joined North Korea as an enemy of the United States. In the 1980s, Iran purchased ballistic missiles from North Korea, often facilitated by China. As North Korean missile technology and nuclear weapons research amplified, so did Iranian missile capability,

Hamas is no militant organization; it is a terrorist organization. America’s progressives are socialists, and socialists have long supported the methods and ends of terrorists. Just as Hamas had intended to exterminate Israelis, the socialists rallied in the midst of the carnage. Both organizations have long legacies of using terror to exterminate and silence their opponents. The socialists’ embrace of terror is so long and so tight that only their attempts to foist their own history on to the right can obscure it. Sadly, we have been complicit in allowing them to do so. The Soviet Union? Its full name was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; it was founded on terror and survived on terror - the KGB and gulags. The Nazis, whom the left have tried to recast somehow as being attached to the right? It was the German Nationalist Socialist Workers Party. Even the fascists were socialists, despite the left’s insistent recasting. As the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises reminds us: “Nobody could surpass Mussolini in Marxian zeal … [and] from the dust-heap of discarded socialist utopias, the Fascist scholars salvaged the scheme of guild socialism.” So it is hardly surprising that New York’s socialists would so rapidly and readily coincide their embrace of Palestinian leaders with the fresh terror of those leaders’ terrorist government. There was only the bursting of the illusions of the misguided who had wished to see the socialists as something other than what they truly are. For too long, America’s left has socialized socialism and fixated on making fascism fashionable.