As Iran and its terrorist proxies continue efforts to murder Jews and eliminate Israel, it would be logical for the United States to do everything in its power to cut off Tehran's access to funds and sources of ongoing income. Not so for the Biden administration which has allowed Iran to make more than $100 billion through illicit oil sales since taking office in January 2021.
Despite significant sanctions for its role as the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran still manages — through illicit business — to turn profits from other countries around the world, including American allies. A major source of such income for the authoritarian regime is the illegal sale of Iranian oil.
Through the first quarter of 2024 — even after Iran-backed Hamas launched its barbaric massacre — Iran exported more than 140 million barrels of oil, according to a brief from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). That amount is an increase of 28 percent over the first quarter of 2023. As FDD's Saeed Ghasseminejad emphasized, the surge in oil exports as Iran and its terror proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, et al. — ramp up attacks on Israeli and American targets in the region allow the regime to enhance its currency reserves "and enable it to support its military industry and proxies as it escalates tension."
It's not a difficult concept to grasp: the more money Iran has, the more terrorists it can support, train, and arm.
Thanks to the Biden administration's relaxing of the Trump administration's successful "maximum pressure" campaign that busted Iran's budgets, Tehran's oil exports last month rebounded to the highest daily rate — 1.82 million barrels — since just before Trump implemented his punishment for Iranian terrorism, per FDD's analysis.
The group's number-crunching found that had Biden maintained the Trump policy toward Iran, "the regime would have had $40 billion less to spend on ballistic missiles and proxy groups."
Don't forget, as FDD's analysis also notes, that the tens of billions of dollars in revenue for Iran courtesy of the Biden administration's lack of sanctions enforcement is in addition to active paydays granted to Tehran through access to additional billions of euros. "Given that money is fungible and Tehran still does not have full access to its currency reserve, this $16 billion significantly increased the regime's ability to invest in malign activities," FDD's brief noted in a debunking of White House claims about the matter.
Biden allowing Tehran to profit and access its other funds explains why Biden's command of "don't" to the terror-spreading regime in Iran fell on deaf ears. It also explains why Iran-backed Houthis continue attacking shipping vessels in the Red Sea. And why other Iranian proxies attacked scores of U.S. bases in the region, wounding dozens and killing three American service members. There is no deterrence from Biden. Only financial rewards as a result of his policies.