It now appears that the Obama administration took secret actions to ensure that the rogue nation of Iran can move that much closer to participating in the international banking system–a huge advantage for the terror-supporting regime.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
The Obama administration agreed to back the lifting of United Nations sanctions on two Iranian state banks blacklisted for financing Iran’s ballistic-missile program on the same day in January that Tehran released four American citizens from prison, according to U.S. officials and congressional staff briefed on the deliberations.
The U.N. sanctions on the two banks weren’t initially to be lifted until 2023, under a landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers that went into effect on Jan. 16.
The U.N. Security Council’s delisting of the two banks, Bank Sepah and Bank Sepah International, was part of a package of tightly scripted agreements—the others were a controversial prisoner swap and transfer of $1.7 billion in cash to Iran—that were finalized between the U.S. and Iran on Jan. 17, the day the Americans were freed.
The new details of the delisting have emerged after administration officials briefed lawmakers earlier this month on the U.S. decision.
According to senior U.S. officials, a senior State Department official, Brett McGurk, and a representative of the Iranian government signed three documents in Geneva on the morning of Jan. 17.
One document committed the U.S. to dropping criminal charges against 21 Iranian nationals, and Tehran to releasing the Americans imprisoned in Iran.
It is hard to know which is more shocking–the deal itself or that it was done in secret.
It should be noted that this secret lifting of sanctions was in addition to the $400 million in cash that the U.S. unloaded on an Iranian airfield and that the administration has tried to characterize as something other than a ransom for U.S. hostages. This move means that the Iranians will have even more cash for their ballistic missiles program (note: there is no peaceful use of ballistic missiles):
“By agreeing to remove U.N. and EU sanctions eight years early on Iran’s main missile financing bank, the administration effectively greenlighted their nuclear warhead-capable ballistic missile program,” said Mark Dubowitz, a top critic of the Iran nuclear deal at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank.
The United States has singlehandedly made Iran, a rogue nation that was crippled by sanctions when President Obama took office, into a bigger than before player in the Middle East.
The Obama administration has added greatly to the danger in an extremely dangerous part of the world, all the while sanctimoniously claiming that it has reduced the threat of a nuclear Iran (a claim that is very much open to debate).
In a blog post at The Corner, Fred Fleitz directs the reader to his book, ObamaBomb: A Dangerous and Growing National Security Fraud. A former CIA analyst, Fleitz believes the Iran deal poses a threat to U.S. security and should be discontinued. Mrs. Clinton is on record as supporting it.