For additional information about Iran
How did the current terrorist government get control of Iran and become a serious threat to the entire Middle East and the world? That’s what this post is about, along with how the U.S. inadvertently facilitated this.
The Shah of Iran (Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi)
came into power in 1954. He was a good friend of the United States. In 1964 he exiled radical Muslim extremist, Ayatollah Khomeini. Widely reported in the news was that President Jimmy Carter persuaded/coerced the Shah to allow Khomeini to return to Iran. The Shah complied and Khomeini returned in February 1979.The Shah then came to the United State in October 1979 for cancer treatments. Shortly thereafter, while the Shah was still in the U.S., Khomeini led a revolution in Iran and overturned the Shah’s pro-western government.
The Khomeini government, as part of its revolution, subsequently held 52 hostages from the U,S. embassy in Iran for 444 days and only released them 30 minutes after President Ronald Reagan assumed office on January 20, 1981. Iran began its terrorist activities by funding various client terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad. It also began working on developing nuclear weapons as well as the missies capable of delivering warheads to its hated enemies, Israel (the “Little Satan”) and the United States (the “Big Satan”).
President Obama thought he could delay Iran’s nuclear ambitions and began negotiating with it and signed the “Iran nuclear deal” (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – “JCPOA”) with Iran in 2015, allegedly to delay it from developing a nuclear weapon. It wasn’t a treaty because the Senate would not ratify it, but the “deal” cost the U.S. $150 billion and probably cost many lives because much of the money was used to fund Iran’s terrorist operations around the world.
When Donald Trump became President, his foreign policy advisors reviewed the deal and deemed it to be worse than worthless for many reasons, including: 1) no restrictions on the development of ballistic missiles, 2) no inspections allowed of military sites, 3) no cessation of proxy wars in the Middle East. Trump gave Iran an opportunity to revise the agreement, but Iran refused and Trump consequently withdrew the U.S. from the deal in 2018 and also imposed sanctions on its sale of oil, keeping it poor and unable to fund any serious terrorist activities through its surrogates, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad.
When Joe Biden became President, he had negotiations re-started to get the U.S. back into the original agreement. The new negotiations, however, appeared worse than the first, with Russia negotiating on behalf of the the United States and offering even more billions to Iran, in addition to removing the sanctions imposed by President Trump. The short expiration dates in the deal remained the same as the original deal even though 7 years had elapsed since that deal was made (2015). In addition, the Biden Administration was eager to enter into the disastrous deal with Iran which says in order to delay its development of a nuclear bomb. However, Iran has cheated and hid some of its nuclear sites under the former deal and continued to develop missiles that could reach the United States. I believe former president, Trump, had the right idea in keeping Iran poor with sanctions so it could not afford to sponsor many of its terrorist activities around the world nor develop a nuclear bomb or ICBMs.
This absurd “deal” was bad for the United States, Israel, and world peace and thankfully is now dead. However, Iran can still produce nuclear bombs very quickly and the billions of dollars it made from the U.S. not enforcing the sanctions on its sale of oil has put it financially “back-on-its-feet” and now fully capable of funding large-scale terrorism once again (Iran sold 400,000 barrels/day of oil in 2020, 3 million barrels/day in 2023 and has made $40by-$80 billions of dollars from its sale of that oil, enabling it to fund the vicious 10/7/23 attack by Hamas on 1,400 mostly Israeli citizens).
CONCLUSION
Iran is the chief sponsor of terrorism in many countries. Giving them billions of dollars facilitates this. Iran currently sells missile-firing drones to Russia, which is using them in its war against Ukraine. Moreover, it funds middle-eastern terrorist organizations such as Hamas, which on October 7, 2023, tortured and slaughtered 1,400 Israeli citizens and 32 Americans, as well as 232 hostages. At government-sponsored rallies in Iran (and even on American college campuses), “Death to America” is chanted. Iran has missiles capable of reaching its hated enemy, Israel and soon the United States as well. Most Iranians are good people and many are even pro-western, much different that the fanatical leaders of the Iranian government. Any funds the U.S. gives to Iran or money that Iran makes from the U.S. not enforcing its oil sanctions, is used to develop missiles that will be used against Israel and the U.S.
On October 18, 2023, President Joseph Biden, during his visit to Israel in the middle of war, just gave a $100,000,000 (one hundred million dollars) for Palestinian humanitarian relief, almost all of it will surely end up in the hands of Hamas who controls Gaza, and will fund terrorist activities in the Middle East. God help Israel, the Palestinians, and the United States!
