David French of National Review Online helps bolster the Trump administration’s case for dumping the deal on nuclear weapon development in Iran. French explains how the deal’s supporters deceived the American people.
The “scandal-free” Obama administration sure liked to lie a lot. [Wednesday] morning, America awoke to yet another revelation that Obama officials misled Congress about their dealings with Iran.
A Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report alleges that the administration secretly sought to give Iran access — albeit briefly — to the U.S. financial system by sidestepping sanctions kept in place after the 2015 nuclear deal, despite repeatedly telling Congress and the public it had no plans to do so. Specifically, the Obama Treasury Department issued a license that would have allowed U.S. banks to participate in a scheme to convert $5.7 billion in Iranian funds into U.S. dollars and then euros. The American banks declined to participate, “citing the reputational risk of doing business with or for Iran.” …
… In other words, the Obama administration tried to do Iran an immense financial favor, one not required by the deal itself, to uphold the mythical “spirit” of the agreement (yes, that’s their off-the-record excuse). Iran had reportedly complained that it “wasn’t reaping the benefits it envisioned,” and the Obama administration attempted to help — even though it had publicly assured Americans that “Iran will be denied access to the world’s most important market and unable to deal in the world’s most important currency.”
The Iran deal was a deceptive dereliction of duty from the outset, resting on a fundamentally flawed understanding of Iran, the Middle East, and the world. The world’s greatest power confronted a third-tier nation with a fourth-tier military, and practically begged to avoid conflict.
Keep in mind, this attempted favor happened even as the Obama administration’s pie-in-the-sky hopes for the deal were crumbling before the world’s eyes.