The Biden Administration may have set a new record in appeasing the Iranian regime, which is, according to the annual US Terrorism Report, the world's "Leading State Sponsor of Terrorism" and a flagrant violator of human rights.
While people in Iran were celebrating the death of the tyrannical President Ebrahim Raisi, whom they called "the Butcher of Tehran," the Biden Administration was sending condolences to the Iranian regime -- a move that sparked outrage and disbelief among those who champion democratic values and human rights (here, here and here).
The Biden administration was sending condolences to a regime that not only brutalizes its citizens, but that has also been using its militias and proxies -- Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad -- to blow up peace throughout the Middle East, and sending missiles and drones to Russia -- after it illegally seized Georgia and Crimea -- to illegally attack Ukraine.
Iran reportedly helped its terrorist proxy Hamas to manage and plan its savage October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel. Iran then directly attacked Israel, a country smaller than New Jersey, with more than 300 ballistic missiles and drones on April 13-14.
Since President Joe Biden assumed office in 2021, Iran has attacked US troops in the Middle East more than 170 times, apparently to drive US troops out of the region, to be able to continue "exporting the Revolution" unhindered (here, here and here). At present, Iran controls, in addition to its own country, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, the Gaza Strip, and appears to be eyeing Jordan and Sudan.
Ever since the presidency of Barack Obama, much US policy, no matter how decisively all evidence appears to point the other way, seems to entertain the fantasy of "bringing Iran in from the cold" -- a bit like assuming a beloved lady-of-the-night will be a submissive wife, cook and homemaker.
The conclusion always somehow appears to be that the US is just not trying hard enough: if only America would offer just a few more concessions or a few more billions, or send a better negotiator, Iran would see the error of its ways.
The US, unfortunately, has undertaken a dangerous flirtation with a regime that embodies nothing but terror and extremism.
Sanctions that the Biden administration has lifted or ignored, including secondary sanctions -- notifying other countries that if they trade with Iran, they will be prohibited from trading with the US -- have enabled the Iranian regime to profit by an estimated $100 billion; more, according to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, than "the annual budget of Greece or Ireland."
"Had Tehran's average daily export volume remained the same as it was while Donald Trump's maximum pressure policy was in effect from May 2019 to January 2021, the regime would have had $40 billion less to spend on ballistic missiles and proxy groups."
Most importantly, these profits have enabled Iran to accelerate completing its nuclear weapons program, if it has not already done so and is not just being paid to stay quiet before the US presidential election this November.
The United Nations, with more than 20 Muslim-majority member-states but one Jewish one, has established a track record for being irretrievably biased (here, here, here, here, here, here and here, for a start). Begun as an institution meant to uphold global justice and peace, instead over the years it has instead set its sights and its courts -- the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the illegitimate International Criminal Court (ICC) -- on Israel.
The ICJ, according to attorney Alan Dershowitz, "is an illegitimate tribunal that lacks authority," and the ICC, also according to him, is possibly even more illegitimate.
"The International Criminal Court is the creation of the Rome Statute, which severely limited its jurisdiction by the rule of complementarity. This rule expressly denies the ICC the authority to be the primary investigator or prosecutor of any individual who is subject to legitimate investigation and prosecution by his or her nation."
Of the ICJ proceedings, the Jerusalem Post wrote:
"For 35 minutes, the International Court of Justice bad-mouthed Israel, but then it surprised the Jewish state by not issuing any practical orders against the IDF.
"There was no order to cease the war and there was no order for the IDF to withdraw from Gaza....
"All of the other measures that the ICJ ordered are items which Israel says it agrees with in general: don't commit genocide, facilitate humanitarian aid, preserve evidence for probes of alleged war crimes, and prosecute Israelis who engage in illegal incitement against Palestinians."
The United Nations, which ruled in 1975 that "Zionism is Racism" (repealed in 1991 with the help of Ambassador John Bolton) nevertheless observed a minute of silence to honor "the Butcher of Tehran."
These assaults by the UN are shameful acts of complicity, and only further highlight the troubling trend of international bodies and leaders who turn a blind eye to the atrocities committed by the Iranian regime and its proxies, and give terrorists a bigger weapon with which to bludgeon democracies.
Under the Biden administration, the United States, traditionally seen as the leader of the free world and until recently a staunch defender of democracy, finds itself questioned about its commitment to opposing terrorism and the countries that sponsor terrorists it, and about its thinning support for the Free World.
The Biden administration's overtures to Iran, as witnessed by years of suicidal appeasement and now symbolized by the recent condolence message, are not only misguided but also a betrayal of the values that the US has long stood for. The actions of the Biden administration have emboldened China, Russia, Qatar, Iran and its terror proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, and also undermine efforts to hold them accountable or even slow their belligerency, let alone stop it. There also seems not the slightest interest in the part of the Biden administration to support the Iranian people in their struggle for freedom and justice, and the end of torture and death sentences for "crimes" as monstrous as "committing" music or refusing to wear a headscarf (here, here and here).
Ebrahim Raisi, before becoming president, as deputy prosecutor of the Revolutionary Court, and as a member of the "Death Commission," was infamously linked to one of the world's largest mass executions, in which more than 30,000 Iranians were murdered, including children and pregnant women. A US House of Representatives resolution detailed:
"... over a 4-month period in 1988, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran carried out the barbaric mass executions of thousands of political prisoners and many unrelated political groups... according to a report by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, the massacre was carried out pursuant to a fatwa, or religious decree, issued by then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini..."
Ultimately, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed Raisi as the head of the regime's notorious judicial system. After his appointment, Raisi declared in a speech at the 23rd National Assembly of Revolutionary Guards Commanders and Officials in 2019: "We will not cut the fingers of those who are corrupt; we will cut off their entire hand." Under the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Treasury, on November 5, 2019, placed Raisi on its sanctions list.
Under Raisi's leadership, Iran-backed Hamas initiated the attack on October 7, launching a barrage of rockets at Israel while approximately 3,000 terrorists crossed the Gaza-Israel barrier and assaulted Israeli military bases and civilian communities. This onslaught resulted in the murder of 1,200 people in Israel, including Jews, Muslims, Christians, Israelis, tourists, and foreign workers. The atrocities Hamas committed include sustained gang-rape and torture of men, women and children, the beheading and burning alive of babies, and the seizure of 240 hostages who were abducted and taken to Hamas's tunnels in Gaza.
Also under Raisi's presidency, Iran forged closer ties with Russia and China. Iran has supplied Russia with powerful ballistic missiles and attack drones, and is helping to build a drone factory near Moscow -- all presumably to attack Ukraine. Iran has also been supplying China, its "top buyer," with oil.
"It is absurd that the Biden administration touted their support for human rights while, in the same breath, offering official condolences for the 'Butcher of Tehran.' Clearly, the Democrat Party of today has become the pro-terrorist party," US House Majority Whip Tom Emmer told Fox News Digital.
House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik called the State Department's message "unacceptable, unnecessary, and outrageous."
"Biden's State Department expressing condolences for the death of a brutal and monstrous enemy of America who tortured and killed his own people and led the charge to fund terrorist proxies around the world that have killed American soldiers is a new low for Joe Biden."
The message the Biden administration is sending to the people of Iran and to America's allies is not to look to the US for help. To the Iranian people, who risk their lives every day in their struggle to overthrow this oppressive regime, the Biden administration, like Obama's, has sent only devastating indifference. The administration's actions have consistently favored the Iranian regime at the not only at the expense of the Iranian people, but also at the expense of the deaths of three American troops killed and scores wounded in Iran's attacks on the US, and at the expense of the American and other innocent hostages still being held by Hamas. The administration seems not to care about them any more than they cared about the Americans and allies of the US who were abandoned and are still captive in Afghanistan. The message being sent again and again by the Biden administration is that if you want a reliable ally, go look somewhere else.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
Sandra Smith