If the Biden Administration has its way, the United States will soon lift sanctions against Iran and ply it with billions of dollars the regime can then use to further its terror campaign against the U.S. and its allies, and then possibly even provide even more billions to this regime by purchasing oil from it … all while Iran secretly pursues its plans to develop and potentially deploy nuclear weapons, courtesy of Russia’s diplomatic “assistance.”
I’m not joking.
The State Department designated Iran as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” on January 19, 1984. In the 38 years since then, Iran has waged an ongoing murderous campaign against America and our allies, providing support to terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda.
Despite this ongoing terror campaign, when the Biden Administration took office a year ago, it immediately launched an effort to reconstitute the 2015 Iran nuclear deal from which former President Trump had removed the United States in 2018. Given that the Biden Administration’s senior national security officials had all previously served as senior national security officials in the last Democratic presidency – where and when the original Iran nuclear deal had been negotiated – it was not surprising that these officials wanted to return to the deal they had put in place when last they had been in power.
While it may not have been surprising, it has been, nevertheless, embarrassing to see the lengths to which American officials have been willing to prostrate themselves before Iran in order to get this deal done – because the deal they are negotiating is not merely a return to the old deal. What they are negotiating now is clearly a new deal, and it is far, far worse.
To begin, the Iranians were so angry that the U.S. had withdrawn from the original deal that they refused to deal directly with U.S. officials. So we allowed Russia to step in to carry our water for us in dealing with Iranian negotiators.
Despite the fact that this, obviously, gave Russia leverage over the Biden Administration, U.S. officials didn’t seem to mind. It was an absurd situation from the start. But now, in the wake of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, it’s gone beyond absurd, to farcical.
Last week, Russian forces shelled the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the eastern Ukrainian city of Enerhodar. That facility is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. The shelling was so severe that the U.S. Department of Energy activated its nuclear incident response team.
According to Rafael Grossi, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency – the international agency official who would be largely responsible for monitoring any nuclear deal between Iran and the others – that Russian attack destroyed a neutron generator in one of the plant’s facilities. Asked by reporters if that was another way of saying Russia had attacked a facility safeguarded by IAEA rules,he answered, “Yes, when there is nuclear material.”
So, in our pursuit of a reengagement with a terrorist regime that’s already well on its way to developing nuclear weapons, we are now relying on the diplomatic graces of a different regime that is currently engaging in war crimes by targeting civilians in a war of conquest … AND has just broken International Atomic Energy Agency rules by attacking a nuclear facility there.
This is sheer madness.
It gets worse. In pursuit of the new deal, the U.S. has apparently agreed to lift the sanctions imposed under Executive Order 13876, known as the “Supreme Leader’s Office E.O.” That would remove sanctions on nearly all of the more than 100 individuals and entities sanctioned under that authority. Further, it would lift sanctions against a number of the Iranian regime’s most notorious human rights abusers – men implicated in the torture and murder of the regime’s political opponents, and the murder of protesters. Importantly, when President Trump promulgated this E.O. in 2019, the lawyers who drafted it made clear that it was issued in response to Iran’s attack against U.S. interests, and had nothing whatsoever to do with Iran’s nuclear program.
Additionally, we would remove Iran’s notorious Revolutionary Guard Corps from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terror Organizations.
Moreover, the U.S. appears to be willing to replay the Obama Administration’s infamous ransom-for-hostages trade, in which the U.S. paid $1.7 billion for the release of four Americans held hostage by Iran. This time, however, the price has gone up – the Biden Administration will pay $7 billion to obtain the release of four Americans from Iran.
It’s so bad that in late January, three top American officials, upset at the weak line taken by lead American negotiator Robert Malley, walked away from the talks.
Just this week, it was reported that a Justice Department official confirms that at least two Iranians belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps covert-action Quds Force are known to have been plotting to assassinate former Trump national security adviser John Bolton. Worse, that DOJ official claims the Biden Administration is resisting publicly indicting the would-be assassins for fear it could collapse support for the deal.
And then there is the final insult – over the weekend, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted that Russia receive “guarantees at least at the level of the secretary of state” that Russia (which has just been on the receiving end of its own set of sanctions) will have immunity from any economic sanctions relating to Iran.
As I said, it’s descended to the level of farce.