Sen Sheehy warns of Iran’s ‘murderous regime’ as nuclear deal sparks debate
Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., weighed in on the latest nuclear-related peace talks with Iran, cautioning that Tehran may be using diplomacy to stall for time. He pointed to the regime’s declared hostility toward the West, including its stated aim to “wipe our civilization off the map,” and cited its long history of financing terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Sheehy emphasized that Washington must continue standing firmly with Middle East partners, including Israel and the United Arab Emirates, in confronting what he described as a global threat.
Foreign policy analysts are urging the Trump administration to keep close tabs on Iran’s conduct, particularly regarding Hezbollah, the Tehran-backed terror proxy with a history of attacks tied to American casualties.
Hezbollah’s strategic value to Tehran is underscored in the sweeping U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding. Although the group is not specifically named, the first clause of the 14-point MOU calls for a lasting halt to military operations across all fronts, including an end to hostilities in Lebanon.
Lisa Daftari, editor-in-chief, told News Agency that “Hezbollah isn’t just the Iran regime’s most prized proxy; it’s the crown jewel of the regime’s forward defense. For almost five decades, the Islamic Republic has invested billions building Hezbollah into a forward-deployed missile arsenal aimed directly at Israel’s heart.” She added that “Losing Hezbollah would hurt the mullahs more than losing the Strait of Hormuz or anything else in their arsenal. That’s why Hezbollah is clause one,” of the MOU.
TOP SENATE REPUBLICAN SLAMS TRUMP’S IRAN AGREEMENT, ARGUES $300 BILLION MAKES OBAMA-ERA DEAL LOOK LIKE “A PITTANCE”
Hezbollah al-Mahdi scouts march with large portraits of Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Khomeini and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a Jerusalem Day event in Nabatiyeh, Lebanon, on Aug. 1, 2013. (Hussein Malla/AP Photo)
Daftari described Hezbollah as “a forward-deployed arm of the IRGC Quds Force taking Lebanon hostage.” She said “the IRGC created Hezbollah in 1982, trained it, armed it, funded it, and to this day embeds Quds Force commanders inside its command structure. Treating them as separate organizations is a fiction Tehran exploits.”
The State Department did not respond to News Agency questions about criticism of the administration’s approach to Hezbollah. However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio adopted a hard line on the terror group Tuesday when reporters in the United Arab Emirates asked about Tehran’s proxy network and why Iran’s ballistic missile program was not included in the recent Islamabad memorandum of understanding (MOU).
Rubio insisted that regional proxy threats are fundamentally covered by the framework. “I think a careful reading of the MOU will see that when you talk about, for example, a complete – an end of hostilities in the entire region, well, that’s not possible. You can’t have the end of hostilities and conflicts in the region as long as Iranian proxies are launching missiles and drones from Iraq and are participating in terrorism like Hamas did and like Hezbollah did. So I do think it’s covered by the MOU, and it is an issue that will be gotten to at the appropriate time in these negotiations.”
American Marines search for survivors and bodies in the rubble of their barracks headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, after a suicide car bomb killed 241 U.S. servicemen and wounded over 60 on Oct. 24, 1983. (Peter Charlesworth/LightRocket)
Hezbollah was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. in 1997. Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense for Democracies (FDD) and editor of its Long War Journal, told News Agency that “Hezbollah has a five-decade-long track record of killing Americans, starting with the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983, attacks on U.S. embassies and airplane hijackings.”
Roggio said the efforts “continue to this day,” with Hezbollah playing “a key role in establishing, training, advising and supporting the Iraqi militias, which are responsible for killing more than 600 American soldiers. Hezbollah also trained al Qaeda to use suicide car bombs, which it implemented in the 1998 suicide attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and perfected in theaters such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.”
In May 2025, A U.S. District Court determined that the torture of Lebanese American Amer Fakhoury was the responsibility of Iran, through its proxy Hezbollah. Fakhoury lost sixty pounds during a six-month period of captivity after being kidnapped by Hezbollah in Lebanon in September 2019. He died six months after his return to the U.S. of cancer that was diagnosed in prison in Lebanon.
As U.S.-Iran talks opened Sunday in Switzerland, a dispute over who controls and monitors billions of dollars in potentially unfrozen Iranian assets emerged (Fabrice Coffrini/Pool via REUTERS)
Zoya and Guila Fakhoury, Amer’s daughters and co-founders of the Amer Foundation, told News Agency that their “family wants to see a peaceful, sovereign, and prosperous Lebanon” and welcomes “any effort that genuinely reduces violence and helps Lebanon move toward stability.”
EXCLUSIVE: Meet Pien Meulensteen: Sky Sports Star and Daughter of the Coach Behind Cristiano Ronaldo's Success
The Fakhoury’s said that “lasting peace cannot come at the expense of accountability. True stability in Lebanon requires ensuring that terrorist organizations like Hezbollah no longer hold the power to intimidate, detain, and silence innocent people.”
They expressed disappointment that there has been “little public focus on the Americans who remain unjustly detained by the Iranian regime.” They added that “Any meaningful agreement with Iran should include concrete progress toward bringing every wrongfully detained American home.”
Amer Fakhoury is shown before his illegal detention in Lebanon and after his rescue from hospital with cancer. His New Hampshire family seeks justice from Iran for his imprisonment. (Fakhoury Family)
A U.S. official told News Agency that “The Trump Administration is committed to securing the release of all Americans unjustly detained in Iran and around the world. The Iranian regime has a long and shameful history of unjustly detaining U.S. nationals and other foreign citizens. The Iranian regime should immediately release all Americans unjustly detained in Iran. To ensure the safety and security and security of those Americans, we have nothing further to share at this time.”
As talks brokered by the U.S. between Lebanese and Israeli officials resumed in Washington, the Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, released a statement on his X account Tuesday, thanking the Vice President and Secretary of State, stating in part “for the attention that the United States is showing toward Lebanon, aimed at ending the war there, strengthening the authority of the Lebanese state, and the independence of its decision-making, considering it solely responsible for preserving national sovereignty, the dignity of the Lebanese people, and their safety.”
The U.S. delegation including Steve Witkoff, JD Vance and Jared Kushner arrived in Switzerland on Sunday (REUTERS/Nathan Howard/Pool)
Walid Phares, a foreign policy expert and author of ‘Iran: An Imperialist Republic and U.S. Policy,’ told News Agency that it was “a major mistake…to give the Islamic regime in Iran a power to include Lebanon and Hezbollah in the talks. He warned that “putting Lebanon on the agenda of the talks with the regime in Switzerland could collapse the Washington, D.C. platform.”
Pressed by reporters while in Kuwait on Wednesday about Israel’s continued military presence, Rubio drew a firm line on the administration’s expectations, stating its hope is “that the Lebanese Armed Forces and the legitimate, sovereign Lebanese government will continue to be able to control and secure more and more of their own territory – because that’s who needs to control Lebanese territory, not a terrorist group like Hezbollah. So that’s the goal. And I think the Israelis have been clear. They don’t have any quarrels with the Lebanese people, they don’t have any claims on the territory of Lebanon.”
Michael Needham, counselor for the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh Moawad, and Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter pose for a photo before a meeting at the State Department in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 2026. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)
Jonathan Conricus, a former international spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, told News Agency that “From an Israeli perspective, Hezbollah is not an organization that we can talk with or expect them to change their ways.” He said that as a jihadi organization, “their primary objective in life is to wage holy war against the Jews, and then against Christians and against other what they consider to be infidels and Westerners. These are not people that you can negotiate or talk sense with.”
Conricus, a senior fellow at the FDD, added that “there’s a unique chance here to roll back Iranian aggression in the region and to dismantle the most important Iranian proxy Hezbollah.” To do so, he called for “political pressure, information pressure and…economic pressure on Hezbollah [and] on all of its financial institutions.”
A deliverman rides a motorcycle along a road in Baghdad past billboards showing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Hassan Nasrallah, the slain leader of Hezbollah, on Oct. 7, 2024. (Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP)
A U.S. government official told News Agency that “Secretary Rubio spoke to both [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] and Aoun on Friday about solidifying ceasefire and future talks. As a result of those calls, the U.S. started a monitoring mechanism via [U.S. Central Command] so that our policymakers have real-time and accurate information about fighting in Lebanon.”
The Washington talks between Lebanon and Israel are expected to continue into Thursday.
