https://justthenews.com/government/security/bidens-iran-policy-provides-funds-regime-amid-enduring-terror-threats
Biden’s Iran policy provides funds to Islamic fundamentalist regime amid enduring terror threats
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This terror threat from the Iranian regime endures, according to one security expert, because the Iranian regime is not being properly deterred by the Biden Administration, which has provided the regime billions in sanctions relief and reduced pressure on its proxies in the region.
“[What] happened after President Trump took that decisive action [striking Qasim Soleimani] is the Iranians were brushed back from their terroristic activities. They stopped for at least a year,” Victoria Coates, former deputy national security advisor to President Trump, said on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show last week.
“And it was only after the Biden administration came in they took the Houthis off the Foreign Terrorist Organization list, this kind of action, this kind of appeasement that they started pushing back against us again. So this is the kind of thing they understand,” Coates continued.
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In addition to reversing the terror designation of an Iran-backed proxy, the Biden Administration has provided billions in sanctions relief to the Islamic Republic for years and even recently as tensions between the United States and Iran have grown amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
In November, even as tensions between Israel and its neighboring Iran proxies heated up following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas, the Biden Administration continued to provide sanctions relief, including a waiver for Iraq to transfer approximately $10 billion in payments to Iran for electricity. The payment was previously held because of U.S. sanctions.
Earlier in his administration, President Biden had agreed to transfer $6 billion in Iranian funds frozen abroad in exchange for the release of five U.S. citizens detained in the Islamic Republic. The move was widely criticized by Republicans because of Iran’s reputation as a state sponsor of terrorrism.
Coates believes the Biden Administration’s efforts to secure a new Iran nuclear deal, which it attempted to facilitate with the billions in sanctions relief and by removing its proxies from foreign terrorist lists in the United States is what ultimately eroded deterrence with Iran.
“The Israelis understood it [deterrence] and understand it, President Trump understands it. This is this is how you handle them. You don’t…nobody wants to get into escalatory war in the Middle East, but if you don't stand up to them, they're gonna keep bullying us,” Coates said of President Trump’s previous maximum pressure police regarding Iran.
Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., also criticized the Biden Administration’s weakness when it comes to sanctions relief and the terror threat and compared it to what he termed as “peace through strength” during the Trump Administration.
“[When] you look at why Iran is why Iran is posturing, and why they are behaving the way they are…why wouldn't they? They hate us. They consider us the great Satan. Okay. And the exact opposite of peace through strength, which is what we had under President Trump,” Crane told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Thursday.
“[We] have chaos and violence through weakness and incompetence under this administration. I mean, you see it across the board,” he continued.
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