RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/as-biden-readies-iran-talks-appeasement-is-in/91466/

As members of President Biden’s team are packing for a Vienna trip next week, eager to reinstate a 2015 deal that was the diplomatic crown jewel of the Obama era, three House members are raising questions about Washington’s involvement in a sanctions-busting deal funneling cash to Iran from South Korea.

President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, CIA director William Burns and Iran pointman Robert Malley put forth a rosy picture, publicly. These architects of the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action insist that before allowing further concessions they’d like to address some of the deal’s weak points.

Can they?

The Senate has yet to confirm as deputy state secretary the nomination of the original deal’s top negotiator, Wendy Sherman. Even now, though, the dynamics that allowed Tehran’s negotiators to dictate terms to her in 2015 are back. As then, the mullahs play hard to get while the administration tempts them with cash.

In late March, Washington reportedly authorized South Korea to release $1 billion in frozen oil funds that went, via Switzerland, into the mullahs’ coffers. Earlier Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps had seized a Korean ship, demanding a release of frozen funds in return for releasing it.

That’s the deal Representatives Bryan Steil, Gregory Steube, and Jim Banks address in a March 25 letter to Secretary Blinken. Will the State and the Treasury Departments allow such transactions “before Iran re-enters into compliance with the JCPOA?” they ask.

Right. Remember the much ballyhooed impasse so widely reported in the administration’s early days? Iran demanded an end to all Trump-era sanctions before negotiations could restart, while Mr. Biden’s negotiators insisted Iran first needs to reverse all its JCPOA violations.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17228/biden-iran-secret-deals

“The Biden administration appears to be using loopholes when dealing with the Iranian regime. I am again asking direct, yes or no questions on the United States’ involvement in facilitating a South Korean ransom payment to Iran. If the Biden administration is involved in transferring funds to Iran, Congress and the American people must be informed. Biden administration officials continue to deflect and refuse to answer questions from members of Congress regarding this issue.” — Congressman Bryan Steil (R-WI), letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, March 25, 2021.

When President Biden was vice president during the Obama administration, the administration was all too eager to grant concessions to the Iranian regime and, it turns out, made multiple secret deals with the mullahs….. These secret deals meant that when sanctions against Iranian banks were lifted and permission given to the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to resume conducting business, there was no longer any mechanism to check or stop Iran’s illegal activities such as advancing its ballistic missile program.

The Obama administration also helped swiftly to lift all four rounds of UN sanctions against Iran — sanctions it had taken decades to put in place. Iran’s military sites also were exempted from inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency; other inspections were only to be at the times and places of Iran’s choosing — if ever.

Another concession, usually overlooked, is that Iran never even signed the JCPOA deal — what sort of deal, then, is that?

Appeasement policies, secret deals and generous concessions to predatory regimes do not work, as history has repeatedly shown. They only empower and embolden leaders whose record reveals that they have no intention of honoring whatever they agreed to in the first place, and for whom commitments have been mainly a means of buying time to accomplish the goals they really want.

The Biden administration is ratcheting up its appeasement policies towards the Iranian regime in an apparent effort to revive the 2015 nuclear deal — which by the way, Iran never signed.

US President Joe Biden made his intention to return to the nuclear deal public before he took office; after, he appointed as Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman — a key negotiator in the talks which led to the nuclear deal in 2015 during the Obama administration. Biden actually publicized Sherman’s professed accomplishment:

“She has successfully rallied the world to strengthen democracy and confront some of the biggest national security challenges of our time, including leading the U.S. negotiating team for the Iran Deal”.

The administration proceeded to revoke the designation of the Houthis, an Iran-backed terror group, as an officially-designated terrorist organization.

Republican foreign policy leaders in Congress are now requesting from the Secretary of State Antony Blinken answers to questions about the secret talks held with South Korea that resulted in South Korea giving the Iranian regime $1 billion in ransom money. The letter was “led” by Congressman Bryan Steil (WI), Congressman Greg Steube (FL) and Republican Study Committee (RSC) Chairman Jim Banks (IN). Steil pointed out:

“The Biden administration appears to be using loopholes when dealing with the Iranian regime. I am again asking direct, yes or no questions on the United States’ involvement in facilitating a South Korean ransom payment to Iran. If the Biden administration is involved in transferring funds to Iran, Congress and the American people must be informed. Biden administration officials continue to deflect and refuse to answer questions from members of Congress regarding this issue. I want answers. Congress must be informed of the administration’s actions”.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17214/iran-hiding-nuclear-program

The latest evidence that Iran is continuing to conceal vital elements of its nuclear programme from the outside world suggest that, even if there is a resumption of negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear programme, the regime has little genuine interest in complying with the terms of any future deal.

In another provocative move, Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament has ordered the government to start limiting some inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN-sponsored body responsible for monitoring Iran’s nuclear activities.

The move by the Iranian parliament comes after the IAEA published a report revealing that last summer inspectors found uranium particles at two Iranian nuclear sites that Iran tried to block access to.

The Biden Administration has also apparently been trying to sidestep legally-required congressional approval to funnel more money to Iran and other dictatorships through a new International Monetary Fund programme, “special drawing rights” (SDRs). Through them, Iran would receive an additional $4.5 billion, usable in other currencies. According to the Wall Street Journal, which referred to the program as “Special Dollars for Dictators”, Iran’s leadership will most likely use these newfound billions to strengthen domestic repression, to intensify regional adventurism — Iran’s proxy Houthi rebels in Yemen have already targeted a “large Saudi oil field” — and to escalate their nuclear programme still further.

With the Biden administration seemingly keen to recommence negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear programme, fresh evidence is emerging that Iran’s regime is up to its old tricks by attempting to conceal key elements of the programme from UN inspectors.

Iran has a long and undistinguished history of seeking to conceal the existence of key elements of its nuclear programme dating back to 2002, when a group of Iranian dissidents first revealed the existence of the Natanz nuclear enrichment site.

Enrichment is a crucial process in producing weapons-grade nuclear material, and the fact that Iran managed to build the massive underground facility about 100 miles to the south of Tehran in secret was the first major evidence that the regime was developing nuclear weapons.

Since then there have been many similar instances of Iran seeking to conceal the existence of key facilities from the outside world, such as the Fordow facility which was constructed during the late 2000s under a mountain to protect it from attack.

https://asiatimes.com/author/spengler-david-p-goldman/

American influence is fragile in several key Eurasian nodal points and China has the capacity to hurt the United States in retaliation for American efforts to build an alliance to contain it.

China’s rhetoric has been harsh in recent weeks and it appears ready to back up the rhetoric with tough actions.

On Saturday (March 28), China and Iran formally signed a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” agreement that promises to chart the two sides’ economic, political and trade relations over the next 25 years, Iranian state media reported.

“The document can elevate bilateral ties to a new strategic level,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a televised interview. The agreement, which had been in the works since 2016 and comes while both sides face US sanctions, will boost private sector ties including through China’s Belt and Road Initiative, he said.

When the proposed deal first was floated in August 2020, I wrote, “The prospect of a deal with Iran is a move on a global game board in response to American efforts to hinder China’s breakout as a technological superpower.”

A significant Sino-Iranian investment deal had long been rumored, and it is probably not a coincidence that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Tehran to sign it a week after the acrimonious exchange at the Anchorage ministerial meeting between the US and China.

China has sent a clear signal to the Biden administration that its plans for reviving the Iran nuclear deal as well as its ability to put economic pressure on Iran depend on China’s cooperation.

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/irans-china-deal-changes-the-game-for-biden-team/

Should the Mideast fear the recent signing of a $400 billion, 25-year “strategic partnership” pact between Communist China and the Iranian ayatollahs?

“If you analyze China’s policy, you’ll not see a threat to anyone,” Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyanskiy, told reporters today.

The rhetoric of Russia and China, the international scene’s dynamic duo, increasingly sounds in sync. Both claim to defend the national sovereignty of all countries and respect the rights of all regimes to conduct their national affairs.

But no threat?

Ask Manila about Chinese vessels in the Whitsun Reef. Dispatching a flotilla of what Beijing calls “fishing boats” to the Spratly Islands certainly does threaten the Philippines and signals that China is intent on taking over. Beijing has long considered the entire South China Sea as its private lake, scoffing at competing claims by several governments.

During the Obama era, America advised the Philippines to turn to the International Court of Justice, where territorial disputes between Manila and Beijing could be calmly arbitrated. In the event, the court ruled for the Philippines. China then refused to abide and argued the court lacks jurisdiction.

Or ask Japan about similar territorial disputes with Commnist China over islands Tokyo had long administered. Countries in the South China Sea and the North China Sea are frustrated as Beijing escalates military threats and forcefully seizes territory.

Even more threatening is the looming clash over Taiwan. Beijing has always claimed the democratic island as part of the Communist motherland. Now China’s People’s Liberation Army is upgrading preparations for invasion, and President Xi openly talks of forced “reunification.”