Stop Obama’s $150 Billion Bailout of al-Qaeda’s Allies By Deroy Murdock
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/424214/print
Defying all common sense, President Obama remains desperate to rush a $150 billion bailout to al-Qaeda’s allies. Specifically, Obama’s nuclear “deal” would unfreeze Iranian assets and deliver them to the Ayatollah Khamenei and Tehran’s terror regime. Obama is, at best, holistically oblivious or metaphysically negligent about financing Islamo-butchers who cooperate closely with al-Qaeda.
Just as FDR and Stalin collaborated to defeat Hitler, al-Qaeda’s radical Sunnis and Iran’s militant Shiites have buried the scimitar and now conspire against their common enemy: America. As the 9/11 Commission concluded, “There is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers.”
According to former Defense Intelligence Agency chief General Michael Flynn, the reams of records captured during the Navy SEALs’ May 2011 raid that liquidated Osama bin Laden include “letters about Iran’s role, influence and acknowledgment of enabling al Qaeda operatives to pass through Iran as long as al Qaeda did its dirty work against the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
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The Wall Street Journal in an editorial on September 14 cites documents from bin Laden’s not-so-safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In one memo to the terrormonger, an al-Qaeda agent discusses a comrade’s travel plans.
“The destination, in principle, is Iran, and he has with him 6 to 8 brothers that he chose,” the message states. “His plan is: stay around three months in Iran to train the brothers there then start moving them and distributing them in the world for their missions and specialties.”
The U.S. Treasury and the State Department previously have denounced al-Qaeda’s joint venture with Iran.
July 28, 2011: David Cohen, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, unveiled sanctions against six al-Qaeda terrorists “operating under an agreement between al-Qa’ida and the Iranian government.” As Cohen said, “by exposing Iran’s secret deal with al-Qa’ida allowing it to funnel funds and operatives through its territory, we are illuminating yet another aspect of Iran’s unmatched support for terrorism.”
December 22, 2011: State offered a $10 million reward for information leading to Yasin al-Suri, who had been moving “money and recruits” through Iran. “Iranian authorities maintain a relationship with al-Suri and have permitted him to operate within Iran’s borders since 2005.” According to State’s Rewards for Justice Program, “when al-Qaida operatives are released” from Iran’s prisons, “the Iranian government transfers them to al-Suri, who then facilitates their travel to Pakistan.”
February 6, 2012: Treasury sanctioned Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security “for its support to terrorist groups, including al-Qa’ida.”
May 30, 2013: State declared that Tehran let al-Qaeda run a “core facilitation pipeline through Iranian territory.”
February 6, 2014: Treasury revealed that al-Suri “has resumed leadership of al-Qa’ida’s Iran-based network after being temporarily detained there in late 2011.”
#share#This $150 billion haul equals 37 percent of Iran’s 2014 GDP. Obama’s terrorist bailout is analogous to the Treasury’s receiving a wire transfer for $6.45 trillion. Speeding such a bonanza to al-Qaeda’s benefactors is nothing that a normal, pro-American president of the United States would do. Alas, Obama is neither.
This jackpot might be worthwhile if, in exchange, Iran surrendered all of its raw and enriched uranium, relinquished every uranium-enrichment centrifuge, and let Americans inspect each square inch of its territory — anytime, anywhere. Even an increase in Iranian-sponsored car bombs would be preferable to one Iranian-engineered atomic weapon exploding in Jerusalem or Jersey City.
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Obama’s precious pact achieves none of the above. Instead, the ayatollahs may stockpile uranium, operate some 27 percent of their centrifuges, exclude military sites from inspection, prohibit American inspectors, obstruct non-U.S. inspectors for 24 to 78 days (plenty of time to sanitize things), and self-inspect their main atomic-research facility at Parchin. In return, Obama would ship them $150 billion — no strings attached.
Republicans still should derail Obama’s legacy-fueled, boneheaded, deadly “deal.” By month’s end, Congress should send Obama all the spending he has requested, save one thing: Tehran’s terrorists get no bailout.
If Obama insists on whisking $150 billion to the al-Qaeda-coddling ayatollahs, let him shut down the federal government over it and explain his position to the American people.
— Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.
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