Iran is the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism acting through Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and others. They also have their own home grown thugs called the Quds Force which only operates abroad.
The political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, greets the actual ruler of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the inauguration of the titular ruler of Iran, its new President, Masoud Pezeshkian. A short time hereafter, the Israelis assassinated Haniyeh in Teheran in a clever scheme wherein a bomb was placed months earlier in a secure accomodation where Iran hosts visiting terrorists. Boom!
In addition, the Iranians are closing in on a nuclear weapon. Imagine how much fun the Middle East will be when Iran has a nuclear weapon.
Duh, they send them money, weapons, training, and intelligence. Most importantly, they send them money with which to pay their thugs.
Like any business, when the cash dries up there are layoffs, offices close, and there are no supplies.
It is. During the Trump administration, the Orange Man placed sanctions on Iran and, most importantly, its oil industry as oil is the single most important hard money generating export of Iran.
So effective was Trump’s sanction regime that Iran was down to its last $4B of reserves and unable to fund their terror network.
This simple fact accounts for why the Middle East was peaceful during the Trump administration. Trump cut off Iran’s access to oil revenues.
Then, dear reader, Joe Biden was “elected” President and immediately cancelled — via lax or non-existent enforcement — the Trump era sanctions that allowed Iran to rachet up its oil production, sell almost all of its oil to China, and to become flush with cash.
Current Iranian reserves are now more than $120B — more than enough money to fund all of its evil mischief.
Look at this graph of Iranian oil production that spans both the Trump and Biden administrations.
See that huge dip in oil production during the Trump sanctions? That correlates with peace in the Middle East and the Abraham Accords. See that rise during the Biden admin? That correlates with unrest and war in the Middle East. It isn’t rocket science, y’all.
Well, dear reader, that is the question, isn’t it?
Some say it was the wildly unsuccessful fixation and penchant for trying to get Iran back within the fold of civilized nations prevalent since the Obama/Biden administration.
Others say it is a payoff for China, the greatest beneficiary of Iranian oil flowing freely.
Who knows?
What we do know for certain is the Middle East is again aflame with death and destruction and on the verge of a serious regional conflict. Bad policy creates bad outcomes.
Ahh, the eleven o’clock service with the snake charmers today? Fine, dear reader. Here it is:
1. When Donald Trump was POTUS, he sanctioned the crap out of Iran and anybody who wanted to do business with Iran in the oil business.
This broke Iran financially in such a manner that they had no money with which to create problems in the Middle East with their terror network.
This was smart policy that resulted in good outcomes.
2. When Joe Biden came into office, he immediately reversed this highly effective program, Iran began to sell gobs of oil to China, Iran made a lot of money.
With its new found source of hard money, Iran reinvigorated their terror network creating the shit storm in the Middle East we see today.
This was dumb policy that resulted in a tornado of bad outcomes.
It is worth noting that Kamala Harris intends to continue these ill-advised policies. Trump will return to the policies that gave the world peace in the Middle East.
America needs good leaders who promulgate and enforce good policy that results in good outcomes. It isn’t rocket science, y’all.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car.
