Did we? I thought that we just released previously frozen (stolen) Iranian assets.
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I actually think this statement is part of a smoke screen (if you will). It isn’t that I agree with the pallets of cash, but assigning the cash to the nuclear program discourages people from asking why is it cash? We could have unfroze some of the assets that Iran had in the banking system. Instead we sent cash.
The reason cash was provided is likely similar to why the plumber prefers cash. It stays out of the system and is harder to trace.
Iran didn’t send envelopes full of US dollars to buy some component needed to build a nuke.
I think talking about the nuclear program and associating it with the cash sent stops people from asking the appropriate question. Why cash? Why did Obama want the money to be outside the system that can be traced?
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Talk and bluster is cheap (just ask Trump). As far as “Death to America” is concerned, I can understand the sentiment, but I think it’s said mostly for effect and certainly doesn’t reflect what the average Iranian thinks.
I would hope that our intelligence agencies could help figure out what was actually going on. But let’s say that Iran did get a nuclear weapon. I have no reason to think they’d be any more threatening or irresponsible than Pakistan, India, Israel or North Korea. Maybe MAD would help ensure peace in the Middle East.
I don’t trust anyone in government about anything. I didn’t trust Obama when he was president and I don’t trust Trump now. I did trust GWB, however…big mistake. 
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That would be a triumph of hope over experience. Those intelligence agencies failed to predict something as earth-shaking as the break-up of the USSR, when the status of the USSR should have been continually under their microscope.
It appears that the “intelligence agencies” are mostly staffed by well-credentialed DC ladies, mostly without foreign language skills, basing their analyses on open source reports written by other well-credentialed DC ladies in the non-governmental sector. Just another growth on the Federal Government that should ideally be totally eliminated, and then a new more-constrained agency built to carry out the limited functions it should have.
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b. Hussein said they had to use cash ( I don’t remember it being clear at the time why he was paying) because Iran didn’t have a banking system. Plus ça change: that was the reason the Battle of Lepanto was so decisive, cuz the Muz had all their money and valuables on board with ‘em.
And:”stolen”? What they put our country through during the Iranian Hostage Crisis surely justified our freezing those assets and as far as I’m concerned we never shoulda given them back.
And why was this cash transfer a big secret from us?
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I think this nonsense. Iran wasn’t part of the swift system because the US kicked them off. Therefore, the US would have a few options. It could allow them to utilize the swift system or it could have deposited money in the banks that Iran uses for oil trade.
In this article from from the Center on Global Energy Policy
codified in Section 504 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012—uses the threat of secondary sanctions to require importers to make payments for Iranian oil into restricted bank accounts, which Iran can only use to finance bilateral trade.[7] By 2015, this sanction led to more than $100 billion in Iranian oil proceeds accruing in restricted bank accounts.
I also asked Grok where they got the cash because I suspected that the US treasury holds very little cash (because cash is hard to use for anything of significance). In the response from Grok, I got this little tidbit.
it was later revealed that the U.S. had made smaller wire transfers to Iran in 2015 (e.g., $848,000 for other claims), suggesting cash was not the only option.
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After what Iran put our country through? You do realize that we overthrew their democratically elected prime minister in 1953 and installed the Shah, who was, by many accounts, a massively corrupt and brutal dictator, right? I’m also sure you know about the CIA trained SAVAK (the Iranian intelligence service) who ruthlessly tortured and murdered many Iranians during the Shah’s reign. The Iranian revolution and hostage crisis were, in no small part, a reaction to the decades of repression, corruption and US interference in Iran’s internal affairs. Iran has undoubtedly committed its fair share of wrongs, but we don’t come out smelling like roses either—neither side can claim the moral high ground here.
FYI: Thankfully, none of the American hostages were killed during the crisis. However, several US servicemen tragically lost their lives during the failed rescue attempt when a helicopter, during takeoff, accidentally collided with a parked C-130 transport—the accident was attributed to poor visibility and harsh desert conditions.
Was it? My memory around that time is admittedly a bit fuzzy and I’m not sure about the timeline, but I’ve always understood that cash was part of the deal—I don’t remember being surprised by such a revelation, but I could be wrong about that.
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Fair point!
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No we provided cash. The cash was apparently from two sources. The Judgement Fund which is a fund that pays entities that win legal judgments against the US government and foreign currency.
The Judgement Fund is interesting and smells bad. It doesn’t require congressional approval to spend and apparently it is in cash. Raising the obvious question. Why is it cash? Regardless of which entity wins a judgement, cash is an inconvenient method of settlement for both parties. Do you want a hundred grand sent to you in cash? How about a million? Go try to deposit ten grand into the banking system.
The Judgement fund was supposedly used because they thought the US would lose against an Iran claim that stems from the US freezing the payment from Iran for weapons the US didn’t deliver when the Shah was overthrown. Most of it was interest. I didn’t do the calculation on the interest, but it seemed extraordinary.
In a side note, if the US thought it would lose this case, how much will it cost us for frozen Russian assets? I wonder if I can get a judgement for the lost assets I held of a Russian oil company?
Probably not. The slush fund is more likely used to funnel untraceable cash to the powers that be.
Biden did release the frozen assets.
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One thing I find interesting is that Trump cancelled the agreement in his first term. The logic was it didn’t include Iran missiles, funding terrorists and that the inspections wouldn’t work because the were not spontaneous and limited in sites. Israel provided documents from a site that wasn’t included in inspections that showed Iran held information on making a bomb. I think this site was then inspected and radioactive traces were found.
That is a debate in of itself, but what I find interesting is that we canceled the agreement based on the fact that work could be done at other sites, but we only bombed sites that were included in the inspections. Then we said we destroyed their ability to make nukes. What about the other sites?
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But we relied on them to bomb Iran. I kind of have to laugh. There is an untrustworthy deep state except when Trump makes decisions that rely on the deep state.
If we have such good intelligence that we had to bomb them because they were so close to getting a nuke, then we have great intelligence. This same great intelligence would also be able to determine if they were weeks away from having a nuke under the nuclear agreement.
Either you can or you cannot determine if they are imminently close to having a nuke. You cannot have this intelligence when it comes time to bomb them and not have it when there is an agreement in place. It is just not logical.
I would be much more supportive of the bombing had we not cancelled the agreement and they still developed a nuke. It actually appears to me that we cancelled the agreement so that they would try to complete a nuke so that we could then have an excuse to bomb them after our ally initiated a sneak attack. Then we have the audacity to take credit for a ceasefire.
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Hahaha! It seems like, to use Trump’s phrasing, “We don’t know what the f*ck we’re doing”.
As with just about every actually important issue, most everything published is inaccurate or misdirection aimed at misleading. I think there’s a simple point which is being glossed over by our (mis)leaders. It is this: highly enriched uranium (HEU) is not necessary for civilian generation of nuclear power. Combine this with the fact that, once HEU is available, it is relatively easy assemble a working bomb. Even miniaturization is not the challenge it was in the 1960’s - 70’s. North Korea did it probably > 10 years ago. So, various plausible predictions may be made to play to whomever was the intended audience (as has been done for 20 years or so). The bottom line is that HEU production = intent to create a weapon, not civilian electricity generation.
To those who say Iran’s nukes are no threat to the US, I say, if they have a missile deliverable fission bomb, they don’t need ICBM’s. It would be a trivial matter to launch just one - even a not-very-accurate one - from a nondescript freighter off some coast of the US, into the ionosphere over the continental US. The EMP (not very large fission bombs are best for this) would create untold havoc. Several commissions have reported the likely enormous devastation (up to 90% of the population dead within one year of grid death), yet little has been done to harden the grid, Anyway, given anywhere near that risk and the prior “failure of imagination” which allowed 9/11 to occur - is this a risk we can shrug off with the latest rendition of isolationism?
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That is a fair perspective. My real bitch is with the likes of the NYT and BBC who immediately concluded that almost no damage was done to the Iranian nuclear sites and the highly enriched uranium was not there anyway.
I don’t believe the “intelligence” agencies – but even more so I do not believe news agencies pumping out politicized tales claiming they have better insights. A moment’s thought will demonstrate that, at this point in time, even the Iranians probably do not know the extent of the damage to all those delicate centrifuges.
We also have to assume that our government tells lies by omission. If FedGov knew of secret Iranian sites that were more closely involved in building nuclear bombs, and went ahead and bombed them at the same time they bombed the known sites, would they be likely to tell us?
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Everybody was all worried bout EMP a few years ago. The. It seemed like that just went outta fashion. I agree it is still the most terrifying threat.. it’s just TOO frightening for people to be able to hold it in their minds, I reckon.
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If $400 million was invested for 37 years, from 1979 to 2016, the final balance (principal + interest) would be:
Scenario 1 - 3% interest rate, compounded = $1.2 billion
Scenario 2 - 4% interest rate, compounded = $1.7 billion
Scenario 3 - 5% interest rate, compounded = $2.4 billon
Scenario 4 - S&P 500 invested = $8.3 billon
Scenario 5 - S&P 500 invested with reinvested dividends = $22 billion
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According to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation:
Lisa Grosh, a legal advisor for the Department of State, testified before Congress that the $1.7 billion was comprised of $400 million that Iran had placed in a U.S. Foreign Military Sales trust fund and $1.3 billion in interest. At the time of the Iran deal negotiations, the United States and Iran were involved in a legal arbitration case over the amount of interest the U.S. owed on this fund.
And CNN:
The Obama administration secretly arranged a plane delivery of $400 million in cash on the same day Iran released four American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal, US officials confirmed Wednesday.
President Barack Obama approved the $400 million transfer, which he had announced in January as part of the Iran nuclear deal. The money was flown into Iran on wooden pallets stacked with Swiss francs, euros and other currencies as the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement resolving claims at an international tribunal at The Hague over a failed arms deal under the time of the Shah.
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Probably not…and Iran wouldn’t say either. However, I suspect it wouldn’t take independent 3rd parties with access to satellite imagery, seismic data and connections on the ground very long to connect the dots and make an educated guess as to what actually went down that night.
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All nuclear weapons—regardless of who possesses them—present a threat to the United States to one degree or another, including the US’s own nukes. I take the point that if Iran becomes a nuclear power the overall nuclear risk to the world increases, but there’s really not a lot we can do about it, especially in the long term—the nuclear genie is out of the bottle. In terms of risk posed by individual countries, I don’t see Iran as posing any more of a risk to the US than North Korea or Pakistan. There is a good chance that Iran already has a nuclear weapon, or if they don’t, it’s almost certain that they will at some point in the near future.
No. We should focus all our efforts on helping Iran become a responsible member of the nuclear club and reduce nuclear proliferation across the board—our lives depend on it.
I’m usually an über pessimist about most things (geo)political, but for reasons I can’t explain, I just feel slightly less pessimistic about Iran having a nuke. Time will tell.
FYI: Just came across this story today—this scares me a heck of a lot more than an EMP attack does—the possibilities are as endless as they are frightening:
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you forgot scenario 6: spy puts out of the money, continue to rollover until it hits!
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