On Wednesday morning, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), led by Senator Rob Portman, released a majority report reviewing the Obama administration’s communications and financial maneuverings with Iranian officials at the time of the Iran nuclear deal. The report, “Review of U.S. Treasury Department’s License to Convert Iranian Assets Using the U.S. Financial System,” reveals in fuller detail the duplicitous ways in which Obama administration sold the agreement.
As part of the Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), according to the testimony of several Obama-era officials including its Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Iran was to be denied access to the U.S. dollar and the U.S. banking system. The administration’s message was clear, both before and after the deal’s signing: Iran would not be given access to the U.S. financial system. Yet the administration circumvented its own stated policy.
On February 24, 2016, the report reveals, the Treasury Department issued a license permitting Iran to convert $5.7 billion it held in Oman from Omani rials to U.S. dollars and then into euros. This would have directly violated the sanctions law then in place as well as the terms of the JCPOA. The only reason the transaction never took place is that American banks, despite pressure from the Obama administration, refused to go along, citing “compliance, reputational, and legal risks.” To put it plainly: Obama officials asked U.S. banks to break the law, and the banks said no.
Not only that. When Obama-era officials were questioned by lawmakers about whether Iran would have access to the U.S. banking system, those administration officials failed to disclose that, in fact, they had already actively facilitated Iran’s access.
The PSI report also sheds light on the “roadshows” in which Treasury officials advised foreign companies and foreign subsidiaries of American companies on how to do business with Iran without incurring penalties. U.S. government officials had conducted “roadshows” to advise foreign companies and foreign subsidiaries of American companies on how to avoid penalties in doing business with Iran. In these seminars, the report explains, Treasury officials “downplayed any potential future penalties or fines, stating that 95% of the time, [Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control] sends a warning letter or takes no action.”
Don’t worry about doing business with Iran, in other words. Nobody’s going to punish you.
President Barack Obama came into office believing—and he held to the belief tenaciously, despite all evidence—that the regime in Tehran needed only to be trusted and treated as a peaceful and law-abiding member of the community of nations. If the regime were allowed to thrive economically, the president and his allies believed, it would cease to be a malign force across the Middle East.
We viscerally disagreed with that view, but it was a legitimate view. But when Obama administration officials couldn’t persuade Congress and the public of their outlook, they simply lied about it. We hear a great deal these days about the grave repercussions of presidential untruths—and rightly so. But the previous administration, it seems, perpetrated deliberate untruths with calamitous consequences for U.S. policy in the Middle East. We look forward to seeing that administration’s officials held accountable.
