The entire world is watching Russia target civilians in Ukraine and then lie about it, yet President Joe Biden now wants the public to trust Russia to help implement a nuclear deal with Iran, which, according to Washington Examiner reporting, is actively trying to assassinate Americans on U.S. soil.
An anonymous Department of Justice official revealed to the Washington Examiner that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been plotting to assassinate former national security adviser John Bolton here in the United States. This would not be the first time the Guard attempted a high-profile assassination on U.S. soil. In 2011, security officials disrupted a Guard plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador as he dined at Cafe Milano in Washington, D.C.
Then-U.S. Central Command chief Jim Mattis pushed for a strong response to the plot, including punishment for its ringleader, Qassem Soleimani, the Guard’s top commander. Then-President Barack Obama chose to ignore that advice, instead pushing for his nuclear deal with Iran, which was signed, without any approval from the Senate, in 2015.
Then-President Donald Trump authorized Soleimani’s assassination via drone strike at Baghdad International Airport in 2020. It is believed that the aforementioned efforts to kill Bolton are an effort to avenge Soleimani’s death.
Why Biden would want to make a deal with Iran while the latter was actively trying to kill Americans on U.S. soil is mysterious enough, but what would make the deal even worse is that the Iran sanctions Biden wants to lift would not only fund the very organization that is trying to kill Americans, but it would also allow Russia to evade the very sanctions Biden is currently using to pressure them on Ukraine.
Under Obama’s 2015 deal, the U.S. trusted Russia to take possession of Iran’s enriched uranium, and Biden’s deal would follow the same framework. In exchange for giving up its enriched uranium and not pursuing nuclear weapons until 2030, Iran would have sanctions on its economy lifted, including sanctions on its oil exports.
Russia is now demanding that any new nuclear deal with Iran also allow Russia to trade with Iran without any interference from Western countries. This would essentially give Russia a huge loophole to bypass sanctions on its own energy exports. Iran and Russia have cooperated in the past to evade Western sanctions, and there is no reason to believe they won’t do so again.
Eliminating Iran’s nuclear weapons program is a worthy goal that should not be abandoned. There are other countries that can act as a third party with Iran, such as France, which is not currently killing civilians in neighboring countries. Any such deal would have to be stronger than the one Obama struck. It would have to include restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program and allow for International Atomic Energy Agency inspections at all sites, including military bases. But that is nowhere near the deal Biden is currently negotiating with Russia and Iran.
With Russia killing Ukrainian civilians and Iran trying to kill Americans on U.S. soil, now is not the time for a deal on anything with these two countries.
