August 11, 2015 | Quote

How Obama’s Deal Would Make the West Complicit in Funding Terrorism

Concern about bolstering Iran’s support for international terrorism is reason enough to nix the Iran deal. One report explains: “‘Khatam al Anbia,’ the construction division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), is about to become the wealthy magnate for a whole new corporate world in Iran.” (That’s right, the IRGC has a construction division.)

This is why lifting sanctions while Iran refuses to curb its international conduct is foolhardy. If the deal goes through, money from Western businesses will help Iran to promote its state support for terror and its sponsorship of surrogates. This is the fundamental problem with doing a deal with a regime engaged in the murder of innocents and the destabilization of the region: You become part of the problem.

Mark Dubowitz and Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies expound on the issue:

Hundreds of bad actors are set to be expunged from the US Treasury’s sanctions list as a result of the Iran nuclear deal signed last month in Vienna. Yet the most high-profile among them has gone strangely unnoticed: the country’s dictator since 1989, Ali Khamenei.

According to the deal, within six to 12 months, Treasury will de-list more than three dozen banks, oil companies and other investments belonging to the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order, a k a EIKO. Reportedly worth more than $95 billion, EIKO is controlled by the supreme leader.

This is truly a bargain with the devil: Loophole-ridden limits on Iran’s nuclear program and lifting of restrictions would be bad enough. But that’s only part of the problem. Dubowitz and Schanzer write: “With the benefit of American sanctions relief, and with the aid of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s supreme leader will now be able to tighten his stranglehold on the Iranian people — a side effect of the nuclear deal that has not garnered enough attention. At the same time, he’ll be under fewer restrictions to finance terror and bloodshed around the region.” It’s hard to figure out any benefit whatsoever to the United States and our regional allies from this arrangement. Maybe that is why our Sunni and Israeli friends object so strenuously to a deal that emboldens its arch enemy, even before it gets a free pass to erect an industrial-size nuclear weapons program.

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Read the full article here

Issues:

Iran Iran Sanctions