Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said European leaders should “stand against US measures” after President Trump threatened to cancel the Iran nuclear deal. “They should avoid meddling into our defense matters. We won’t accept EU siding with US bully,” he said. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP) Uncredited
Biden’s 9/11 bonanza for Iran
Washington Examiner September 13, 12:00 AM September 13, 12:00 AM Video Embed
With timing that surely sparked Tehran’s contemptuous glee, the Biden administration gifted Iran a $6 billion ransom payment on Monday, the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Iran will now release five Americans it has detained in return for the freeing of $6 billion in Iranian funds that Washington had frozen. Iran will also secure the release of five Iranians detained in the United States, including smugglers who were attempting to support Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear program.
DESANTIS POINTS TO RENEWED TERRORISM THREAT ON SOUTHERN BORDER ON 9/11 ANNIVERSARY
The Biden administration is trying to tamp down Republican fury sparked by its deal. The problem for the White House, however, is the detail of this devil’s bargain and its timing.
It is astonishing but also characteristically insouciant that the administration thought that the anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks against America was the right time to shake hands on an agreement with the world’s leading, longest-lasting, and most intractable sponsor of terrorism. The mullahs of Tehran continue to harbor members of al Qaeda, the executors of the 9/11 attacks. It does so even though the perpetrators’ Salafi-Jihadist ideology has a blood feud with Khomeinism. Iran has opted for that secondary devil’s deal because sheltering al Qaeda offers an opportunity for two enemies to damage their primary mutual enemy, the United States.
The deal with Biden is overwhelmingly in Iran’s favor. It would be one thing were this agreement simply a five-for-five prisoner swap. But the $6 billion topping on the cake is a dangerous obscenity.
The Biden administration pretends the $6 billion will be used only for humanitarian projects. It told NBC News the Treasury Department will monitor disbursement from a Qatari government account. Yet, as the Washington Examiner editorialized in August, only a fool would trust this commitment. Qatar also funds terrorists. Doha prioritizes its relationship with Iran and has been uninterested in U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the past. Don’t take our word for it. Listen to Iran’s view of the matter. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi just told NBC News that Iran will spend the money “wherever we need it.”
Iran need only move the $6 billion to nominally humanitarian accounts and then transfer the money again to other accounts to satisfy Biden’s fatal incuriosity. These could be accounts that are, for example, funding Iran’s nuclear program and efforts to build ballistic missiles. That is to say, the money could flow toward developing the terrorist regime’s ability to fire nuclear warheads against Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Europe. Iran might alternatively or additionally send funds to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group wreaking havoc in the West Bank. Or it might splash out on a new payday for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Quds Force.
Biden is likely releasing funds that will be used to kill Americans. As the Washington Examiner was first to reveal and has subsequently reported, Iran has plotted the murder of high-ranking American officials, and these efforts have stretched U.S. government protective details thin. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has put a high priority on avenging the death of Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani. Assassination plots against U.S. officials may well be one of Iran’s “wherever we need it” funding priorities.
There’s a broader cost to this fund-me terrorism strategy in that it further damages American credibility, and Biden’s latest deal with Iran will dismay vital allies, Israel, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. This deal is a grenade rolled by Biden into the middle of American strategy in the Middle East.
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Our allies see Iran enriching uranium to purity levels that make it nearly ready for use in weapons. They see Iran building advanced ballistic missiles aimed at them. They see Iran funding terrorism from Baghdad to Beirut to Brooklyn. They see Iran seizing international cargo ships traveling through international waters. They see Iran, therefore, attacking their interests and those of the international community not just with impunity but with Biden’s $6 billion reward adding insult to injury. They are not fooled by Biden’s gimmicks and the bribes for Tehran’s aggression. Our president won’t enforce sanctions even when the sanctioned assets are sitting in U.S. waters.
Biden and his maladministration may claim this $6 billion boondoggle is the outcome of masterful diplomacy. But the U.S. and its allies will suffer gravely for it.
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