NBC: Biden admin officials suddenly curious whether Iran trained Hamas "militants"ED MORRISSEY 9:21 AM on October 11, 2023
NBC: Biden admin officials suddenly curious whether Iran trained Hamas "militants"AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Come on, man, you may be tempted to respond. The US had known Hamas to be a client and proxy for the mullahs in Tehran for decades. Hamas even routinely brags about the support they get from Iran. They have relied on Iranian arms and munitions for their constant rocket attacks on Israel ever since the Israeli occupation of Gaza ended in 2005, an arms stream that forced Israel to put a policy of containment in place.
So why investigate whether Iran’s revolutionary guard (IRGC) trained Hamas “militants,” as NBC News calls the barbaric terrorists? There may be a reason to “investigate” the obvious:
American officials are investigating whether some of the Hamas militants who carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel received advanced training from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to current and former U.S. officials.
They are also examining whether Hamas used recent Palestinian protests along the Gaza border fence as cover to place explosives that were later used to breach the Israeli barrier. The advanced training and placement of explosives, if confirmed, would be the latest example of decades of support that Iran has provided to Hamas.
The attack, which was far more sophisticated than past Hamas operations, would not have been possible without the decades of funding, weapons and training Iran has supplied to the militant group, current and former U.S. officials say.
This seems like a strange task to start after both Joe Biden’s nat-sec advisor Jake Sullivan already declared Iran “complicit” in the disgusting barbarities of Hamas. Sullivan said yesterday that Iran was “complicit in a broad sense” in part because “they’ve provided training, they have provided capabilities, they have provided support” to Hamas, as well as “the lion’s share of funding” for its military wing. The State Department followed up by noting that Hamas couldn’t have been “a fraction of the group that it is” without full Iranian support in all phases of its operations.
No one doubts that Hamas acts as Iran’s proxy. The political rivalry between the Hamas and Fatah factions among the Palestinians comes in part from that very fact. Fatah and Abbas have drawn their support from the Sunni states, while Hamas has relied on Shi’a Iran, which has been the enemy of the Sunnis in both religion and regional power struggles. Now that the Sunni states have grown more accommodationist with Israel, Iran used Hamas to create more conflict to derail the process and get back to the project of annihilating Israel and all the Jews in the region.
So … case closed, right? Of course. So why leak out news of this “investigation” late last night? Well, that’s the six billion dollar question, isn’t it?
Joe Biden paid the Iranians that $6 billion last month for six American hostages in Iran. Practically everyone warned that this would incentivize the next hostage crisis, although perhaps none of us saw it coming this fast. Now Hamas, Iran’s proxy, apparently holds almost as many Americans hostage than we got back from Iran, and potentially more:
#Israeli911
U.S. citizens killed: 14 and climbing
U.S. citizens captured, held hostage: 5 confirmed
U.S. citizens missing/unaccounted for: at least 20
— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) October 11, 2023
Biden and his team have spent the last few days denying that this has any relation to Hamas and its genocidal barbarism this week, but that’s a dodge. The $6 billion may sit in an account for the purpose of buying food and medicine, but those were goods that Iran’s terror state had to buy from its restricted income stream before the deal. Now they can put that money to work elsewhere, and by elsewhere, everyone with sentient consciousness knows exactly where it will go.
Money is fungible, after all, a point that Biden & Co are determined to ignore or deny.
Now that Iran couldn’t wait even a month to launch a genocidal attack through its proxy with its new resources in hand, pressure is rising on Biden to seize back the assets. Biden and the White House are resisting those calls, but now some Senate Democrats want Biden to get those assets out of reach of the mullahs too:
Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Jon Tester (D-MT), the most vulnerable incumbents of the 2024 cycle, said in separate statements that the United States should no longer permit Tehran to access the funds in the wake of the surprise attack. The move aligns them with a large swath of the Senate Republican Conference, almost half of whom have called on the White House to reverse course.
“I wasn’t supportive of the initial $6B transfer,” Manchin said. “We should absolutely freeze these Iranian assets while we also consider additional sanctions.”
Tester, who chairs the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, said, “As American intelligence officials continue to investigate the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas, we should review our options to hold Iran accountable for any support they may have provided.
“At a minimum, we should immediately freeze the $6 billion in Iranian assets and explore other financial tools we have at our disposal,” the Montana senator added. “Moving forward, we need to ensure our ally Israel can defend itself from these ongoing deadly attacks against its civilians.”
Want to bet Chuck Schumer feels the same way? The despicable Gazan rape and murder of Israeli civilians on a massive scale, including babies literally in their cribs, will not play well even among the New York cognoscenti. Now that Manchin and Tester have gone public against Biden on this issue, other vulnerable Senate Democrats will likely follow suit, making it a stampede at some point. Schumer may keep quiet about it for now, but if more of his caucus breaks with Biden on this, Schumer will be forced to take a stand one way or the other — and it seems unlikely that Schumer will defend any decision that allows Iran to retain access to the funds.
This looks more like an attempt to find a legal reason, or at least a legal pretext, for clawing back those assets. The timing on this is rather obvious. Manchin and Tester made these declarations yesterday afternoon; by late in the evening, the White House leaked this “investigation” to NBC News. Someone in the West Wing must realize that their scummy deal last month has proven indefensible, only they don’t want to just admit that Biden’s an idiot, nor do they want to leave the impression that Americans guarantees are worthless.
Hence, this “investigation” into the obvious gets launched.
They will quickly claim to be shocked, shocked to discover that the IRGC provides training and funds to Hamas as well as lots of munitions and technology aimed at the destruction of Israel. They will rescind the deal while blaming Iran for violating it, when everyone knew exactly what Iran would do with the cash in the first place. No one will be asked why the Biden administration didn’t simply take Hamas’ word for it, but in the end, Biden & Co will seize back the $6 billion — or what’s left of it. It’s nothing more than a CYA move, and hopefully it won’t be too late to keep from funding Hamas’ last stand.
Addendum: Attention, NBC and all other American media outlets — Hamas is a terrorist group, not “militants.” Slaughtering infants in cribs, raping and kidnapping girls and old women, and massacring civilian families is terrorism and the perpetrators of such are properly called terrorists. Stop whitewashing Hamas and radical Islamist jihadis.
Ah, That $6B Question That Isn't Going Away
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Kathianne
