‘A Staggering Act of Appeasement’
The decision of the Biden administration to arrange for the payment of Iran’s dues at the United Nations is being described to us as “a staggering act of appeasement.” That is the phrase used by our sometimes legwoman at the United Nations, Claudia Rosett. We had called her to see what she made of the news. Her tirade is probably still echoing down the telephone lines from the fastness of upstate New York.
The gist of the story is that Iran had failed to pay its dues at the United Nations and had in consequence lost its voting rights in the World Body. One would think that this would be a boon for America. It’s the fruit of American sanctions, after all, and would mean that Iran would be able to foment less trouble at Turtle Bay. If that’s what one thinks, though, one would not be a muckety muck in the Biden administration.
No, it seems that the Biden administration wants Iran to have a vote in the United Nations because the UN is the route through which the Obama administration struck its articles of appeasement known as the Iran nuclear deal. Remember, President Obama couldn’t get the deal ratified in the Senate. The pact was opposed, as the Times noted in an editorial, “overwhelmingly” by both houses of our Congress.
So Mr. Obama and his state secretary, Senator Kerry, took the deal to the United Nations Security Council. There Messrs. Obama and Kerry opposed America’s own Congress and got the appeasement approved. The American people turned around and elected, in Donald Trump, the only candidate for president who opposed the Iran deal. After Mr. Trump acceded to the White House, new sanctions were put into effect.
They mean that through legitimate channels, the Ayatollahs couldn’t scrape together enough money to pay their UN dues. So two weeks ago, Secretary General António Guterres issued a letter. It listed those countries that were so far behind in their dues that, under Article 19 of the United Nations Charter, they couldn’t vote in the General Assembly. Iran was the second worst deadbeat, after Venezuela.
From that point it took fewer than two weeks for the Biden administration to arrange for $18 million of blocked Iranian funds to be released to the Iranians so they could pay their dues. The niceties were carried out by the South Koreans working with our own Treasury Department. It seems that Secretary Janet Yellen doesn’t have enough to do ginning up inflation. Why not grease the skids for a war in the Middle East?
The irony, Ms. Rosett points out, is that somehow the Iranians seem to have enough spondulix for resupplying weapons to the Houthis, help out Hezbollah, and take part in joint naval maneuvers with Russia and China. We’ve been told for years that the point of sanctions on Iran is to get the regime to change its behavior. If so, South Korea and the Biden administration have just helped out Iran — without changing a thing.
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