President Biden is being played by Russia and Iran. Watching is painful. The game is not complicated, just deadly – like watching a gorgeous tarantula approach, a black tiger snake slither, or a taste-testing water hemlock. Deals with Iran are deadly. Putin knows it; Biden misses it.
What is happening? Within days, unless stopped by Congress, Biden is likely to announce negotiators in Vienna have a deal with Iran. Liberal outlets will glow, suggesting an end to Iran’s nuclear program (wrong) and peace in our time (wrong).
Biden will trumpet success, inking a worthless deal with Iran’s repressive, radical Islamic terror state. Can it get worse? Yes.
The deal’s four corners are simple. Biden wants to restore a one-sided accord Obama signed with Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, which then converted from a “treaty” (Senate ratification) to a mere agreement. That deal lets Iran advance nuclear weapons but delayed the process in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars and lifting economic sanctions.
Trump scotched the non-treaty, reimposed severe sanctions (“maximum pressure”), hobbling the Iranian economy, slowing nuclear weapons development, undercutting Iranian terror and military finance. So serious were sanctions that Iran’s oil was taboo, and Iran sank into recession.
Iran’s GDP was – after the Obama-Biden deal – was 12 percent (2015). After Trump’s reimposition of sanctions – it dropped to minus 9 percent (2019). Suddenly, Iran was in trouble.
The repressed Iranian people were motivated by US condemnation of Iran’s brutal regime. From 2017 through 2020, they protested. The Islamic regime – Biden’s deal partner – imprisoned, tortured, and slaughtered the protestors, killing 1,500 in 2019 alone. See, e.g., 2018–2019 Iranian general strikes and protests; 2019–2020 Iranian protests.
The prior deal was an unmitigated disaster, just as reimposed sanctions were to Iran. Now, Biden wants to re-up that deal. Why? Partly ego, another motivation – is cheap oil.
Biden clamped down on US oil and national gas production to mollify his anti-fossil fuel political base. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and he was compelled to cut Russian oil imports. To top this, accelerating inflation from federal overspending has put US gas on a wild run.
Gas at the pump is six dollars a gallon in some states, headed higher. Heating fuel oil is up, drilling, fracking, refining, and transporting of oil and gas down. This is Biden’s doing.
How does that relate to a new Iran deal? First, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members have little regard for Biden, so appeals for more oil from them went unanswered.
Caught out, Biden thinks a deal with Iran – lifting sanctions – could give him cheap oil. Reprehensible on its face, that deal would open the door to nukes for Iran, up-fund terror, diss longtime US allies like Saudi, stiff-arm US energy producers, and barely affect prices.
The kicker: What no one dares say, is this deal is Russia and Iran playing Biden. What now rivets the world? What united NATO, has the world aghast, a free nation at war, refugees pouring out of that nation by the millions?
Of course, Putin invaded Ukraine, killing civilians, threatening chem-bio and tactical nuclear weapons. Putin and his inner circle, many fleeing, getting arrested, or (in the military) killed, is increasingly isolated, politically and economically.
Russia is economically isolated by Western sanctions, specifically on Russia’s oil. Russia’s number one export is oil, at $142 billion dollars last year. They were the world’s top exporter. See, e.g., Here’s where Russian oil flows.
Now think. Why would Russia suddenly – two weeks ago – lift objections to the US-Iran deal, permitting sanctions to be lifted on Iran’s sale of oil to the West? What is Putin thinking?
Simple. If Iran is allowed back on global oil markets without sanctions, the US will buy Iranian oil. Iran then becomes a conduit for the resale of Russian oil, allowing Russia to skirt sanctions.
Bottom line: Russia wants the US-Iran deal, so they can skirt anti-oil sanctions reselling oil through Iran. Iran gets the mark-up, resells Russian oil to the West, including the US.
Is this not sick – but true? How can Americans let Biden claim moral high ground with economic sanctions on Russia while opening the door to the resale of Russian oil through Iran?
Biden’s hypocrisy crosses every bright line, should be halted. Americans should not help Iran build a nuclear weapon, finance terror, or resell Russian oil – thus financing Russian terror.
How do we stop the charade? First, talk about it. Second, pressure Congress to stop it, block the deal. Third, pressure Congress and Biden to reopen US energy production. Fourth, get real: If Russia is wrong – and they are – we should not be filling cars with Russian oil via Iran.
Biden is being played. He needs to snap out of it. Americans need to say, no deal.