re: Democrats Can’t Find $5 Billion for Border Wall But Gifted Iranian Regime with $5.7 Billio

quote:

---

that's all the little twit does. never mind it was money we seized and returned.

---

And went to terrorist organizations. I'm guessing that's why we seized it in the first place. Good thing Obama gave it back to them. He should've got another Nobel Peace Prize for that yeah?

quote:

---

Can you explain how it was exactly that "we agreed to this"

---

In November 1979, Iran’s revolutionary government took 52 Americans hostages at the U.S. embassy, and the U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Tehran. In retaliation, Washington froze $12 billion in Iranian assets held on our shores. The hostage crisis was resolved in 1981 at a conference in Algiers, and the U.S. returned $3 billion to Iran, with more funds going either to pay creditors, or into escrow. The two nations also established a tribunal in the Hague called the Iran United States Claims Tribunal to settle claims both leveled by each government against the other, U.S. citizens versus Iran, and vice versa.

The major issue between the two governments was a $400 million payment for military equipment made by the government of the Shah of Iran, prior to the 1979 uprising that topped him. The U.S. banned delivery of the jets and other weapons amid the hostage crisis, but froze the $400 million advance payment. “The Pentagon handled arms purchases from foreign countries,” says Gary Sick, a former National Security Council official who served as the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. “Defense took care of the details. So the $400 million scheduled purchase was a government-to-government transaction. The U.S. government was holding the money. That’s why it was so difficult to resolve.”


By 2015, the issue stood before a panel of nine judges, including three independent jurists, who were reportedly near a decision on binding arbitration. According to Obama administration officials, the U.S. was concerned that the tribunal would mandate an award in the multiple billions of dollars. “The Iranians wanted $10 billion,” says Sick.”I estimate that the tribunal would have awarded them $4 billion. That’s what the lawyers were saying. It’s not as much as they wanted, but a lot more than we paid.”

So instead, the U.S. negotiators convinced Iran to move the dispute from arbitration to a private settlement. The two sides reached an agreement in mid-2015, at the same time as the U.S. and Iran reached a comprehensive pact on curtailing Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. The financial deal called for the U.S. to refund $1.7 billion to Tehran, consisting of the original $400 million contract for military equipment, plus $1.3 billion in interest.

quote:

---

So this was the decision of Obama's administration, right?

---

Your question is how "we' decided this and the way "we" i.e. our government decided this started all the way back in the 1980's.

Obama got the Iranians to settle for $1.7bn instead of the $4bn AND agree to limit their nuclear program in exchange for a quick settlement along with the lifting of certain commercial sanctions.

I am not suggesting that Iran nuclear deal wasn't weak but its not like Obama made some horrible call here either.

I/M/O where Obama screwed up was not giving the money back in exchange of concessions on the nuclear issue but the lifting of the commercial sanctions. We should have insisted on a gradual lifting of commercial sanctions conditioned on tangible progess on nuclear.

quote:

---

I am not suggesting that Iran nuclear deal wasn't weak but its not like Obama made some horrible call here either.

---

I'm suggesting nothing other than the fact that it was indeed his call, which this seems to be an admission of.

This decision and the attempt to couch it as a "pay back" was one of political expediency/convenience. Nothing more, nothing less. It was a payment out of our general treasury. Hence, it makes just as much sense to say "we gifted" the current Iranian regime with this money as it does to say we "paid them back their money."

For 40 years nobody thought for one second that we were going to pay this money to Iran.

There's nothing "tin foil" with pointing out such semantics/accounting games for what they are.

It's interesting seeing with what gleeful fervor so many seem to be so willing to justify such a transaction.

quote:

---

This decision and the attempt to couch it as a "pay back" was one of political expediency/convenience. Nothing more, nothing less. It was a payment out of our general treasury. Hence, it makes just as much sense to say "we gifted" the current Iranian regime with this money as it does to say we "paid them back their money."

---

You seem to struggle with the basic facts of this situation.

quote:

---

For 40 years nobody thought for one second that we were going to pay this money to Iran.

---

That is simply wrong

quote:

---

I'm suggesting nothing other than the fact that it was indeed his call, which this seems to be an admission of.

---

And?.......you do understand the concept of binding arbitration don't you?

Taking the max boot approach? Worked out so well for him.

Why aren't seized assets of a nation that sponsors terrorism, and is our ideological enemy, considered forfeited assets? Who in their right mind is going to return billions to someone who wants you eradicated?

Why not use the forfeited assets to build the Wall, or strengthen borders defenses?

What if we spend $5 billion on our disabled veterans?

quote:

---

Why aren't seized assets of a nation that sponsors terrorism, and is our ideological enemy, considered forfeited assets? Who in their right mind is going to return billions to someone who wants you eradicated?

---

Someone has bought the propaganda on Fox News.