As the 2016 election season gets into full swing in the US, the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran is becoming a focus, and with it the oft-repeated myth of the US having “given Iran $150 billion” as part of the deal, a claim often repeated by hawks looking to see the deal killed.
The reality is that the money and other assets belonged to Iran in the first place, and all that really happened under the nuclear deal was their unfreezing, allowing Iran to transfer the money to different banks, and spend it on infrastructure upgrades.
In the wake of the deal’s implementation, Iran moved a portion of the assets back into Iranian banks, in an effort to shore up their foreign currency reserves and curb the country’s previously excessive inflation. Most of the money remains in Western banks, however, because it’s easier to pay Western companies for their goods and services that way.
The notion, repeated by many but championed by Donald Trump in particular in recent days, is that this was somehow American money to begin with. It never was, and was never going to be, and the current situation is the default, allowing a foreign country to spend its own money, with no US interference.
For many US companies, this is going to be a bit galling, since US hostility toward Iran means many American companies are losing out on the juiciest deals to European and Asian competitors, but Iran is open for business, and that’s neither a “failure” of the Obama Administration or even a bad thing.
Iran is already shifting toward reform in elections, as the public salivates at the improvements more international trade will mean for their lives. Hostility among US politicians, then, can only be interpreted by the Iranians as spite for spite’s sake, and a threat to them being on an equal footing with the rest of the world for the first time in decades.
And the corporate media/cable news just never questions Trump on this. I don’t recall any of the debate moderators challenge him on this.
Never let facts get in the way of a good 2 minutes of hate.
And, HyperNV, I ask you, when has ANY media shill challenged this assertion when made by anyone else? They aren’t in the tank for Trump, they’re just making sure you continue to hate East Asia…with whom we’ve always been at war.
I don’t know what word triggered the automatic moderation hold on your comment. My assumption is that in the changeover of commenting systems from IntenseDebate to Disqus, which I did not implement, the triggers were ported over. I’ve never been especially happy with any automatic holding system. They’re still imperfect and likely to remain that way.
I wasn’t censoring you. I was SLEEPING. Believe it or not, I do not spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week sitting at my computer waiting to see if “Greg” makes a comment so that I can sprain my mouse finger approving it if it happens to get held. During the day, I come by to check comments every couple of hours; then a time or two in the evening.
Why do you want to get so sarcastic. You should remember where your funding comes from, and attitudes like you just displayed to a commenter will leave a sour taste if the mouths of many. Grow up!
The kickback on Justin’s bad choice of promoting Trump is going to have bad implications for antiwar.com for a long time. Maybe he will use it as a learning experience and escape from the shadow it’s cast over this site after the election. Until then it’s going to continue to cause division. The alternative is for Justin to just resign and then antiwar.com can start over.
What people don’t seem to consider is that Iran is officially a terrorist state. That is US policy. If we take from them, we should NOT give it back. We should just contemptuously tell them that we lost it.