Follow us on social

Why no one should take this hawkish think tank seriously

Why no one should take this hawkish think tank seriously

A recent graph FDD’s CEO shared on X regarding the Iran nuclear deal encapsulates why he and his org should be ignored

Analysis | QiOSK

Foundation for the Defense of Democracies CEO Mark Dubowitz shared a graphic on the X platform this week purporting to place blame on President Biden for Iran’s increasing stockpile of high enriched uranium — material that can be used in nuclear weapons — when in reality it’s Dubowitz, his organization and their allies in the Trump administration that are largely responsible.

“Facts are stubborn things,” Dubowitz said before showing the graphic. “Iran’s nuclear expansion has occurred under the Biden administration’s failed Iran policy of maximum concessions.”

It’s unclear what “maximum concessions” Dubowitz is referring to, but facts are indeed stubborn things and the reality is that this graphic is nowhere near close to providing the full picture of how we got to where we are today with Iran’s nuclear program. In fact, Iran’s nuclear expansion actually began before Biden took office after President Trump withdrew from the Iran deal (or JCPOA, as the nuclear agreement is known) in 2018. While Iran’s program has grown since Biden took office in the absence of any re-agreed upon limits, it would still largely be frozen where it was in 2015 had Trump remained in the deal.

So let’s look at the stubborn facts: Under the terms of the 2015 deal, Iran limited its uranium enrichment purification to 3.6% — or the amount needed for civilian energy purposes — and capped its stockpile of low enriched uranium to no more than 300 kg. In July 2019, or approximately one year after Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, Iran began to increase its stockpile of low enriched uranium above that 300 kg limit and announced that it was enriching to 4.5%, or slightly closer to the 90% needed for nuclear weapons. Dubowitz’s graph does not provide this information.

In other words, “Iran’s nuclear expansion” as Dubowitz put it, began during the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign that Dubowitz and FDD played a major role in crafting. FDD also played an outsized role in pushing Trump to withdraw from the JCPOA.

So Dubowitz ignores this fact entirely and instead misleadingly focuses on Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 20% and 60% purity, or near weapons-grade. But here again, what Dubowitz’s graph doesn’t show is that Iran began enriching uranium to 20% before Biden came into office, a move the U.S. intelligence community has attributed to the assassination of a top Iranian nuclear scientist in November, 2020. After that, the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Annual Threat Assessment states, Iran “accelerated the expansion of its nuclear program [and] stated that it is no longer constrained by any JCPOA limits.”

Another stubborn fact that Dubowitz omits is that by November 2020, Iran had increased its stockpile of low enriched uranium by 12 times the limit allowed by the JCPOA and shortened its break out time — or the time that Iran would need to produce the materials for one nuclear weapon — from one year under the JCPOA terms to between three to four months.

There are a myriad other ways in which Iran expanded its nuclear program after Trump withdrew and before Biden took office, including using more advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium and other measures which you can read about here.

The bottom line is that this is another one of Dubowitz’s brazen attempts to absolve himself and his organization from the responsibility for the failures of withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal and the subsequent “maximum pressure” campaign that failed to bring Tehran to its knees and eliminate its nuclear program (and perhaps even foment regime change).

Despite this, and the many other wildly false or misleading claims Dubowitz makes regarding Iran (and Israel), many major U.S. media outlets continue to use him as a source on these issues. Perhaps that’s why, in part, we shouldn’t be surprised that Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than it’s ever been and U.S.-Iran tensions remain high with no sense of de-escalation in sight.


Screengrab via youtube.com/@PBSNewsHour

Analysis | QiOSK
 Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Sudan
Top image credit: Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan gestures to soldiers inside the presidential palace after the Sudanese army said it had taken control of the building, in the capital Khartoum, Sudan March 26, 2025. Sudan Transitional Sovereignty Council/Handout via REUTERS

Saudi Arabia chooses sides in Sudan's civil war

Africa

In the final days of Ramadan, before Mecca's Grand Mosque, Sudan's de facto president and army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan knelt in prayer beside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Al-Burhan had arrived in the kingdom just two days after his troops dealt a significant blow to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), recapturing the capital Khartoum after two years of civil war. Missing from the frame was the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Gulf power that has backed al-Burhan’s rivals in Sudan’s civil war with arms, mercenaries, and political cover.

The scene captured the essence of a deepening rift between Saudi Arabia and the UAE — once allies in reshaping the Arab world, now architects of competing visions for Sudan and the region.

For two years, Sudan has been enveloped in chaos. The conflict that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed forces (SAF) and the RSF, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo "Hemedti," has inflicted immense suffering: an estimated 150,000 killed, allegations of mass atrocities staining both sides but particularly the RSF in Darfur, 12 million displaced, and over half the population facing acute food insecurity.

keep readingShow less
Donald Trump Massad Boulos
Top image credit: Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump is joined by Massad Boulos, who was recently named as a 'senior advisor to the President on Arab and Middle Eastern Affairs,' during a campaign stop at the Great Commoner restaurant in Dearborn, Michigan, U.S., on November 1, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo

Trump tasks first time envoy with the most complex Africa conflict

Africa

As the war between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and allied militias against the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group continues, the Trump administration is reportedly tapping Massad Boulos as the State Department’s special envoy to the African Great Lakes region.

In this capacity, Boulos will be responsible for leading the American diplomatic effort to bring long-desired stability to the region and to end a conflict that has been raging in the eastern DRC for decades.

keep readingShow less
Sens. Paul and Merkley to Trump: Are we 'stumbling' into another war?
Top photo credit: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) (Gage Skidmore /Creative Commons) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) )( USDA photo by Preston Keres)

Sens. Paul and Merkley to Trump: Are we 'stumbling' into another war?

QiOSK

Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have co-written a letter to the White House, demanding to know the administration’s strategy behind the now-18 days of airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

The letter calls into question the supposed intent of these strikes “to establish deterrence,” acknowledging that neither the Biden administration’s strikes in October 2023, nor the years-long bombing campaign by Saudi Arabia from 2014 to 2020, were successful in debilitating the military organization's military capabilities.

keep readingShow less

Trump transition

Latest

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.