RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19982/axis-of-evil-russia-china-north-korea-iran

The Biden administration… is also financing the ruling mullahs of Iran with billions of dollars to put the finishing touches on the country’s nuclear program and for delivering more weapons to Russia with which to attack Ukraine.

“We’re sitting still, and the Chinese, the Russians, Iran, North Korea, and several others, are moving to shore up their relations and threaten us in a lot of different places.” — Former US National Security Advisor John Bolton, The Hill, March 12, 2023.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration seems to be allowing Iran’s ruling mullahs to prosper from the war and emerge as the winners.

“I have a question for you – how does Russia pay Iran for this, in your opinion? Is Iran just interested in money? Probably not money at all, but Russian assistance to the Iranian nuclear program. Probably, this is exactly the meaning of their alliance” — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Jerusalem Post, November 4, 2022.

“Today, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran continue to invest in technologies to expand their capabilities to hit the United States with nuclear weapons. All four countries have also escalated their threatening rhetoric, indicating their willingness to use nuclear weapons in a military conflict. By expanding their nuclear programs, each has made clear that our nuclear arsenal is no longer a deterrent to their potential use of nuclear weapons.” — U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, Fox News, May 4, 2023.

Thanks to the Obama and Biden administrations’ monumental capitulations to Iran’s regime — and the refusal of both administrations not only to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program but also to prevent anyone else from stopping it — the Russian-Iranian-Chinese-North Korean alliance now poses a global existential threat.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-american-hostages-ransom-biden-administration-antony-blinken-f8473327?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

The Biden Administration was out in force on Monday to celebrate the return home of seven American citizens from Iran, five of whom had been in prison. We can all be grateful for their freedom, but the question we wish U.S. policy markers would do more to address is how they will prevent the next hostage-taking by a rogue regime.

“To date, under this administration, we have now brought 30 Americans home from places around the world where they were being unjustly detained. That work will continue,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

He added that, “At the same time, we’re going to be working every single day to take steps to make this practice more and more difficult and more and more of a burden on those countries that engage in it. And you’ll see in the days ahead here in New York, at the United Nations, our efforts to work with other countries to do just that.”

Let’s hope so, because there’s no doubt that paying $6 billion for seven Americans will encourage more such hostage-taking. Iran has paid no price for imprisoning Americans and has now been paid ransom for them. Iran snatched a couple of the Americans not long after the last hostage trade with the U.S. It’s part of Tehran’s business model, and it works.

It’s also insulting to read in that Washington Post that White House National Security Council official Brett McGurk says that “under terms that provide confidence, the funds will be spent only on a limited category of humanitarian trade: food, medicine and agricultural products. That’s it.”

He may be technically right about those specific funds. But that leaves the Tehran regime able to devote other funds they would have spent on those goods for such malevolent purposes as terrorism by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19971/biden-failed-iran-policy

[T]he US, instead of stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, is bribing the mullahs not to go to 90% enrichment [the level needed for a nuclear bomb], at least on the Biden administration’s watch, especially ahead of the November 2024 US presidential election.

Meanwhile, Iran laughably keeps claiming that it is not even seeking a nuclear bomb.

After that, the Biden administration looked the other way during the Islamic Republic’s malign actions in the region, such as smuggling weapons, and shipping oil to Syria and Hezbollah in direct violation of US sanctions, at the same time that Iran was busy increasing its influence in America’s backyard.

Thanks to the Biden administration, Iran’s oil exports have also started booming and have now surged more than two million barrels a day, the most since 2018 , and they are selling it at levels close to the pre-sanctions era, to countries such as China, which desperately needs it – while the Biden administration suspended new oil and gas leases on US public lands and waters.

The Biden administration also looked away when the Iranian regime killed more than 300 people, including 40 children, in the recent protests.

As if these appeasements were not enough, the Biden Administration recently reached a deal with the Iranian regime behind closed doors on August 10, in which the United States agreed to pay $6 billion dollars and release a handful of Iranian nationals who are serving prison sentences in the US, in exchange for the release of five Iranian-Americans imprisoned in Iran — more than a billion dollars per person — with still more payments apparently on the way.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/biden-and-china-appeasement/

While Joe Biden was a U.S. senator from Delaware, he became one of the leading advocates for admitting China to the World Trade Organization and expanding trade between China and the United States. “The United States welcomes the emergence of a prosperous, integrated China on the global stage, because we expect this is going to be a China that plays by the rules,” then-Senator Biden declared in 2001 during his visit to China. While Joe Biden was serving as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he helped enable China’s rapid economic ascent at America’s expense.

A decade later, while serving as vice president during the Obama administration, Joe Biden again spoke in favor of a rising China during a state visit in August 2011: “Let me be clear: I believed in 1979 and said so then, and I believe now that a rising China is a positive development not only for the people of China but for the United States and the world as a whole.”

Now Joe Biden is the president of the United States and the leader of the free world. Despite all the evidence of the Communist Chinese regime’s exploitation of its “rising” power to the detriment of the United States and its allies in the Asia-Pacific region, Biden remains a cheerleader for China’s economic wellbeing. He is as wrong-headed about the Communist Chinese regime today as he has been for his entire career in government.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/08/new-biden-nuke-deal-is-a-farce-and-emboldens-iran/

As I discussed in an August 3, 2023 American Greatness article, the Biden administration negotiated a secret, unwritten nuclear deal with Iran last spring that reportedly will provide Tehran with $20 billion in sanctions relief and keep its nuclear program at a level capable of quickly producing weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

A new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency disproves the Biden Administration’s attempts to dismiss the danger of the secret agreement and to falsely portray it as a deal that halted Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Iran also reportedly agreed under this deal to cooperate with IAEA investigations of its nuclear program. Iran is allowed to keep its nuclear infrastructure under the agreement, including advanced uranium centrifuges, and is permitted to continue to develop this technology.

Linked to the agreement is a U.S.-Iran prisoner swap under which Iran received $6 billion in sanctions relief in exchange for releasing five innocent Americans imprisoned in Iran. The prisoner swap was widely criticized as the U.S. paying ransom to free Americans held hostage by Iran. The five Americans were released from prison and placed under house arrest in Iran on August 10. Negotiations to allow them to leave the country are continuing.

To circumvent congressional oversight of this dangerous deal, it was negotiated as a set of unwritten “understandings” and the Biden administration has publicly denied its existence.

But at the same time, Biden officials have privately spun the deal to selected reporters as a diplomatic victory by claiming it suspended Iran’s nuclear weapons program because Tehran agreed not to produce weapons-grade uranium.

This week, Biden administration officials attempted to convince reporters that a new International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report proves this because Iran is producing less near-weapons-grade 60% enriched uranium due to their diplomatic efforts.

This is a clever distortion of the IAEA report.

First of all, uranium enriched to 60% uranium-235 is only ten days to two weeks away from weapons-grade level enrichment, 90%.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19959/biden-bypassing-americans-appeasing-iran

The Biden administration has been accused of secretly bypassing US laws to reach a deal with Iran’s Islamist regime.

On August 10, the Biden administration apparently cut a “deal” excluding Congress and keeping the American people and U.S. regional allies in the dark — even though they are the ones who would be the most directly affected by a “deal.”

The United States agreed to pay $6 billion dollars and release a handful of Iranian nationals who are serving prison sentences in the US, in exchange for the release of five Iranian-Americans imprisoned in Iran. The sum comes to more than a billion dollars per head — possibly largest hostage ransom payment in America’s history — and that makes every American on foreign soil a juicy mark.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul accused President Joe Biden on August 21 of breaking a 2015 law, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) by secretly negotiating and reaching a nuclear “understanding” with the Iranian regime alongside a hostage release deal.

“I urge the Administration to remember that U.S. law requires that any agreement, arrangement, or understanding with Iran needs to be submitted to Congress pursuant to INARA.” — US Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to President Joe Biden, August 15, 2023.

“At least $16 billion has now been made available to Iran without any congressional input—and more might be on the way. Another $6.7 billion is reportedly moving to Iran via the International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights… and reportedly … another $3 billion of regime assets frozen in Tokyo. India and China….” — Richard Goldberg, former White House Security official, thedispatch.com, August 15, 2023.

How could the Biden administration keep the American people and allies such as Israel in the dark when the Iran’s ruling mullahs have made it clear that a top priority is to attack the US, eradicate the Jewish state and “wipe Israel off the map”?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-on-6-billion-a-day-ransom-biden-tehran-hostage-35e43a1e?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Rescuing American hostages is a high priority and a terrible dilemma for the government. We want our citizens back, but paying cash for their release rewards rogue regimes and encourages further lawless behavior.

This was made clear during the summer as the Biden administration negotiated the release of five American hostages by Iran in exchange for $6 billion. The last such ransom payment to the regime was in 2016, when the Obama administration paid Tehran $1.7 billion for four hostages. The price, unsurprisingly, keeps rising.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert, the Australian-British academic held prisoner by Iran in 2018-20, has written movingly of the problem: “Every option available to diplomats is a bad one, and every action risks either consigning victims to indefinite suffering or creating new ones.” While Washington can’t “abandon innocent citizens detained overseas,” it must “find creative ways to bring them home.” “Cash bonanzas for hostage-takers” can’t be on the table, Ms. Moore-Gilbert writes. “Punitive measures should be publicly and pre-emptively adopted to send a clear signal that in the future hostage diplomacy will be punished and discouraged, not tolerated and rewarded.”

There is another step Ms. Moore-Gilbert doesn’t mention: keeping Americans out of hostage-taking countries. This has largely been achieved with respect to North Korea. The State Department says “all U.S. passports are invalid for travel to, in, or through the DPRK unless specially validated for such travel under the authority of the Secretary of State.” Such validations are approved “only in very limited circumstances.”

Yet the U.S. hasn’t yet done the same with Iran, which has been unjustly imprisoning Americans for decades.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19944/iran-pocketing-billions

The Biden administration continues to ratchet up its appeasement policies with the ruling mullahs probably to revive the disastrous nuclear deal which would pave the way for the Islamist regime of Iran legally to have as many nuclear weapons as it likes; lift sanctions against the theocratic regime; strengthen the ruling mullahs with additional billions of dollars — for terrorism, nuclear weapons, the missiles to deliver them, “exporting the Revolution”, and suppressing their own people — and allow them to rejoin the global financial system and enhance their legitimacy on the global stage.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced last month that America “will continue to enforce all of our sanctions” and “will continue to push back on Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region and beyond.”

That just is not accurate. Sanctions are not being enforced: Iran’s oil export is booming and has surged above two million barrels a day. The ruling mullahs are now producing ever more oil and selling it at levels close to the pre-sanctions era to countries such as China, which desperately needs it, while the Biden administration has effectively cut off US oil exploration.

“Although we have some other incomes,” former President Hassan Rouhani previously acknowledged, “the only revenue that can keep the country going is the oil money.” – en.radiofarda.com, November 19, 2019.

Instead of enforcing sanctions, the Biden administration has been issuing waivers, making the sanctions appear to be simply cosmetic.

“At least $16 billion has now been made available to Iran without any congressional input—and more might be on the way. Another $6.7 billion is reportedly moving to Iran via the International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights… and reportedly … another $3 billion of regime assets frozen in Tokyo. India and China….” – Richard Goldberg, former White House security official, thedispatch.com, August 15, 2023.

The regime will most likely use the funds to further arm and assist Russia in its invasion of Ukraine; brutalize its own citizens; undermine US national security interests; fund its terrorist and militia groups across the Middle East and expand more deeply into Latin America.