The Front Page: How Close Is Iran to the Bomb?

It’s Wednesday, September 4, and this is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. 

Today: a Palestinian “traitor” writes a letter to his Israeli neighbors; Olivia Reingold parties with the frat bros who saved the American flag; Bloomberg caves to the tiniest of mobs; and much more. But first: Jay Solomon’s Iran exclusive. 

The world is a dangerous place right now. Hardly a day goes by without a reminder of that fact. Yesterday, it was the news out of Ukraine, where two Russian missiles hit the Ukrainian city of Poltava, killing at least 51 people and wounding more than 200 others. Before that it was Hamas’s murder of six hostages in southern Gaza. By one count there are 56 active conflicts ongoing today, more than at any point since the Second World War. And alongside headlines about the world’s major hot wars are signs that the new cold war may be warming up: China’s coast guard ramming Filipino vessels in the South China Sea—a now routine practice—or a Chinese spy plane violating Japanese airspace—that was last week—or Beijing saber-rattling over Taiwan.  

In other words, things aren’t great. But they can always get worse!

One way in which things could get a lot worse would be if Iran—the power behind so much of the bloodshed in the Middle East today—acquired nuclear weapons. 

How close is Iran to getting the bomb? Closer than many experts seem to think, according to Free Press investigative reporter Jay Solomon. Today he reports on documents translated by The Free Press that reveal how Iran’s parliament is expanding the funding and military pursuits of Tehran’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, a secretive body that reports directly to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei—with no civilian oversight—and is charged with researching advanced and nonconventional weapons. 

One former UN weapons inspector says the documents show Tehran’s brazenness and desire to make known its growing capabilities. They also suggest that Western assumptions about Tehran’s willingness to strike a new nuclear deal are dangerously mistaken.  

Click to read Jay Solomon’s full exclusive: “How Close Is Iran to the Bomb?” 

(Kate Medley for The Free Press)

You may recall the image of the frat boys who saved the American flag from a mob of anti-Israel protesters at UNC at Chapel Hill earlier this year. You may also recall that a GoFundMe raised more than half a million dollars for them to throw the mother of all ragers. Well, that party—dubbed Flagstock—was on Labor Day. Hooters provided the wings, and the organizers went all out. Would it live up to the hype? The intrepid Olivia Reingold was there to find out. Read her dispatch here: “Party in the U-S-A.” 

Honestly listeners will remember the recent episode featuring the Palestinian “traitor” who risked everything to condemn Hamas’s October 7 attack. (You can listen to that interview here.) Today we publish a letter from him to the families of the Israeli hostages murdered last week. As he writes, “If I’m a traitor for saying that murdering and kidnapping innocent women, babies, and the elderly is wrong then yes, I am a traitor. If I’m a traitor for weeping alone in my bedroom over the murder of six more innocent souls by terrorists who are on the side of endless death and destruction, then yes, call me a traitor.” Click here for the full message: “A Letter to My Israeli Neighbors.”

Oasis brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher in 1995. (Photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images)

• Sixty-nine percent of likely voters in November’s election say they think America’s best days are ahead of us, compared to just 17 percent who think they are behind us. The majority is right in this case, argues Ben Dreyfuss—and they’ll still be right, no matter who wins in November. 

• Polling for The Wall Street Journal shows that Kamala Harris still faces major hurdles in her effort to rebuild the coalition that delivered the White House for Joe Biden in 2020. Support for the Democratic presidential nominee is up 13 percentage points among black voters compared to when Biden left the race in July, but Harris still trails Biden’s level of support in 2020 by ten points with that demographic. 

• On Tuesday, New York governor Kathy Hochul’s former deputy chief of staff was charged with spying for the Chinese government. Linda Sun, 40, along with her husband Chris Hu, 41, was allegedly paid millions of dollars to wield her influence to the Chinese Communist Party’s advantage. Meanwhile, a report released by Graphika, a social network analysis company, uncovered links between the CCP and a cross-platform “spamouflage” operation, with fake social media accounts posing as U.S. nationals and advocacy groups designed to wreak havoc ahead of the election.

• Since denying the results of the Venezuelan election in July and refusing to step down, Nicolás Maduro has prosecuted a brutal crackdown on dissent. He escalated his effort to snuff out all opposition this week by issuing an arrest warrant for Edmundo González, the opposition candidate who won a clear majority of votes. González has been charged with falsifying documents, conspiracy, and usurpation. ICYMI: Read Jonathan Jakubowicz’s Free Press story on the fallout from the election and the Venezuelans, “Fighting for Freedom ‘Until the End.’ ” 

• NYPD sources estimate that three in four of the people arrested in Midtown Manhattan for violent crimes are migrants. And thanks to New York’s status as a sanctuary city, local police cannot coordinate with ICE when suspects are believed to have entered the U.S. illegally. 

• Oasis fans are looking back in anger (sorry) on the sale of tickets for the band’s 2025 reunion tour over the weekend. “Dynamic pricing,” where prices are adjusted in real time to respond to demand, meant the cost of seeing the beloved band soared while fans were in the online box office queue. The outrage is so great that Britain’s Labour government has pledged to take action. Meanwhile, free marketeers say: Roll with it. (Okay, I’ll stop now.) 

→ America charges Hamas leaders with terrorism: The Justice Department has charged Hamas leaders with terrorism offenses for kidnapping and murdering American citizens on October 7, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday. The six individuals include Yahya Sinwar, the group’s chief who is believed to be hiding in Gaza; two military leaders who were killed during fighting in Gaza; and Ismail Haniyeh, who was Hamas’s political leader until he was assassinated in Tehran in July. As well as being the first step in the U.S. effort to hold Hamas criminally accountable for the attack in Israel, the complaint also sets up an intriguing diplomatic dilemma in the region. Alongside Sinwar, the other two living leaders named are Ali Baraka, who is based in Beirut, and Khaled Mashal, who is based in Qatar. My colleague Jay Solomon explains why that matters: 

The U.S. indictments of the Hamas leaders could significantly increase pressure on Qatar, designated a major non-NATO ally by Joe Biden in 2022. Khaled Mashal has been based in Doha since 2012 and regularly uses Qatar’s al-Jazeera media network to spread Hamas’s political messaging. Qatar could now face Department of Justice extradition demands for those named in the court filings. Ismail Haniyeh was based out of offices in Qatar and Turkey until his assassination in Iran. Qatar could also face new lawsuits from victims of Hamas terrorism, whose legal teams could cite the recent indictments.

→ Bloomberg caves to the tiniest of mobs: Journalist Olivia Nuzzi recently launched a new interview show on Bloomberg. It was titled Working Capital and given a big PR push when it first aired in July. But Semafor’s Max Tani reports that the splashy rollout for the show was shelved after Nuzzi published a story in New York magazine about “the conspiracy of silence” around Joe Biden’s age. This prompted a small group of Democrats on Twitter to dig up some of Olivia’s old tweets—which were jokes they evidently didn’t get (or chose not to get)—and accuse her of being a racist. Bloomberg’s PR team presumably saw this small fuss and ran scared.

Here’s the full rundown of this tempest in a teacup. It’s not the biggest media scandal of the year, but it’s a revealing window into how wrong things have gone in the legacy media. Bloomberg—a company that generated $12.5 billion in revenue last year—saw a few angry activists on social media and balked. The group it caved to was hardly a mob, more a tiny huddle of hard-core partisans. Olivia herself nailed the dynamic in her comment to Semafor: 

When I write something that agitates the right, I am accused of being a liberal activist. When I write something that agitates the left, I am accused of being a conservative activist. The difference is that mainstream media organizations tend to ignore bad-faith campaigns against reporters led by the right. I have no illusions about massive corporate media entities and their tolerance for even the faintest murmurs of a PR crisis, so I can’t say I was surprised, but I was disappointed. 

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Oliver Wiseman is a writer and editor for The Free Press. Follow him on X @ollywiseman. 

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