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ARTICLE AD BOX
While it is true that the current weakness of Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia in the region led to the toppling of Assad, Biden taking credit for this complex turn of events is disingenuous.
By PESACH WOLICKI DECEMBER 14, 2024 01:02
US PRESIDENT Joe Biden speaks at the White House after Syrian rebels announced that they had ousted Bashar al-Assad as president last Sunday.
(photo credit: KEN CEDENO/REUTERS)
On Sunday, hours after news broke of the fall of the Assad regime, President Joe Biden delivered a nine-minute address on the situation in Syria. After praising Assad’s fall as “a fundamental act of justice” and “a moment of historic opportunity,” Biden went on to credit his administration for bringing the situation about.
“For years, the main backers of Assad have been Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia, but over the last week, their support collapsed, all three of them, because all three of them are far weaker today than they were when I took office.”
While it is true that the current weakness of Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia in the region led to the toppling of Assad, Biden taking credit for this complex turn of events is disingenuous, to say the least. A more accurate assessment would be that the weakness of both Iran and Hezbollah is in spite of Biden’s policies, not because of them.
Sanctions on Iran
As president, Donald Trump placed crippling sanctions on Iran, making it almost impossible for them to sell their oil and petrochemical products. As a result, when Trump left office, the Iranian regime was nearly bankrupt and on the verge of collapse, with reportedly only $4 billion in cash reserves.
Hamas, Hezbollah, and the other Iranian proxies were underfunded. Trump also ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani and pulled the US out of the disastrous nuclear deal that threatened the region and granted significant economic benefits to Tehran. The Islamic regime was never weaker.
Immediately upon entering the White House, the Biden administration began working to undo these policies. They ceased enforcement of sanctions on the Iranian oil and petrochemical industry, leading Iran to sign a 25-year output deal with the Chinese Communist Party.l Profits from oil sales to China alone have accounted for an estimated over $100 billion since Biden took office. This total does not include tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief provided to Tehran under Biden.
IT WAS revealed a few days ago that the Biden administration granted Iran an additional $10 billion in sanctions relief just days after the November 5 election. The administration also began negotiating with Iran to restart the nuclear deal. Flush with cash, the mullahs in Tehran were once again able to afford the luxury of funding Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and the rest of their global terror network.
Ironically, it can be argued that Biden's administration policies did, in fact, lead to the weakening of Iran and Hezbollah, but not in the manner Biden suggests. After all, it is worth asking if Hamas and Hezbollah would have attacked Israel in the first place, had the Trump policies remained in place.
More recently, since October 7, the Biden administration has repeatedly gone to great lengths to prevent the destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The demands on Israel not to enter Rafah and to allow vast quantities of humanitarian aid to be delivered into the hands of Hamas, the repeated calls for Israel not to invade Lebanon, and to limit the scope and scale of retaliatory strikes against Iran were all designed to prevent the defeat of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas. For Biden to now take credit for the weakening of Iran and Hezbollah is gaslighting at its finest.
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US military presence in Syria
Later in the speech, Biden spoke about how the US “maintained our military presence in Syria... ensuring that ISIS can never establish a safe haven there again.” He added that the US plans to help establish an “independent sovereign Syria with a new constitution and new government that serves all Syrians.” He also pledged US resources to rebuild the war-torn country.
Listening to Biden makes one wonder if he is aware of just who the rebels who replaced Assad are. The rebel leader and presumptive ruler of Syria, Mohammad al-Julani, literally came up through the ranks of ISIS and Al-Qaeda, even serving for a time as personal assistant to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Julani’s group, Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) – which began as the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, was officially added by the US State Department to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in 2018, which also put a $10 million bounty on Julani’s head.
For Biden to boast that his administration took steps to prevent ISIS from ever establishing itself in Syria while the country has been taken over by a jihadist who came up through the ranks of ISIS and Al-Qaeda is the height of absurdity. And hoping that these Sharia-seeking jihadists have any plans to set up a free and democratic society with a constitution is the height of delusion.
Rather than taking credit for the downfall of Assad, Biden ought to apologize for fomenting so much death, chaos, and instability across the Middle East.
The writer is executive director of Israel365Action.com and host of the Shoulder to Shoulder podcast.
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