The Republican Point: Refreeze The Money

Commentary

Why won’t the Biden administration refreeze the $6 billion it unlocked for Iran? Senator Mike Lee’s thread below raises this and other important questions to which we don’t have answers.

🧵 1. I’ve been on a conference call for the last 90 minutes with my colleagues and key Biden administration officials regarding the recent Hamas attacks on Israel. Heres what we learned:
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) October 11, 2023

3. This administration has treated Iran as a legitimate actor from day one, so much so that $6 billion REMAINS available for Iran to access. The Biden administration has not pulled this off the table. If we truly control the $6 billion, we should pull it off the table right now.
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) October 11, 2023

5. One thing the briefers acknowledged was that none of the $6 billion sitting in escrow in Qatar can be given to Iran without the Biden administration giving the final sign-off. If that’s true, it would be reckless for the administration to approve even a single transaction.
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) October 11, 2023

Iran is the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, and Hamas would not exist on the scale and with the brutal force that it does without Iran. Part of an appropriate American response, then, to Hamas’s horrific and evil attack on innocent Israeli civilians would be to refreeze Iranian funds. Republican senators are calling on the Biden administration to do just that.

So why won’t the administration refreeze the money? At least twice now, administration officials – including National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Biden Spokesman John Kirby – have refused to answer that basic question. The administration’s argument, though, seems to be:

“Not a cent [of the money] has been spent.” – So refreeze the money.
The United States “has the ability to freeze [the money] at any time.” – If so, refreeze it now.
The money is only for “humanitarian purposes.” – Money is fungible. The ayatollah has publicly announced Iran will use those funds however they want. What does that mean? As noted by House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, “[the money] is going to go into terror proxies. It's going to go into building a nuclear bomb.”
Iran has, in the words of Antony Blinken, “always used and focused its funds on supporting terrorism.” – This is an argument IN FAVOR of refreezing the money as soon as possible so that Iran does not have more resources to facilitate more terror attacks.

Here’s the point: Biden’s policy towards Iran is a dangerous policy of appeasement. That needs to end. Biden should refreeze the money as part of a complete reversal of his disastrous Iran policy.