Obama Preparing to Placate Iran. Again

A new report in The Washington Free Beacon suggests that pretty soon we could be adding another broken promise to the Obama legacy: "Leading foreign policy voices in Congress say they are preparing to fight against an Obama administration effort to provide Iran unprecedented access to U.S. financial resources as part of an expanded package meant to address new demands from the Islamic Republic's for greater economic concessions. ... The Obama administration is currently exploring new options to grant Iran more sanctions relief than promised under the comprehensive nuclear agreement reached last year, just days after Iran's Supreme Leader gave a speech accusing the United States of interfering with Iranian banking."

As Mark Dubowitz and Jonathan Schanzer note in The Wall Street Journal, "[T]he Obama administration vowed that the Islamic Republic would never get the ultimate prize: access to the U.S. financial system or dollar transactions. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew was adamant during a congressional grilling last July. 'Iranian banks will not be able to clear U.S. dollars through New York,' he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or 'hold correspondent account relationships with U.S. financial institutions, or enter into financing arrangements with U.S. banks.' Yet as Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.) noted in a March 22 letter to the White House, Mr. Lew, during a Financial Services Committee hearing earlier that day, 'appeared to leave the door open' to Iran getting access to the U.S. financial system."

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