“Some members of Congress believe that the time has come to ratchet up sanctions on Iran. They argue that this is the most effective way to achieve the goal of getting Iran to give up its nuclear program. We in the administration believe that, at this time, increasing sanctions would dramatically undermine our efforts to reach this shared goal.”
That’s what Samantha Power, who held the position of UN ambassador during the Obama administration, said in a 2015 congressional hearing amid debate about whether or not to impose sanctions on the theocratic Iranian regime. That regime had, after all, just six years earlier conducted a series of massacres of its own people for the sin of demanding a better government and more human rights.
That administration then negotiated a largely secret nuclear arms deal with the Iranian regime, complete with shipping that regime some $150 billion in pallets of cash with zero controls on what the money could be used for, and never bothered submitting that deal to Congress.
Shortly after Donald Trump took office in January of 2017, amid what appears to be a full-on campaign of sabotage of his presidency including the illegal unmasking of American citizens caught on FISA wiretaps, which included some fairly definitive participation by one Samantha Power in that activity, the Obama Iran deal was canceled. And when it was, this was what Samantha Power said:
Trump has demolished America’s credibility & paved the way for Iran to re-start its nuclear program. Trump has done the unthinkable: isolated the US & rallied the world around Iran.
It’s since been proven that Iran never stopped its nuclear program, and the Iranians have stepped up efforts, unsuccessfully, to provoke a war with the United States as those sanctions strangle their economy.
Unsurprisingly, amid a far more successful application of pressure in this administration than that Power and Obama managed, the Iranian citizens are once again demanding a better government and more human rights. And also unsurprisingly, the Iranian regime Power and Obama thought was worth airdropping $150 billion on has resorted to violence and suppression in response.
This greatly offends Samantha Power:
Everyone must hear about this. Every outlet in the world should publicize how the murderous Iranian regime is mowing down protesters.
Yes, Samantha. We know. We knew 10 years ago when the administration you worked in sat on your hands and did nothing when Iranians took to the streets to reclaim their freedom and dignity from an enemy, rogue regime that had been in a declared state of war with the United States since 1979 and committed countless acts of war against us.
And your response was to pay them $150 billion in cash, without the approval of Congress. And don’t give us the lie that the $150 billion was their money, because it was seized in response to an act of war committed when the Iranians took the U.S. embassy staff hostage, an action that has never been recognized or atoned for, and neither has any form of formal restoration of relations made with us.
You’ll therefore forgive us, Samantha, when we snicker and chortle at much of anything you might have to say about the behavior of the Iranians.
When that murderous regime is finally toppled and something actually representative of the Iranian people who are far less anti-American than either the mullahs who rule them or the political elite represented by Samantha Power and others serving in the Obama administration replaces it, there will be a reckoning.
Democrats always think things should be done differently when someone else is doing the work. Democrats do what is easy; others should do the hard work and do things the right way.