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The Iran Threat

Did Iran’s Terrorist Army Receive Those Giant Pallets of Cash?

Looks like the Obama administration delivered all those unmarked bills straight to officers of a group that the Bush administration named an official Foreign Terrorist Organization.

BY CounterJihad · @CounterjihadUS | September 14, 2016

Congressional investigators have forced new admissions from the Obama administration that suggest that $1.7 billion in untraceable cash may have been paid directly to agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).  The Washington Free Beacon reports:

One senior congressional adviser told the Free Beacon the IRGC routinely orchestrates and operates these types of exchanges.

“Iran’s spy agency was heavily involved in the negotiations in Switzerland over the hostages,” the source said. “The plane that was used to transport the cash to Iran was linked to an airline used by the IRGC. But the Obama administration now seems to be suggesting that when the cash was transferred as leverage for the hostages to the plane, the spy agency and the IRGC just got out of the way?”…

“What U.S. official(s) escorted the pallets of cash to Iranian officials and what entity of the Iranian government received the funds and controlled the flight(s) that transported the cash to Iran?” [Senator Marco] Rubio asked in a Sept. 10 letter to the administration.

“Please provide a list of the Iranian officials present at the exchange of cash and include the Iranian government entities that employed them, including any past or current connections to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence,” Rubio wrote….

Pompeo and Rubio are the authors of new legislation that would block the administration from conducting any further cash payments to Iran and force the Islamic Republic to return money awarded to it in the past.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), who is sponsoring the Senate version of Pompeo’s bill, told the Free Beaconthat the administration is reluctant to answer questions because the truth may be unsettling to Americans.

The IRGC is an umbrella organization that serves a number of functions within the Islamic Republic.  Officially it is the Guardian of the Revolution, outside the regular military chain of command and reporting directly to radical Islamists loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.  In this role it operates large militia units designed to ride herd on the official military and police forces, to make sure they do not become disloyal.

The IRGC also runs a powerful unconventional warfare arm, known as the Quds Force, which Iran uses for special operations, intelligence, and assassination.  During the Iraq War, this unit trained and armed Iraqi Shia militias that murdered American soldiers through acts of terrorism.  The Quds Force has also taken the lead in standing up new Shia militias in Syria, and further developing the ones in Iraq, in order to further Iran’s hegemony over the northern Middle East.

Those things Iran admits to doing.  In addition, however, the IRGC runs Iran’s black market — including especially its narcotics.  This is ironic, because the Iranian regime frequently murders its political opponents under color of law via accusations of being involved in the narcotics trade.  In fact, the narcotics trade is run by an arm of the Islamic Revolution itself.  Not only does the IRGC control the importation of opium from Afghanistan and elsewhere, it also routes a substantial quantity of this opium to the named Foreign Terrorist Organization Hezbollah.  Hezbollah has a large processing capacity for turning opium into heroin.  This has allowed Hezbollah both to fund itself, and to expand into Latin America via ties with drug cartels.  Hezbollah supplies heroin, and in return it is allowed to operate in places like the so-called “Tri-border region.”

The IRGC is thus both a terrorist organization and a criminal organization.  In fact, starting in 2007 the IRGC was officially designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States government.

In March 2006, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “Iran has been the country that has been in many ways a kind of central banker for terrorism in important regions like Lebanon through Hezbollah in the Middle East, in the Palestinian Territories, and we have deep concerns about what Iran is doing in the south of Iraq.” For these reasons, in October 2007 the United States added Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to its list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Former U.S. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told CFR.org in June 2007 there is “overwhelming evidence” that Iran supports terrorists in Iraq and “compelling” evidence that it does the same in Afghanistan. Iran has repeatedly denied involvement in attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, though in October 2008, a top Iranian military commander did acknowledge Iran supplies weapons to “liberation armies” (AP) in the Middle East. Western intelligence officials insist Iran’s malfeasance is widespread.

The Obama administration refuses to recognize these facts about the IRGC, and told Congress last year that it does not consider it appropriate to continue to name the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.  The IRGC’s behavior has not improved, however.  If anything, during the last year they have expanded their operations in Syria and Iraq, been associated with war crimes against Iraq’s Sunni population, and engaged in acts of war against the United States Navy.

The IRGC’s status as a named Foreign Terrorist Organization may have been waived by the Obama administration, but the behavior that justifies that status has not wavered.  Instead of recognizing it for the threat that it is, President Obama elected to hand them nearly two billion dollars of hard, untraceable cash.

Probably it’ll go to good use, right?

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