Why are Biden’s handlers doing favors for Russia while fighting it in a proxy war in Ukraine? There seems to be no way to endanger and impoverish the American people that they won’t pursue.
“Biden Gives Iran and Russia Green Light To Continue Nuclear Work,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, February 6, 2023:
The Biden administration renewed a series of sanctions waivers that permit Iran and Russia to cooperate on nuclear work at Iranian enrichment sites, according to a non-public notification sent to Congress and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken authorized the waivers on Jan. 31, but Congress was not notified of the decision until late on Feb. 3, after the Free Beacon began making inquiries about the exemptions. Senior congressional sources said the Biden administration is trying to sweep the sanctions waivers under the rug amid renewed concerns about Iran and Russia’s military alliance.
The waivers—a vestige of the 2015 nuclear deal that the Biden administration is trying to salvage—provide billions in profit for Russian-state controlled firms, such as the Rosatom nuclear company, for work at Iran’s Fordow nuclear plant, a contested military site suspected of housing Tehran’s nuclear weapons program. At this site, Iran is enriching uranium, the key component in a nuclear weapon, to purity levels that international observers worry put them within reach of a bomb. By permitting cooperation, critics charge that the Biden administration is allowing Tehran to develop its nuclear program while enriching Russia through business with state-controlled organizations.
“These waivers send a message to both Tehran and Moscow that Washington still wants to move forward with a Russia-enabled Iran nuclear deal where [Russian president Vladimir] Putin and the mullahs both make billions,” said Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank and former White House National Security Council director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction. “It’s a real stab in the back to Ukraine and a win for Rosatom.”
The renewal of these waivers comes as Congress works to crack down on the Iran-Russia axis, particularly as Tehran provides Moscow with drones for its ongoing war in Ukraine. The State Department did not answer Free Beacon requests for comment about the waivers dating back to Jan. 31, when they were first signed.
A spokesman for Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), who is circulating legislation that will bar the Biden administration from continuing to renew the waivers, told the Free Beacon the Biden administration is boosting Russia in order to negotiate a new nuclear deal.
“These waivers highlight what everybody already knows, though the State Department publicly denies it when they speak to the American public,” the spokesman said. “The Biden administration is pathologically obsessed with reentering a nuclear deal with Iran. They’re so obsessed they’re implementing parts of the last catastrophic deal, even without a new agreement. They’re so obsessed that they’re willing to boost Russia and the Russian-Iranian alliance that is attacking the Ukrainian military and civilians.”…
Gabriel Noronha, a senior Iran adviser at the State Department during the Trump administration, said public pressure on the Biden administration likely forced it to crack down on a limited portions of Russia’s nuclear work in Iran.
“Let’s face it—the Biden administration only ended their support of the $10 billion Russian-Iranian nuclear deal because of the ongoing public and congressional pressure after the Free Beacon‘s exposé,” Noronha said, referring to the March 2022 report. “It’s still deeply troubling that the Biden administration continued to support the project for nearly a year after Russia invaded Ukraine—all in hopes of getting back to the old Iran deal. They gave Russia and Iran a year-long get-out-of-sanctions-free pass and got absolutely nothing in return.”
