Some days, you can’t even make it up.
President Biden has assured Russian despot Vladimir Putin that Biden’s proposed Iran nuclear deal will immunize Moscow from the sanctions the administration otherwise portrays as crushing Moscow for its barbaric, unprovoked war against Ukraine. So Russia will not only reap desperately needed revenue; it will also continue to develop the nuclear program of jihadist Iran.
At the Washington Free Beacon, Adam Kredo reports:
Rosatom, Russia’s leading energy company, has a $10 billion contract with Iran’s atomic energy organization to expand Tehran’s Bushehr nuclear plant. Russia and the Biden administration confirmed on Tuesday that the new nuclear agreement includes carveouts that will waive sanctions on both countries so that Russia can make good on this contract.
As I recently observed, Putin has been taunting Biden over the latter’s brave talk about crushing Russia with sanctions.
While Biden has been telling the world how tough he is when it comes to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he has also — through his Iran-friendly envoy, Rob Malley — deputized Putin’s diplomat to intercede and cut the deal Biden is desperate to strike with Iran. And mind you, the president of the United States is doing this in order to make a deal with the world’s leading state sponsor of anti-American terrorism, which does not deign to meet face to face with Biden’s envoy.
At the eleventh hour, as the parties were preparing to celebrate the new deal that would line Iran’s pocket with billions of dollars in sanctions relief, Putin trolled Biden by demanding that he guarantee in writing that the Ukraine sanctions Biden has been touting would not interfere in the Russia-Iran commerce that is foundational to Biden’s Iran deal.
Even as Putin has been bombing civilian infrastructure and mass-murdering Ukrainian women and children, Biden has been agreeing that Russia would be responsible for storing Iran’s enriched uranium and would be free to conduct lucrative commerce with Iran. Biden was too embarrassed to put in writing his administration’s assurances to Moscow and Tehran, so — apparently for appearances sake — Russia’s demands resulted in a temporary suspension of the negotiations on a new Iran nuclear deal.
But now, after a few days’ pause, Biden is giving Russia exactly what it wanted — just in public announcements rather than in writing.
As the Free Beacon reports, Biden State Department spokesman Ned Price has confirmed that “we, of course, would not sanction Russian participation in nuclear projects that are part of resuming full implementation of the JCPOA.” The JCPOA, of course, is Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
The Free Beacon has reviewed translations of Russian and Iranian documents pertinent to Biden’s new deal. They show that Rosatom, Russia’s state-controlled energy conglomerate, “has a $10 billion contract with Iran’s atomic energy organization to expand Tehran’s Bushehr nuclear plant.”
Officials of both Putin’s regime and the Biden administration confirmed to the Free Beacon that “the new nuclear agreement includes carveouts that will waive sanctions on both countries so that Russia can make good on this contract.”
A spokesman for Putin echoed the U.S. State Department’s assurance that the Ukraine sanctions will be no impediment to Russia-Iran commerce: “Additions were made to the text of the future agreement on JCPOA restoration to ensure that all the JCPOA-related projects, [especially] with Russian participation, as well as Bushehr [nuclear power plant], are protected from negative impact of anti-Russian restrictions” by the Ukraine sanctions.
Our Carine Hajjar has an excellent report on the Biden administration’s mulish determination to revive an arrangement that would empower our Iranian adversaries even as they attack American targets in Iraq (to say nothing of plotting to kill former American government officials).
Turns out that’s not the half of it.