The Biden administration already offered Iran backdoor sanctions relief. And promising a whole lot more.
In May 2021, Malley was offering Iran relief equivalent to $7 billion, nearly equal to the budget of Iran’s entire conventional military for 2022. As Iranian negotiators stonewalled — they have not sat down with Malley or his team but instead insist on talking through intermediaries — Malley’s team upped the ante. Today, the Biden administration appears poised to provide Tehran with $12 billion, equivalent to a quarter of Iran’s total budget at the real exchange rate.
This doesn’t cover the South Korean backdoor or so much else.
Now the Biden administration is going even further with sanctions relief on what the media insists on misleadingly calling Iran’s “civilian nuclear program.)
Oil-rich Islamic terror states don’t have civilian nuclear programs. Nor do they need them.
The Biden administration on Friday restored some sanctions relief to Iran’s civil nuclear program as talks aimed at salvaging the languishing 2015 nuclear deal enter a critical phase.
As U.S. negotiators head back to Vienna for what could be a make-or-break session, Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed several sanctions waivers related to Iran’s civilian nuclear activities. The move reverses the Trump administration’s decision to rescind them…
The waivers permit foreign countries and companies to work on civilian projects at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power station, its Arak heavy water plant and the Tehran Research Reactor. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had revoked the waivers in May 2020, accusing Iran of “nuclear extortion” for continuing and expanding work at the sites.
Biden’s people are screaming that this isn’t sanctions relief. (It’s worse.)
The Biden Administration was quick to defend sanctions waivers for Iran’s nuclear program on Friday, after the move was perceived as a concession to Tehran.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the waiver was not a sanctions relief and emphasized that the US will not provide sanctions relief to Tehran before it returns to its commitments under 2015 nuclear deal.
“We did not provide sanctions relief for Iran and will not until/unless Tehran returns to its commitments under the JCPOA,” the US State Department spokesman tweeted Friday after President Joe Biden’s administration restored sanctions waivers for Iran to allow international nuclear cooperation projects.
Even the media is calling this sanctions relief.
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