JERUSALEM, Israel – Despite conflicting and sometimes contradictory messages, U.S. and Iranian negotiators have completed their first round of talks in Switzerland, as President Trump warned that the threat of force by the U.S. against Iran remains on the table.
Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that the opportunity has arisen to “turn over a new leaf” between Iran and the U.S.
“Never before has the Iranian and American leadership met at such a high level,” he stated. “What the president has asked us to do is turn over a new leaf to transform our relationship with the people of Iran and to extend an outstretched hand that says to the people of Iran that if your leadership is willing to give up being a driver of regional instability.”
One condition of that new leaf is for Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. Yet, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian insists that is non-negotiable.
“We will not submit to force, oppression and humiliation. We will not give up the right to enrichment either. And they have to accept that,” he declared.
While Vance talks about a transformation, President Trump is threatening to renew strikes on Iran because it supports Hezbollah. On Truth Social, he posted, “Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble. If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
Tehran wants to tie the talks to Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) also told CBS News that the president is ready for the next step if the talks fail.
“I spent four and a half hours with President Trump Friday,” Graham revealed. “Here’s what I think will happen next. If this deal fails, President Trump is going to take the Strait of Hormuz over by force. The United States will control the Strait of Hormuz.”
He continued,”We’ll charge a fee for all of those who go through to pay for the operation and we’re going to expand the Abraham Accords in the calendar year 2026 and we’re going to get Saudi Arabia to sign the Abraham Accords which is the biggest change in 5000 years in the Middle East and if Iran contests the control of the Strait of Hormuz, we’ll obliterate them.”
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Inside Lebanon, Israel Defense Forces uncovered a massive underground Hezbollah complex. The IDF also reported dozens of ceasefire violations by the terror group.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made two pledges Sunday night to an audience at the JNS International Policy Summit in Jersualem concerning a nuclear Iran and Lebanon.
The prime minister promised, “No matter what happens in the talks, with an agreement, without an agreement, I pledge to you that Iran, as long as I am Prime Minister of Israel, will never have a nuclear weapon. Never.”
And he added, “As long as we need to protect our people, we will remain in the security zone in South Lebanon.”
Netanyahu believes the conditions have been created for regime change in Tehran.
“That is what will be the real triumph, when the Iranian people take their own destiny in their hands, and they knock out this brutal regime that is terrorizing them and terrorizing the rest of the world,” he said.
The plight of the people of Iran has often been ignored in recent negotiations and debates over the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding.
Mariam Wahba from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies tells CBN News that the regime is targeting underground church leaders.
“The regime is looking for a scapegoat here,” she explained. They’re looking for someone to label as traitors, as enemies of the state, and as they really call it, enemies of God. The Persian speaking convert community Christians of Iran ends up being that scapegoat and ends up being prosecuted as what they call “Zionist traitors.”
Wahba added, “It’s why they continue to shutter churches, arrest Christians en masse and come up with new and creative ways to persecute both the indigenous communities of Iran and also the converted community of Iran. House churches have become a target, and these are all signs the regime is losing control.”
She argues that the MoU frees the regime.
She remarked, “What worries me most is that this gives the regime the ability to continue its crackdown on the Iranian people and the Christian population vis-à-vis the Iranian people.”
