The US State Department informed Congress late Tuesday that it is waiving sanctions on Iran’s oil trade, the same day that the Department of Justice announced an Iranian plot to kidnap an American citizen.

The Justice Department announced multiple charges against a network of Iranian intelligence agents, including sanctions violations conspiracy, conspiracy charges, money laundering, bank and wire fraud conspiracy, and kidnapping conspiracy.

The waiver allows the “transfer of Iranian funds in restricted accounts to exporters in Japan and the Republic of Korea. Allowing these funds to be used to repay exporters in these jurisdictions will make those entities whole with respect to the goods and services they exported to Iran, address a recurring irritant in important bilateral relationships, and decrease Iran’s foreign reserves.”

Of course. Because I'm old enough to remember Barack Obama doing the same when the IRGC got caught mid-plot trying to bomb a restaurant in downtown Washington. He paid them and didn't utter a peep. And for good measure, he also removed sanctions on mass murderer Qassem Soleimani. https://t.co/Phvg5MCxZx

— Tony Badran (@AcrossTheBay) July 13, 2021

The waiver of sanctions on Iran’s oil trade is presumably only the first in a series of upcoming waivers in light of the Biden administration’s seemingly irrepressible determination to sign a new nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, even as it attacks and plots against US interests.

The Washington Free Beacon quoted Richard Goldberg, the former director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction on Trump’s White House National Security Council, as saying that the waiver, signed by US Secretary of State Tony Blinken, is “an outrage.”

“There’s a reason we talk about accessible foreign exchange reserves versus inaccessible foreign exchange reserves. If you free up money that’s trapped in foreign accounts for Iran to pay off debts, you are bailing out the regime and rescuing the mullahs from a balance of payments crisis,” said Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “This is a bailout, plain and simple. And to announce it right as DOJ tells us Iran tried to kidnap an American journalist out of New York City—that’s a national outrage.”

در مصاحبه با CNN شرح دادم که حکومت به ۱۵۰۰ معترض شلیک کرد و الان هراس‌ حکومت از شنیدن صدای دادخواهان ایران است. با تهدید و اقدام به آدم‌ربایی صدایم بلندتر و تلاش‌هایم علیه دیکتاتوری مذهبی در ایران بیشتر خواهد شد https://t.co/bHVHJcRAH4

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) July 14, 2021

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)