The Financial Action Task Force, an organization that sets international standards for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing, is meeting next week to determine which nations will remain “high-risk and non-cooperative jurisdictions.”
Iran, one of the countries that holds this designation, is trying to convince the Task Force to take its name off the list.
Iran’s history of financing terror should absolutely raise red flags for the Treasury Department. Even our Department of State has admitted there’s “no doubt” Iran is still sending money to the likes of Hezbollah, Houthi rebels, as well as other terror groups in Syria.
Yet, Daniel L. Glaser, the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for terror financing, was apparently sympathetic to Iran’s plea.
“Iran is on that list,” he said in May. “Iran has taken important steps that I think we should acknowledge and that they should get credit for in trying to come off of that list. They have recently enacted a terrorist financing law. They have recently engaged with FATF and are in discussions with FATF to try to come up with an action plan of steps that they need to take in order to fully comply with international standards, and I think that those discussions have been productive.”
Glaser is much too gullible, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce warns, telling Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew in a letter that Iran has no plans to stop funding terrorism.
“Terror finance in Iran is not the result of inadequate laws or lax enforcement. Support for terrorism is central to this radical regime’s dangerous foreign policy. As you know, Iran has been designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism since 1984. Your own department has labeled Iran as “primary money laundering concern” since 2011—a recognition that any financial transaction with an Iranian bank or entity risks supporting the regime’s ongoing illicit activity.”
In other words, keep Iran on the list.
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