Even for a Leftist idiot, Joe Biden is stupid.
The President of the United States turned a five-American for five-Iranian prisoner swap into a multi-billion-dollar spending program. Biden and his comrades are spendaholics who could not simply trade five humans for five other humans without the added joy of sending billions of dollars flying around the planet. (RELATED: DEROY MURDOCK: Timeline Of Ukrainian Pay-To-Play Scheme Confirms Bidens’ Corruption)
For once, these were not federal dollars, which surely tempered the head rush that Biden & Co. would have felt, had they soaked America’s exhausted taxpayers for this expense. Oh well, as they probably are telling each other at the White House and State Department, “Every silver lining has a cloud.”
The good news is that these Americans are out of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s dungeons and back home. Siamak Namazi, Emad Shargi, Morad Tahbaz and two anonymous people will celebrate Halloween with their families, friends, neighbors, and loved ones.
Hooray!
The bad news is that Biden sent Iran five of their nationals, fair and square, plus an unnecessary and loathsome bonus: Biden pushed South Korea to thaw $6 billion in frozen Iranian cash and ship it — via Switzerland — to a Qatari bank, where Iran can access it. Don’t worry, the Bidenites say. None of this will replenish the skullduggery budget of Earth’s No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism.
“That $6 billion is going to go to the Iranian people,” National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told Fox News Channel’s Jackie Heinrich on Monday. “The mullahs, the regime, they never get their hands on that fund.”
Naturally, Tehran is unlikely to announce that it just wired $6 billion to Hamas, earmarked for fresh artillery attacks from the Gaza Strip onto Israeli Kindergartens. (RELATED: Spying, Stealing And Spinning For Terrorists: Meet The Prisoners Joe Biden Is Reportedly Freeing For Iran)
The ayatollahs likelier would take $6 billion, channel it into the Iranian equivalent of Food Stamps, and then transfer it from the al-Food Stamps account into the Revolutionary Guard budget. From there, those funds could go anywhere and do anything.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi seems thoroughly unmoved by Team Biden’s soothing words.
“This money belongs to the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Raisi told NBC News’ Lester Holt on Sept. 12. “Naturally, we will decide to spend it wherever we need it.”
As if to contrast the ayatollahs’ self-confidence versus Biden’s cowardice, just after these funds reached Qatar, Tehran announced new limits on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s access to its nuclear facilities. Translation: “We got the loot, Great Satan. So, scram. We’ll do whatever the hell we want.”
As Biden said Sunday in a totally different context: “Lots of luck.”
Biden could have done something less odious and tied this money to Iranian behavior: Rather than unfreeze $6 billion in one fell swoop, he could have told Iran that the U.S. would release $100 million per month, provided that U.S. and allied intelligence could confirm that the ayatollahs had not pursued the A-bomb, attacked Israel or sponsored terrorism. No more anti-Ukraine drones to Russia. No more oil-tanker seizures in the Persian Gulf.
If the ayatollahs were good boys, the money would keep flowing through September 2028. They give us five years of peace in monthly installments, we give them $6 billion in 60 payments.
However, the moment the CIA, MI-6 or Mossad sniffed any monkey business, the checkbook would snap shut like a rat trap.
Such a policy would echo the hush money that the CIA paid the ayatollahs while the Shah of Iran sat on the Peacock Throne. Everything was fine until President Jimmy Carter stopped those disbursements in 1977. The ayatollahs got their turbans in knots, the Shah fell, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini jetted in from Parisian exile, and then the tahini really hit the fan.
Even better, Biden should have plagiarized President Donald J. Trump. On his watch, and largely through the intervention of Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Robert C. O’Brien, Esq., 58 Americans detained overseas in dire straits were liberated.
Trump paid zippo to spring these people. Ambassador O’Brien was so effective in that post that Trump appointed him as America’s 27th National Security Advisor in September 2019.
Despite the Left’s endless moaning about Trump’s domineering personality, a little bullying goes a long way. It certainly is cheaper than speaking softly and carrying a big beach chair.
“President Trump never gave a red cent to terrorist states like Iran and brought a record number of Americans home through strength, not weakness,” John Ullyot, chief spokesman for Trump’s National Security Council, told me. “In fact, Trump dealt the biggest blow to the Iranian Quds Force in history, making them so paranoid they outrageously shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet right afterwards, thinking they were under further attack from U.S. aircraft.”
“Make no mistake,” added Ullyot, a U.S. Marine veteran, “if Trump were still in office, the Iranian terrorist regime would have thrown in the towel and begged for mercy on Day One. Instead, they are laughing all the way to the Swiss bank with Biden’s sacks of ca$h. No wonder voters have had enough and are ready to send Biden back into his basement for good.”
Joe Biden’s failures are universal. The $6 Billion Man cannot even free trapped Americans without doing damage.
In the defining example of Bidenflation, the world price for one U.S. hostage just soared like a Shahab rocket, from $0.00 under Trump’s command to $1.2 billion under Biden’s misrule.
At $1.2 billion per infidel, this seems like a really good time for Americans to stay within this country’s “borders.”
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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