As the conflict with Iran continues, many elements of an ultimate deal have been explored. Issues such as nuclear weapons development, missile production, uranium divestiture and enrichment, foreign proxy financing, as well as activities in the region by Israel and Arab nations, have been scrutinized. In the meantime, it is well recognized that any deal with the Iranian regime is suspect; compliance has always been questionable, and efficient monitoring creates an even greater set of problems.

From the beginning, the notion of “regime change” has received much attention. For some, it means the termination of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. For others, it entails the complete elimination of all who have led and participated in the Iranian Revolution for decades. For others, it can be satisfied with a mere leadership change on the assumption, as with the US intervention in Venezuela, that new leaders may emerge who will lead the nation to greater cooperation with the US, turn away from fueling terror through proxies in other nations, and, because of an improved economy, be open to granting the general population greater individual freedoms.

One focus that has been completely absent from the public discussion concerns the regime’s own Constitution and whether amendments, if not a full overhaul, should be on the table. Of course, a change in a document does not guarantee a meaningful change in behavior. Nonetheless, the failure to agree to specified amendments, if not a totally new framework, demonstrates that true change of the type much of the world would appreciate is unlikely.

MICHAEL OREN: IRAN HAS WAGED WAR ON AMERICA FOR 47 YEARS — TIME TO END IT

The existing Constitution, formed in 1979 and subsequently amended in 1989, outlines a vision that is fully incompatible with Western principles and that has guided and given reason to all the regime has sought throughout its forty-seven-year existence. It also gives meaning to what has often been mistaken for mere hyperbolic cheerleading: “Death to America.”

While America was built on notions of liberty, individual freedoms, and limited government control, the Islamic Republic is based upon a global totalitarian vision. Essentially, it seeks a one-world Islamic government derived from Koranic principles and Sharia law. It sets out to help all similar revolutionary efforts across the world, justifying its support for its proxies and other activities abroad. In addition, it was hoped that this vision would be realized by the end of the 20th century, which certainly explains the unquenchable appetite for nuclear weapons as the optimum, most accelerated pathway toward overtaking all other forms of rule.

Here are just a few passages from the Preamble and the Articles themselves (italics added):

AMB. GORDON SONDLAND: THE TRUTH ABOUT IRAN’S ‘IMMINENT THREAT’ THAT POLITICIANS HATE TO ADMIT

“The Constitution will strive with other Islamic and popular movements to prepare the way for the formation of a single world community (in accordance with the Koranic verse ‘This your community is a single community, and I am your Lord, so worship Me’ [21:92]), and to assure the continuation of the struggle for the liberation of all deprived and oppressed peoples in the world.”

The Constitution was framed “with all the hope that this century will witness the establishment of a universal holy government and the downfall of all others.”

The Army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards “will be responsible not only for guarding and preserving the frontiers of the country, but also for fulfilling the ideological mission of jihad in God’s way, that is, extending the sovereignty of God’s law throughout the world…”

“With due attention to the Islamic content of the Iranian Revolution, the Constitution provides the necessary basis for ensuring the continuation of the Revolution at home and abroad.”

“…framing the foreign policy of the country on the basis of Islamic criteria, fraternal commitment to all Muslims, and unsparing support for the freedom fighters of the world.”

The Constitution dictates not only activities within the territory; it is offensive as well as defensive. Again, its reach is worldwide, not limited to the Middle East, as many in the media seek to posture. The Little and Great Satans are the prime enemies precisely because they represent the greatest obstacles. It was Iran that declared war on America decades ago; it has been the US, until the current administration, that has minimized its importance while hoping to peaceably negotiate Iran away from its mission. For those who question how Iran is a threat to the US, its prime goal requires the “downfall” of the US.

THE IRANIAN REGIME WAS BUILT ON ‘VICIOUS ANTISEMITISM’ FOLLOWING THE 1979 ISLAMIC REVOLUTION

The Constitution is based on the belief, in part, in “the return to God in the Hereafter, and the constructive role of this belief in the course of man’s ascent towards God.” The official religion is the Twelver Ja’fari Shiite school, which is to “remain eternally immutable.” This school, generally speaking, awaits the return of its Mahdi, similar to the Messiah, and encourages global chaos, which is necessary to hasten his appearance. It is this very global chaos that underlies much of what the regime has consistently fostered.

Negotiations are difficult and, generally, only those directly involved have a full view of all the concerns, issues, relative leverage, and risks at hand. Consequently, the public is often unaware of many true constraints and opportunities the parties hold. Consequently, many necessary tradeoffs are often not understood by those outside the central negotiators.

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Nonetheless, the last century, as well as the beginning of this one, has taught us the necessity of trusting how the enemy describes itself. From Hitler and Stalin to all Western Communists, Mao to the CCP, and the Islamists, we have learned it is important to believe what they tell us. The Iranian Constitution does just that, telling us exactly who the regime is and what it seeks, and meaningful public discourse must be fully informed by it.

Any deal with this regime is suspect given its history and its adherence to the Prophet Mohammad’s treatment of truces; nothing ensures compliance. Yet, more importantly, the failure of Iran to agree to address many provisions in the Constitution will make clear exactly what kind of “regime change,” if any, will result. 

Failure to adequately address the Constitution will ultimately be perceived as acceptance and ratification of the extreme principles underlying all of its terms. And should it be determined that the best path forward is an agreement with expiration dates, the Constitution, unchanged, tells us exactly what will be faced once those expiration dates have passed.

Again, changes to the Constitution are no guarantee of true change, but the failure to make changes will likely guarantee no true change. It is therefore imperative that public attention be so focused before any final agreement is reached.

The legendary baseball player and manager Ted Williams once wrote a letter to the Angels outfielder Jay Johnstone on improving his hitting. Among his pieces of advice was that “with two strikes, you simply have to protect the plate.” 

Williams’s advice on not striking out came to mind this week when another leak of confidential information rocked the Supreme Court. (The prior leak of the Dobbs decision went unsolved). For Chief Justice John Roberts, the message is clear: it is times like these that you have to protect the plate.

Roberts, of course, is famous for his own baseball analogies. In his confirmation, he declared that “judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules. They apply them…Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire.”

Yet, justices do make rules not only in new precedent, but in the operation of the court system. Those rules are being broken.

JONATHAN TURLEY: LIBERAL JUSTICE’S SWIPE AT KAVANAUGH LATEST SIGN OF SCOTUS’ SLIPPING STANDARDS

In the same week at the new leak, Justice Sonia Sotomayor attacked her colleague Brett Kavanaugh as essentially an out-of-touch prig who had never even met an hourly wage worker. It was an unfair insult and a departure from the Court’s long-standing rules of civility. (Sotomayor later apologized).

Additionally, a forthcoming book by Mollie Hemingway’s on Justice Samuel Alito contains an embarrassing account of how Justice Elena Kagan allegedly screamed at Justice Stephen Breyer so loudly before the Dobbs opinion that the “wall was shaking.” (The book suggests that Kagan was upset with Breyer agreeing to spur along the dissents to get out the final opinions in light of rising threats against conservative colleagues after the leak).

For an institution that prides itself on its confidentiality and insularity, the Court is looking increasingly porous and partisan in these leaks.  Worse yet, people are indeed coming to the Court “to see the umpires.”

WHY TRUMP IS WRONG TO CALL DISSENTING REPUBLICAN JUSTICES AN ‘EMBARRASSMENT’ FOR VOTING AGAINST HIS TARIFFS

The most recent leak was published by the New York Times, which was given internal memos from various Supreme Court justices on the use of what is known as the “shadow docket” to issue rulings without oral arguments. 

Notably, the leaks occurred after a controversial speech by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson at Yale Law School in which she denounced the use of the shadow docket by her conservative colleagues to release decisions that were sometimes “utterly irrational.”

The memos reveal the concern of the justices that the Environmental Protection Agency was effectively gaming the system, imposing unlawful regulatory burdens on electric utilities despite a countervailing earlier ruling in Michigan v. EPA.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS WARNS AGAINST PERSONAL ATTACKS ON JUDGES AS ‘DANGEROUS’ AFTER TRUMP COURT TIRADE

Chief Justice Roberts noted that the EPA was using the ongoing litigation to force utilities to spend billions of dollars to comply with the new regulations: “In other words the absence of stay allowed the agency to effectively implement an important program we held to be contrary to law.”

The controversy over the use of the shadow docket is immaterial to this story. The most immediate concern for Roberts should be that this is strike two: another leak from within the Court that was clearly designed to wound some of its members.

Unlike the Dobbs leak (which appeared to be an effort to influence the final opinion), this is a leak about a decade-old case. It had a purely malicious purpose to embarrass or disrupt the Court.

TO GO OR NOT TO GO? SUPREME COURT AT THE STATE OF THE UNION

The question, again, is the identity of the culprit. There is no reason to assume that the same person was involved in both leaks. Rather, the leaks appear to reflect a deteriorating culture at the Court. 

After the Dobbs leak, Chief Justice Roberts launched a fruitless investigation through the federal marshals to find the responsible person. The use of the marshals as the lead investigators (rather than the FBI) was criticized at the time. Roberts may have been sensitive to an executive-branch agency rooting around in the highest court of a sister branch.

The result was the worst possible outcome. The culprit succeeded in both leaking the opinion and evading any accountability.

JOHN YOO: SUPREME COURT TARIFF RULING SHOULD END COMPLAINTS THAT JUSTICES FAVOR TRUMP

The fact is that the Court’s culture and institutional identity have always been its greatest protection of confidentiality. In a city that floats on a rolling sea of leaks, the Court was an island of integrity and civility. The “umpires” could call balls and strikes without playing the leak game. 

That culture is fast becoming nothing but a relic in the wake of yet another major leak. For the future of the Court and the faith of the public, Roberts has to set his reservations aside and bring in the FBI to find the culprit. Most importantly, he has to guarantee total transparency in allowing the public to see the results wherever they may lead. In other words, with two strikes, Roberts needs to protect the plate.

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Nearly a dozen mysterious deaths and disappearances of high-level scientists throughout the United States is raising eyebrows as one expert suggests the individuals may have been targeted for their knowledge or forced to disappear for their own protection. 

At least 11 people have either died or vanished since 2022, with the vast majority involved in researching nuclear science and space – and some connected to UFO studies. 

Michael David Hicks, 59; Frank Maiwald, 61; Nuno Loureiro, 47; Jason Thomas, 45; Amy Eskridge, 34; and Carl Grillmair, 47, all died between 2023 and 2026, with each individual playing a key role in vital scientific research. 

While Hicks and Maiwald’s cause of deaths remain unknown, Grillmair was gunned down outside his home on Feb. 16, 2026. Freddy Snyder, 29, was charged with his murder.

MYSTERY CLOUDS DEATHS, DISAPPEARANCES OF SCIENTISTS WITH UFO RESEARCH TIES: TIMELINE

Loureiro was also shot at his Massachusetts home, and died from his injuries one day later on Dec. 15, 2025. His death was linked to a separate mass shooting at Brown University. 

The body of Thomas, an associate director of chemical biology at pharmaceutical company Novartis, was discovered in Lake Quannapowitt, Massachusetts three months after he was last seen walking from his home late at night.  

Eskridge, a Huntsville, Alabama–based researcher, died June 11, 2022, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Monica Reza, 60; Melissa Casias, 53; Anthony Chavez, 79; Steven Garcia, 48; and retired Air Force General William Neil McCasland, 68, were all reported missing throughout 2023 to 2026, with each of their disappearances occurring under suspicious circumstances.

RETIRED GENERAL WHO ONCE LED AIR FORCE RESEARCH LABORATORY GOES MISSING

Some scientists vanished from their homes, with others disappearing on hiking trails and other public areas. 

While the individuals do not appear to be connected through their work and research, one expert is pointing to the possibility that something more sinister could be at play.

GOT A TIP?

“The disappearances of some of these people may be because there are some confidential investigations going on at a very significant level federally, where there are certain people that may be either taken because they know too much or have made themselves disappear because they would be assets that could be interrogated or even charged with various crimes,” Dr. Steven Greer, a ufologist and a retired physician, told Fox News Digital.

Greer also points to one possibility being that the scientists have been targeted by a transnational criminal organization looking to keep their research out of the public eye.

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“In certain significant quarters federally, it has been concluded that the programs – some euphemistically call them legacy programs – have been attached to UFO, UAP research and development, and have been involved as a criminal organization,” Greer said. 

In response to the renewed public attention, President Donald Trump has vowed to investigate the mysterious disappearances and deaths of the various scientists.

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“I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “I just left a meeting on that subject.”

Additionally, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) previously told Fox News Digital it is looking into the cases.

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“NNSA is aware of reports related to employees of our labs, plants, and sites and is looking into the matter.”

In light of the closely-timed incidents, Greer believes the federal government needs to step in to provide more protections for whistleblowers as they work to find the cause of the various mysterious deaths and disappearances.

“This is something very serious,” Greer told Fox News Digital. “Even though it sounds like a James Bond movie, it’s no joke. We have very heroic and patriotic people who have been trying to come forward, but the United States government, in my opinion, has failed them by not providing adequate protections.”

Fox News Digital’s Peter D’Abrosca and Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.