Blinken: Iran Funds ‘Extremist Groups,’ But Biden Wants to Return to Nuclear Deal Anyway

CNS News ^ | May 24, 2021 | Patrick Goodenough

[Mr. Mojo]

(CNSNews.com) – Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday acknowledged that Iran funds terrorist proxies across the Middle East, but confirmed that the Biden administration is looking to lift sanctions against the regime in Tehran anyway.

In doing so, he echoed the arguments put forward by the Obama administration to the effect that Iran would be even more dangerous without a nuclear deal – thereby justifying an agreement that freed up billions of dollars for the terror-sponsoring regime.

On ABC’s “This Week,” host George Stephanopoulos noted that 42 Republican senators have urged President Biden to halt diplomatic talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), to “make it clear that sanctions will remain in place because of Iranian funding of Hamas.”

“Do you believe that Iran is funding Hamas?” Stephanopoulos asked. “And if they are, should the sanctions stay in place?”

Blinken’s reply did not include the word “Hamas,” but he agreed that the regime was “engaged in a number of activities, including funding extremist groups, supporting terrorism more broadly, supporting very dangerous proxies that are taking destabilizing actions throughout the Middle East, [and] proliferating weapons.”

However, he continued, “an Iran with a nuclear weapon or with the capability to build one in very short order is going to act with even greater impunity in those areas, which just adds to the urgency of trying to put the nuclear problem back in the box that the nuclear agreement put it in.”

Blinken added that many of those activities had continued under the Trump administration, despite its “so-called maximum pressure” campaign.

“But the first thing that we need to do is put the nuclear problem back in the box,” he said. He confirmed again that a return to the JCPOA will entail the U.S. lifting sanctions that are “inconsistent with the nuclear agreement.”

“That’s why we’re committed to trying to see if Iran will come back into compliance with the nuclear agreement, the so-called JCPOA – that’s what we’re engaged in now – and then use that as a platform to build on and to try to deal with these other issues.”

Critics of the JCPOA take issue with the argument that the 2015 agreement effectively put the nuclear issue “in a box,” as its proponents contend.

In withdrawing from the deal, the Trump administration pointed to weaknesses such as the agreement’s failure to guarantee that the regime open all of its suspect military sites to international monitoring, and “sunset” provisions for many of the key restrictions places on the regime.

The “sunset” clauses provided for various curbs placed on Iran’s uranium-enrichment activity to fall away 8.5, 10 and 15 years after the agreement took effect.

The JCPOA “adoption day” was in October 2015, so the first of those sunsets would have kicked in as early as March 2024, when prohibitions on the manufacturing of more advanced IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges to boost its uranium stockpile were due to have fallen away. (The JCPOA limited Iran to operating older and slower IR-1 centrifuges.)

And as early as October 2025, a range of other enrichment-related restrictions would have been lifted.

In the event, Iran moved away from the restrictions in response to President Trump’s withdrawal from the deal.

But the Biden administration is keen to revive the JCPOA in its current form – “the original deal, as it was,” Blinken told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday. If it does, and Iran return to compliance, the countdown to those ever-nearing sunsets would resume.

Blinken told Zakaria that the U.S. could use the return to the original deal as a foundation to see if it could be made “potentially longer and stronger.”

Iranian officials have repeatedly rejected the notion that the regime would be prepared to renegotiate the JCPOA, and with U.S. sanctions lifted again, it would face little pressure to do so.

Biden administration officials have made repeated digs at Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign, characterizing it as a failure because it did not produce a change in behavior from Tehran.

What the campaign did do, however, was financially squeeze the regime and force cutbacks in its military spending – which includes funding terrorist proxies in the region.

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in a 2019 report to Congress said Iran’s military spending had risen significantly as a result of JCPOA sanctions relief, before dropping again in 2019, due to “the reimposition of U.S. oil and banking sanctions, the depreciation of the Iranian rial, and chronic economic mismanagement.”

The DIA reported that almost 30 percent of the regime’s defense budget goes to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – more than twice as much as to the larger conventional military. The IRGC and its Qods Force oversees the regime’s terrorist proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a leading non-governmental expert source on military expenditure, Iran’s military spending rose from $11.1 billion in 2015 to $13.9 billion in 2017 – a 25.2 percent increase.

But with the restoration of sanctions after Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA, military spending dropped back to $12.6 billion in 2018.

In addition to direct government funding, the IRGC benefited indirectly from the lifting of sanctions as it has financial interests across many sectors.

[Mr. Mojo]

The Joebama admin. appears as committed to helping Iran get nukes as was the ...Obama admin.

[Steely Tom]

Trump was against them, so we got to be for them. That’s logic.

[stylin19a]

Iran Funds ‘Extremist Groups, - with the billions we gave tham

[StoneWall Brigade]

Ping

[VTenigma]

Allow me to decipher the headline for normal people. Biden funds terrorism.

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

Needless to say the Biden administration knows that terror organizations wouldn't dare strike the US. Smartest man in the world after all. Terror isn't our problem.

[ETL]

Aug 2015

____________________________________________________________________

Obama allowing Iran to purchase uranium from Russia

Daniel Horowitz | January 10, 2017

Remember those side deals Obama forged with Iran that were not part of the text of the official treaty? [ie, Iran Deal]. Now we are finding out some of the details.

Yesterday, the Washington Free Beacon reported that Iranian officials confirmed they have received at least $10 billion in cash, commodities, and assets from Washington since 2013. And that is likely a conservative estimate.

But cash is not the only thing the Islamic Republic of Iran is receiving for gracing us with their willingness to sign onto our own capitulation.

The AP is reporting that Russia, with the support of President Obama, is shipping Iran 116 metric tons of natural uranium.

While Iranian officials have obviously declined to disclose the use of such uranium, AP notes that this is enough to enrich weapons-grade uranium for nuclear bombs:

“Despite present restrictions on its enrichment program, however, the amount of natural uranium is significant should Iran decide to keep it in storage, considering its potential uses once some limits on Tehran’s nuclear activities start to expire in less than a decade.

David Albright, whose Institute of Science and International Security often briefs U.S. lawmakers on Iran’s nuclear program, says the shipment could be enriched to enough weapons-grade uranium for more than 10 simple nuclear bombs, “depending on the efficiency of the enrichment process and the design of the nuclear weapon.” ...”

See more at:
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2017/01/obama-allowing-iran-to-purchase-uranium-from-russia-will-tillerson-reverse-course#sthash.guYPvONI.dpuf

[Gen.Blather]

If you get into the weeds of almost any conflict in history you’ll find that people on both sides cooperated for their personal gain. For a bit of flavor, try this documentary, “Hitler’s American Business Partners.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug3iOJEOpac

[ETL]

Iran is a military ally of Russia, just like communist China, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea...

[Gen.Blather]

“Iran is a military ally of Russia, just like communist China, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea...”

Alliances are tricky things and notoriously unreliable. Ask Poland. Regardless of treaties, every move is made on an individual basis. No country can rely on an alliance or a predetermined agreement. Note that Turkey did not allow the coalition forces to move into Iraq across territory they controlled. Fortunately, just leaving an entire army waiting to disembark caused Iraq to dilute its forces to cover the possibility Turkey would change its mind.

The breakup of the Soviet Union has caused what would have been pretty firm agreements on both sides to become open to renegotiation with every passing day. Yes, there is a pretty firm alliance with evil along the countries you mentioned. But it’s philosophical rather than concrete.

But without the cold war to keep everybody in lockstep, every party can be relied on to make a fresh decision for each new circumstance on whether they have an “alliance” or not.

Just some random thoughts. Alliance doesn’t mean what it used to.

[ETL]

Putin is using Iran and Syria as pawns to establish powerful positions in the oil/gas-rich Middle East, in part to help finance their expansionism, and also gain strategic military positions as he proceeds on his mission to basically restore the evil empire, and then-some with bases in the strategic Middle East.

[StoneWall Brigade]

Ahmadinejad has announced his intentions for the Iranian presidency Iranian cells and quad cells here in the u.s. are prepping for grey attacks including drone via on our water supplies and other strategic assets such as oil/energy.
They want to finalize as is rumored Ahmadinejad is expected to pull off a dark horse win along with getting it done before Biden ( President Obama’s) summit with president Putin where where we are expected to announce the new Russia-U.S reset which affirms our surrender to Russia.