"One day, I heard screams, shouting, and pleas for help in the police department.... I witnessed two officers who were dressed in unofficial uniform cursing and hitting Navid with batons and metal pipes with no mercy. They would tell him: 'the truth is whatever we say, will you write what we are saying or not?' Navid was... begging: 'please, stop, please don't hit me, I didn't do anything.' He covered his head with his arms. And one of the officers, whose name I later learned was Abbasi, hit Navid with such strength that Navid let out a gut-wrenching scream and fell unconscious". — Witness to the torture of Iran's wrestling champion, Navid Afkari, who was reportedly tortured into a false confession, then hanged.

Iran's leaders most likely wanted to make an example of the highly respected wrestler, to impose fear in society, and send a strong message to the people that anyone who dares to protest can face severe consequences.

Did they hear about the four teenagers who will have their fingers amputated as a punishment for stealing, also, according to them, after being tortured until they "confessed"?

The European Union, in empowering a regime that is torturing and executing protesters and political prisoners, is making itself complicit in these crimes against humanity. Instead, the EU needs immediately to join the US in putting pressure on the mullahs and holding them accountable.

With regard to the JCPOA itself, Iran's serious and continuing violations of the nuclear enrichment terms of the existing agreement reflect the true intentions of the mullahs, and clearly indicate that a new nuclear deal could not be implemented with any confidence: it would also be violated by Iran. Secretary Pompeo, in a statement posted on the Department of State's website, noted that Iran has shown no willingness to live in peace.

Like other criminal cartels, Iran has operational arms, including the IRGC, Hezbollah and Hamas, to do its dirty work. In 2014-15, Iran's terror proxy, Hezbollah, financed its terrorism through smuggling contraband cigarettes in the United States, and working with Venezuelan drug cartels to smuggle drugs and traffic in women and children. Revealingly, a nearly-completed law enforcement effort to take down Hezbollah's cigarette smuggling ring was shut down by the Obama administration just before the 2015 JCPOA was concluded.

If anyone thinks that diplomacy can resolve such threats, one need not do any more than remember the diplomatic success Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had in preventing Nazi Germany from attacking Poland.