Addressing American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March 2012, President Obama pledged to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. “There should not be a shred of doubt by now: When the chips are down, I have Israel’s back,” the president told to crowd.

He later reaffirmed his commitment in an interview to Jeffrey Goldberg. “I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff,” Obama said.

A year later, however, the President’s commitment wasn’t matched with actions at all, and it seems now that the US is on brink of signing a deal with Tehran that would allow them to enrich uranium in its rush towards a nuclear bomb.

“This is a bad deal–a very, very bad deal. It’s the deal of a century for Iran,” said Israel Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a video released to the media.

On Wednesday Obama said in an interview with NBC News the negotiations in Geneva “are not about easing sanctions.” “The negotiations taking place are about how Iran begins to meet its international obligations and provide assurances not just to us but to the entire world,” the president said.

The outrage over a possible deal may or may not change Israel’s policy and coordination with the U.S. on Iran. However it seems that Mr. Obama broke his word over five months ago.

A review of Treasury Department notices reveals that the U.S. government has all but stopped the financial blacklisting of entities and people that help Iran evade international sanctions since the election of its president, Hassan Rouhani, in June, Eli Lake and Josh Rogin report in The Daily Beast.

Since June 14, when Rouhani was elected, the Treasury Department has only issued two designation notices that have identified six people and four companies as violating the Iran sanctions.

A Treasury spokesman contacted by The Daily Beast said the effectiveness of sanctions should be measured by their results and not the number of entities designated. “In the months since the Iranian election we have continued to pursue our unwavering goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” the spokesman said. “We have not let up on vigorous sanctions enforcement one iota. This includes new designations of sanctions evaders as well as other steps to address potential sanctions evasion.”

But the enforcement of sanctions, experts said, is very different than the process of designating new violators. To start, sanctions enforcement means the levying of fines or other legal measures against those people and entities already designated by the Treasury Department as a violator.

Mark Dubowitz, the executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, an organization that has worked closely with Congress and the administration on devising the current Iranian sanctions, told The Daily Beast the slow pace of designations was only one kind of sanctions relief Obama has been offering Iran.

“For five months, since Rouhani’s election, the United States has offered Iran two major forms of sanctions relief,” Dubowitz said. “First there’s been a significant slowdown in the pace of designations while the Iranians are proliferating the number of front companies and cutouts to bust sanctions.”

The second kind of relief Dubowitz said the White House had offered Iran was through its opposition to new Iran sanctions legislation supported by both parties in Congress.

By Dubowitz’s estimates, Iran is now selling between 150,000 and 200,000 barrels of oil per day on the black market, meaning that Iran has profited from the illicit sale of over 35 million barrels of oil since Rouhani took office, with little additional measures taken by the United States to counter it.

“Sounds like Obama decided to enter the Persian nuclear bazaar to haggle with the masters of negotiation and has had his head handed to him,” Dubowitz said.

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)