This past weekend, a lot of Biden-administration defenders pretended that they couldn’t understand the concept of money being fungible — the fact that if Iran knows it is going to get access to $6 billion in frozen funds for humanitarian spending, it can reallocate money that it was going to spend on those humanitarian costs to supporting Hamas and other terror groups.
But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the $6 billion that the Biden administration agreed to release had nothing to do with the Hamas attacks of this weekend. (U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized this weekend that Iran has not yet been able to spend any of the $6 billion.)
In light of this weekend’s abominable attacks, does the decision to give the government of Iran access to $6 billion look wiser than it did a week ago, or more foolish? At this moment, do you want to see Iran have as much access to previously frozen funds as possible or as little access to previously frozen funds as possible? After this weekend, does Iran seem like a more trustworthy partner for negotiations or less trustworthy?
The answers are obvious. Putting more money into the coffers of Iran was always a bad idea; it’s just a more vividly and visibly foolhardy idea now than it appeared to be last month when the Biden team agreed to it.
On September 12, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said of those unfrozen funds, “When this money arrives in these accounts in Qatar, it will be held there under strict oversight by the United States Treasury Department, and the money can only be used for humanitarian purposes, and we will remain vigilant in watching the spending of those funds and have the ability to freeze them again if we need to.”
Great. What are you guys waiting for?
Just what would the Iranian government need to do to warrant the refreezing of those funds if not helping plan, train, and pull the trigger on this weekend’s attacks?
What does the Biden administration need to see to conclude that those funds ought to be refrozen? Nine Americans have been killed and others are hostages of Hamas. Are they waiting for those numbers to increase?