The Biden administration appeases Iran over seized oil tanker
The Biden administration is showing deliberate weakness by failing to seize a sanctioned Iranian oil shipment that is sitting off the coast of Texas.
Members of Congress from both parties have written to the Biden administration to ask why the approximately $56 million of oil on the Suez Rajan has not been offloaded, Reuters reported. Reuters noted that oil companies are reluctant to offload the oil for fear that doing so would damage their commercial reputation. Iran has also threatened retaliation against any entity that does so. Still, it is implausible that there are no logistics firms that could do this work for the right price. And even if no such firms can be found, the U.S. Navy has the capacity to offload oil that has been sitting off the U.S. coast for nearly three months. This matters because the sale of this oil would go directly to American victims of terrorism. The Biden administration is being predictably evasive as to what’s going on, or more aptly, not going on here. But the truth is that it’s all about the Iran nuclear deal. The administration is desperate to restore at least some elements of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear accord. The Trump administration pulled out of the JCPOA, and Iran then suspended its compliance with major elements of the deal, increasing its enrichment of uranium toward weapons-grade purity. The administration is also keen not to disrupt a recently agreed deal that would see a number of Americans released from Iran in return for the release of $6 billion in seized Iranian assets.
Yet, as soon as those Americans are released, the United States should offload the Suez Rajan’s oil. While this would obviously aggravate Iran, it would be a targeted action justified by Iran’s prior and continuing support for terrorism. Like the Obama administration before it, the Biden administration believes that diplomacy in relation to Iran’s nuclear program should be treated as a separate issue to Iran’s support for terrorist groups. I have some sympathy for that argument, being that Iran is about as likely to stop supporting groups such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and its own Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force as it is to pursue a mutually beneficial federation with Saudi Arabia. The regime’s commitment to expanding its theologically ordained Islamic revolution means that it will not end its terrorist support as long as it exists. On the flip side, however, the U.S. should not claim the nuclear and terrorist issues are separate, as the Biden administration is now doing, and then treat them as parts of the same negotiating bargain. Iran must understand that its terrorist campaigns have consequences — and that U.S. concerns over its nuclear program cannot be used as leverage to protect its oil sanctions evasion. This is not complicated.
Moreover, Tehran is plotting attacks against active and former U.S. government officials, Iranian dissidents on U.S. soil, and U.S. military forces in Syria and elsewhere. It is also threatening continued terrorist attacks on international shipping flowing through international waters near the Persian Gulf. The Biden administration has refused to respond robustly or sensibly to these threats. At a minimum, it should ensure that sanctioned Iranian oil in U.S. possession is used for the benefit of American victims of Iran’s terrorism.
Source » msn.com
