Before President Biden proceeds any further with his desire to resurrect the failed Nuclear Weapons Deal Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), he needs to read two recently released documents: State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism Annual Report and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s draft budget for 2022-2023. Each document is a validation of the other.
The Bureau of Counterterrorism Report identifies Iran as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism,” a designation first rendered in 1984. The report specifically mentions: “Tehran’s support for Hizballah, Palestinian terrorism groups in Gaza, and various terrorist and militant groups in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere throughout the Middle East.”
Also addressed in the Counterterrorism Report is State Department’s 2019 designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Just prior to this designation, the U.S. Defense Department released its study identifying the IRGC as being involved in the killing of 603 American service-members in Iraq since 2003.
President Biden's belief in negotiating with this terrorist nation shows his complete failure to understand the Middle-East philosophy of “When I am in a position of weakness, how can I negotiate. When I am in a position of strength, why should I?”
For the time being, the United States is in a position of strength. Newly-installed Iranian President Raisi is determined to change that. The budget he proposes proves Raisi’s intent to increase Iran’s commitment to expanding hostile actions throughout the Middle East and the world.
Known in Iran as the “Hanging Judge,” Raisi’s direct involvement and rulings against those in disagreement with the fundamentalist government go all the way back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Raisi was a key architect of the 1988 purge and murder of tens of thousands of Iranian dissidents. For over five decades, he has been enforcing the religious extremist government’s suppression, imprisonment, torture, and execution of dissidents throughout the country. Raisi’s mission is now to serve as the architect of advancing Khamenei’s terrorism inside Iran and throughout the world.
This is made very clear in Raisi’s budget, which is broken into two parts. The first portion is the “General Government Budget” which funds standard daily administrative operations. The second portion, which amounts to “Fundamentalist Regime Maintenance," finances all of Iran’s internal oppression and international exportation of terrorism.
Included in this portion are expenditures for the conventional military, the IRGC, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), and other support organizations. In Raisi’s budget, twice as much funding is dedicated to the second portion than the first. What President Biden should recognize as a warning for bad things to come is that within this second portion is the nuclear development program.
For decades Iran has been claiming its nuclear research was for “peaceful atomic energy purposes.” Success in Iran’s mockery of the White House was achieved with nuclear weapons deals with both the Clinton and Obama administrations, culminating with the JCPOA. President Obama sidestepped mandated Senate approval by claiming the JCPOA was not a treaty, only a deal. Ignored was Former Chair of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission David Bergman’s warning, “By developing atomic energy peaceful uses, you reach the nuclear option. There are not two atomic energies.”
Even President Reagan’s “trust, but validate” standard was ignored. Iran, in control of the when and where of the validation inspections, has continuously violated the JCPOA. President Trump was justified in canceling America’s involvement in this failed agreement and his implementation of severe economic sanctions on Iran.
President Biden is looking to re-energize the JCPOA. To help make this happen, Wendy Sherman has been brought back on the government payroll to serve as Deputy Secretary of State. Her claim to fame, prior to heading U.S. involvement in the 2016 JCPOA negotiations, was having worked as a senior representative on nuclear weapons negotiations with North Korea. That was certainly no stunning success, as North Korea is now a nuclear-armed nation. I lost track of how many times to Congress I have corrected misinformation they received from Sherman. She has been a key-participant in two nuclear-level failures in a row, and Biden is intent on having her leading the way for a third.
Raisi will get his budget approved by parliament. Prisons and gallows are filled with Iranian citizens, to include political leaders, who disagreed with the fundamentalist government of Iran. Once Raisi is armed with nuclear weapons, he will be in a position of strength and his pretense of negotiating will be over.
Biden’s biggest Middle East mistake of 2021 was the incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan. His biggest Middle East mistake of 2022 is shaping up to be re-entering into a deal with Iran, which will surely allow this terrorist nation to complete its research and development into becoming a nuclear power. President Biden has two documents readily available to provide the necessary information to make the right decision. The question is, will he read them and take the correct action or follow the mistakes of Clinton and Obama?