JERUSALEM, Israel – Earlier this month, after Iran's unprecedented attack on Israel with more than 300 drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles, the White House implemented a $10 billion sanctions waiver for Iran.
While there has been much debate over Iran's frozen assets, Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies tells CBN News this latest move got little media attention.
In an interview with Goldberg, we asked: "Can you describe what the sanctions waiver is?
Goldberg replied, "Congress passed a series of sanctions laws to put pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran. One of those laws passed in 2012 basically said you can't do any business with the energy sector of Iran, period. Iraq happens to be dependent on Iran for electricity. And so we have been giving Iraq a waiver to physically import the electricity. But we made a condition on that waiver. You can't let Iran get the money."
Goldberg then explained what's in the fine print.
"What President Biden has done is change that deal with the Iraqis. And so when he issued these waivers, now he says to the Iraqis, you can now move the money to Iranian bank accounts outside of Iran, in this case in Oman, and let Iran process transactions. So we're giving them $10 billion effectively on budget support in a major change of policy."
When asked for his thoughts about the claim by the Biden administration that the $10 billion wouldn't be accessible to Iran's Islamist regime, Goldberg responded, "They're saying the money doesn't go into Iran. They're not saying Iran can't access the money outside of Iran."
The White House gave assurances that the use of funds is restricted.
State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller remarked, "These funds, as I said, can only be used for humanitarian and other non-sanctionable purposes."
In response to a September 2023, waiver, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi boasted, "The funds will be used wherever we need it. So, the question remains: why would the Biden administration continue issuing the waiver?
"The purpose of the funds, where the funds sit, these are all distractions from the core truth," Goldberg insisted. "It's a financial bailout. They get a new $10 billion pot to subsidize all their imports, freeing up a different $10 billion for what? Terrorism, missiles, nuclear weapons development, and so on."
And what would be the motive for releasing the funds?
"The White House is desperate for quiet," Goldberg answered. "It's an election year. It's politics. The world is on fire at the moment due to policies of the last three years; and the President is very desperate to quiet things down, even if it means paying an extortion racket on the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism."
Unfortunately, that effort to keep a political lid on bad news sends a welcome message to Middle East terrorists.
Goldberg maintains, "If Israel is not allowed to deal with the Hamas threat and eliminate it in Gaza, the message to Hezbollah is there's no way the United States will ever support Israel in a war against Hezbollah."
Interpreted by Iran, the ultimate message is that there won't be any support to stop what Tehran is doing in the region or to stop its quest for nuclear weapons.
Iranian-born U.S. national security expert Ellie Cohenim moved to America as a refugee.
It's estimated that 80 percent of Iranians don't support the Tehran regime. We asked Cohenim how the majority of Iranians respond to the kind of sanctions waivers just granted by Washington.
She replied, "What I see daily on social media from Iranians who reached out to me from Iran directly is a lot of support for Israel. Iranian people have taken to the streets over and over again, demanding freedom from this oppressive, dictatorial regime. And they're always hoping that the U.S. will stand by their side. So when the United States does things like free up $10 billion to the regime, it makes the Iranian people feel abandoned right now."
She also believes it could be playing into the hands of U.S. enemies outside the Middle East.
"China, Russia, which is in this axis with Iran and North Korea, they're certainly watching the Biden administration, and it's just a terrible signal. We cannot be, on the one hand fighting Iran, and on the other hand, funding them."
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Cohenim does have hope that better decisions will be made, following her recent visit to the Kfar Aza Kibbutz near Gaza, which was brutally attacked by Hamas. She also met with some of the Hamas-held hostages' families.
She told us, "The massacre and torture and rape that Hamas committed on October 7th, I think, has given everyone some sense of clarity that this is really a fight between good and evil. Hamas, the Islamic Republic of Iran – they stand against everything that we value – freedom of religion, the empowerment of women.
democracy. We need to fight for our world and the world that our children and grandchildren are going to be inheriting from us."
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