While all eyes are on Ukraine, Biden's administration is selling out to Iran
A magician's best trick is misdirection. While he has the audience focused tightly on his left hand, his right hand is busy making "the magic" happen. Then he redirects the audience's attention and — voilà! — magic. The problem is that this same trick of misdirection can be used not for entertainment, but to hide perfidious political behavior. Unfortunately, if Gabriel Noronha, a former Iran official in the U.S. State Department, is to be believed, that's exactly what's happening in Austria, where U.S. negotiations with Iran are taking place.
Obama desperately wanted a deal with Iran, so much so that he negotiated one that ensured that Iran was on a glide path to becoming a nuclear-armed nation. Shamefully, Congress allowed him to enter into what was effectively a treaty without demanding that he submit it to Congress for approval per the United States Constitution, Article 2, Section 2.
The moment Trump entered office, he shut down Obama's bad deal. However, because Biden's "presidency" is nothing more than Obama's third term, a deal with Iran is currently back on the table. And that's where things are looking grim for anyone within the ambit of Iran's terrorism, which means the whole world, with a special emphasis on Israel and America, both of which are the recipients of Iran's most frequent genocidal threats.
Melanie Phillips became aware of a long Twitter thread by Gabriel Noronha, the aforementioned former State Department official on the Iran desk. His thread begins with these ominous words: "My former career @StateDept, NSC, and EU colleagues are so concerned with the concessions being made by @robmalley in Vienna that they've allowed me to publish some details of the coming deal in the hopes that Congress will act to stop the capitulation."
Image: Robert Malley. Public domain.
Who is Robert Malley? He is our special envoy to Iran, a position he assumed on January 28, 2021. He's a Jewish leftist who served under both Clinton and Obama, and who devoutly wants America and Israel to get along with Hamas, a pure genocidally antisemitic terrorist organization, and the Muslim Brotherhood, a group so foul that the Egyptian people ejected it. He grew up in France, from which his father was expelled in 1980 for being so openly hostile to Western colonialism and Israel. Like father, like son.
Given his bona fides, Noronha's thread, which describes America pouring money into the Iranian mullahs' pockets, as well as removing all sanctions on and terrorist designations from some of the most evil terrorists in the world (individuals as well as the IRGC), with nothing in return, is entirely believable — including the fact that the deal is being structured so that Congress can't stop it.
And just to make the Biden administration's prestidigitation act complete, it turns out that Moscow is an essential player in this little dance to relieve Iran of all burdens associated with its terrorism and nuclear ambitions:
Even as Moscow invades Ukraine, the Biden administration is relying on Russia to solidify a revamped nuclear agreement with Iran, a deal that senior Republican foreign policy leaders say will be approved in the coming days without any input from Congress.
As Russian forces press further into Ukraine, threatening to spark a world war, the Biden administration is rushing to finalize a Russia-brokered nuclear deal with Iran, Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), the lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon.
"Russia's further invasion of Ukraine is reprehensible, but we can't lose sight of the next national security crisis as it forms before our eyes: The Biden administration is reportedly rushing to finalize a deal with Iran, brokered by Russia, that it does not want Congress to review, in violation of U.S. law," McCaul said.
Throughout the conflict, the Biden administration has kept diplomatic channels with Moscow open in the hopes it can push Iran into accepting a deal that will provide the world's leading sponsor of terrorism with billions of dollars in cash windfalls.
Read more here.
Biden may be stupid but his administration, staffed with Clinton and Obama stalwarts, is fiercely accomplished at duplicity, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism.
The Twitter thread follows
2. “What’s happening in Vienna is a total disaster” one warned. The entire negotiations have been filtered and “essentially run” by Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanov.
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
The concessions and other misguided policies have led three members of the U.S. negotiating team to leave. pic.twitter.com/N8Si0GxMwE
4. Here’s why: Led by Rob Malley, the U.S. has promised to lift sanctions on some of the regime’s worst terrorists and torturers, leading officials in the regime’s WMD infrastructure, and is currently trying to lift sanctions on the IRGC itself. Let’s dive in.
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
6. We sanctioned some of the worst people you can possibly imagine under this authority, like Mohsen Rezaei, who was involved in the 1994 AMIA bombing that killed 85 people in Argentina.
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
He’ll be able to live free of sanctions next week if Malley proceeds. pic.twitter.com/d06iuLw7VM
8. Who else? Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to Supreme Leader Khamenei, who was charged in Argentina for homicide for the 1994 AMIA bombing and as one of the "ideological masterminds" behind the attack.
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
He also helped prop up Assad’s brutality in Syria. pic.twitter.com/rRFtd3zRk5
10.Sanctions also to be lifted on Bonyad Mostazafan, a massive conglomerate that systematically confiscated property from Jews and Bahai’s after 1979.
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
It is enmeshed with the IRGC and is a corruption network used to enrich top Iranian terrorists. https://t.co/bQBc4Wh1BR
12.Our lawyers were clear when we released this EO: it was a response to actions by Iran & its proxies to destabilize the Middle East, promote international terrorism, advance Iran’s ballistic missile program, & Iran’s attack against U.S. military assets civilian vehicles. pic.twitter.com/M7r9iO29PM
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
14.For example, they are lifting sanctions on economic arms of the Mehr Eqtesad network and Bonyad Taavon Basij which directly funds the Basij Resistance Force that recruits and trains child soldiers forced into combat. You can read about them here: https://t.co/1gdxTlMHKu
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
16.These sanctions are also not related to Iran’s nuclear program, but we’re about to lift sanctions on them anyways. These are not “inconsistent with the JCPOA” as Blinken and Malley claim – they targeted the institutions that kill thousands of innocent Iranians and Arabs.
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
18.Take Ghavamin Bank for example. It was sanctioned under human rights authorities in November 2018 for involvement supporting the Iranian Law Enforcement Forces that tortured and drowned Afghans. That won’t matter anymore – they’ll be free from sanctions.
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
20.The JCPOA lifted sanctions on the Attachment 3 list under the guise that they were nuclear-related sanctions. But now, Malley and co. are effectively trying to codify their permanent exemption from sanctions even if they are complicit in gross violations of human rights.
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
22.Sanctions will also be lifted on the Central Bank of Iran and the National Development Fund, which were sanctioned under counterterrorism authorities for providing billions of dollars to the IRGC, the Qods Force, and Hizballah. These organizations STILL fund terrorism.
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
24.Also to be lifted: sanctions on the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) that fund the Qods Force, responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of Syrians and for the death of at least 603 Americans in Iraq from 2003-2011. pic.twitter.com/U2MFHSrRbn
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
26.The @StateDept has no legal basis to rescind the sanctions on the Central Bank, NDF, NIOC or NITC as they still continue to support terrorism. To remove those sanctions, you typically have to prove they aren’t supporting terror. They can’t. In other words, this is all illegal
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
28.Perhaps most troubling is Malley’s attempt to remove sanctions on the IRGC. Malley was initially rebuffed by the interagency after he tried to get them to let him offer the removal of IRGC sanctions to the Iranians. That hasn’t stopped him.
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
30.This is one of the last issues still on the table in Vienna. The Iranians apparently have not accepted Malley’s offer, because they want an unconditional removal of the IRGC’s FTO designation. But even if the Iranians caved, we’d still be removing the IRGC sanctions!
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
32.For all these concessions, we haven’t gotten anything at all from the Iranians. The JCPOA’s sunsets have not been extended at all. Some restrictions, like the UN arms embargo, have already expired. All the meaningful restrictions will expire in the next 9 years. pic.twitter.com/nUa3hVstQ3
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
34.Iran is set to get a massive windfall in access to cash: the latest estimate is $90 billion in foreign exchange reserves, and then $50-55 billion in extra revenue each year from higher oil/petrochemical exports, with no restrictions on where it’ll be spent. pic.twitter.com/1YnT5sjABu
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 2, 2022