On Friday, Democrat President Joe Biden restored a sanctions waiver on Iran in an effort to get the country to re-enter the controversial Iran nuclear deal.
“The waiver, which was rescinded by the Trump administration in May 2020, had allowed Russian, Chinese and European companies to carry out non-proliferation work at Iranian nuclear sites,” Reuters reported. “The waiver was needed to allow for technical discussions that were key to the talks about return to the deal formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).”
However, U.S. officials have warned that a restored Iran nuclear deal would still allow Iran to be able to develop a nuclear weapon in less than a year.
“Administration officials concluded late last year that Iran’s nuclear program had advanced too far to re-create the roughly 12-month so-called breakout period of the 2015 pact,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “Despite the change, the U.S. is pushing ahead with talks. A revised deal needs to be reached soon, the officials said, to leave the U.S. and its allies with enough time to respond to an Iranian nuclear buildup.”
When passed under former President Obama in 2015, the Iran nuclear deal drew wide criticism as the bill consisted of having the United States pay Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, to temporarily reduce nuclear activity. Iran used the funds they were given by the United States through the deal, estimated to be between $100 to $150 billion, to fund terrorism in the Middle East. According to a transcript provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a watchdog organization that monitors foreign media, Iran used part of the money to fund Palestinian terrorist organizations attacking Israel.
In the transcript, Palestinian Islamic Jihad Official Ramez Al-Halabi said, “The mujahideen in Gaza and in Lebanon use Iranian weapons to strike the Zionists. We buy our weapons with Iranian money. An important part of our activity is under the supervision of Iranian experts. The contours of the victories in Palestine as of late were outlined with the blood of Qasem Soleimani, Iranian blood.”
Al-Halabi later added, “I am not sorry, I am proud to say that the rockets that are used to pound Tel Aviv have an Iranian signature on them, the signature of Qasem Soleimani. The Kornet missiles that we use to blow up the Israeli tanks – the pride of the Israeli and global defense industry – are the Kornet missiles of Qasem Soleimani and Iran. The guns that we use to shoot at the Israeli enemy… Those who use these guns were trained by our brothers in the IRGC. We say this loud and clear.”
Iran additionally secretly violated the nuclear deal after it was passed. In 2019, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, revealed that the Iran nuclear deal required Iran to destroy parts of their nuclear reactors by filling them with cement. However, Iran secretly acquired replacement parts so the functionality of the nuclear reactors would not end up being affected. Salehi also revealed that pictures of the nuclear reactors filled with cement had been faked.
As reports of President Biden’s plan to return to the Iran nuclear deal surfaced last year, then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning about making such agreements with extremist regimes.
“A nuclear agreement with Iran is again on the table, but history has taught us that agreements like this with extremist regimes are worth as much as garlic peel,” Netanyahu warned. “To our best friends I say – an agreement with Iran which paves its way to nuclear weapons that threaten us with destruction – an agreement like this will not bind us.”