Like clockwork, two dozen left-wing activist groups demanded last week the United States lift sanctions on Iran to help the Islamic Republic fight the coronavirus. “With hospitals overrun and Iranian doctors struggling to procure necessary equipment, the U.S. must be part of the solution rather than part of the problem,” the president of the National Iranian American Council, Tehran’s de facto lobby in the U.S., explained.
They could not be more wrong. Put aside that the same groups consistently demand the same action regardless of the news. When the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the Islamic Republic for money laundering for terrorist groups, NIAC complained on humanitarian grounds. When the Trump administration imposed sanctions targeted not on the Iranian people but rather its leadership, NIAC objected. When the Trump administration sought to sanction the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, NIAC opposed. NIAC letters, most often co-signed by the likes of Code Pink, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Ploughshares Fund, are like Mad Libs: “[Day’s event] is reason to lift sanctions immediately.”
