President Joe Biden’s ransom deal with Iran to free five Iranian-American hostages in return for more than $6 billion will finance international terrorism and embolden Tehran to kidnap more U.S. nationals, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warns.
“This is $6 billion that will be in the hands of [Iranian President Ebrahim] Raisi, the butcher of Tehran, controlled by the ayatollah, and it will mean more danger for everyone,” Pompeo told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday.
The Biden White House is offering nearly $7 billion for the release of five hostages languishing in Iranian prison on trumped up charges. “Iran acknowledged that the deal involves $6 billion to $7 billion,” the Associated Press reported Friday. “The final transfer of the money—and the release of the five detainees—is expected in the next month or so due to the complicated nature of the financial transactions, officials said.”
By handing out billions, the Biden administration is financing Iran, the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism. The Shia-Islamic regime funds and arms terrorist groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Gaza-based Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
The news coincides with media reports that the Biden administration may be willing to do an even bigger deal with Iran. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the Iranian regime could agree to ‘slow down’ its nuclear weapons program in exchange for a lucrative deal from the Biden White House.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the idea of handing out huge amounts of money to the Mullah regime in return for vague promises. Netanyahu cautioned on Saturday that deals “that do not dismantle Iran’s nuclear infrastructure do not stop its nuclear program, and only supply it with money that will go toward terror groups under the auspices of Iran.”
The Jerusalem Post reported the former U.S. Secretary of State’s comments:
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has strongly criticized President Joe Biden’s decision to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian funds as part of an agreement to secure the release of five detained US citizens.Pompeo has expressed concern that this deal may inadvertently incentivize further hostage-taking and potentially escalate terrorist activities.”This is $6 billion that will be in the hands of [Iranian President Ebrahim] Raisi, the butcher of Tehran, controlled by the ayatollah, and it will mean more danger for everyone,” Pompeo told The Jerusalem Post on Friday.He called the move “sad and dangerous.”The prospective agreement involves unfreezing funds currently held in South Korea, stipulating that these funds would be transferred to Iran upon the safe repatriation of the five American citizens to their respective residences. Recent media coverage has highlighted Iran’s relocation of four out of the five detainees from correctional facilities to house arrest, while the fourth individual was already under house arrest.Furthermore, as outlined by Iran’s mission to the United Nations, there is a provision for the United States to release certain Iranian prisoners from American jails. (…)Reports indicate that in the case of the US-Iranian deal, financial transactions would initially involve routing the funds to Qatar before reaching their final destination in Iran, contingent on the successful finalization of the agreement.”I know the narrative that the funds will be handled by a third-party country and used only for humanitarian purposes, but we have all seen this bad joke before,” Pompeo stressed. “If someone agreed to pay for food for your family, you would have money to spend on something else.”The Iranians will now have $6 billion to spend on something else,” he said, noting that this would likely be on their program to enrich uranium toward attaining a nuclear weapon, terrorizing its citizens or carrying out terror attacks worldwide.”If you are a soldier working for Hezbollah, you think you will get a pay raise,” Pompeo said.The US State Department estimated last year that Iran had spent over $16 billion on support for Syria’s Assad regime and its proxies between 2012 and 2020, including more than $700 million on Hezbollah alone in 2020.Hezbollah is believed to have over 150,000 missiles that it could use in a war against Israel.
Demanding ransom in return for hostages is an established practice under the Islamic Sharia Laws, something dating back to the times of Prophet Mohammad.
Since taking power nearly 45 years ago, the Iranian regime has repeatedly held U.S. nationals on ransom, including the hostage-taking of the 52 U.S. diplomats for 444 days following the seizing of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in November 1979.
In 2022, Britain reportedly paid $530 million of a charity worker held in Iranian prison for six years.
Pompeo has been in the cross-hairs of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the regime’s military and foreign terrorist arm, since President Donald Trump in January 2020 ordered a drone strike in January 2020 that eliminated Qasem Soleimani, a top IRGC operative responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S servicemen in the Middle East.
After Soleimani’s death, the Iranian regime threatened to assassinate President Trump and Secretary Pompeo invoking Islamic Law. “Trump must face ‘God’s ruling’ and suffer ‘qisas’, which is the Islamic term for retaliation in kind,” the Qatari TV channel Al Jazeera reported citing Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi. “If Trump and Pompeo are not tried in a fair court for the criminal act of assassinating General Soleimani, Muslims will take our martyr’s revenge,” the Iranian president declared.
In February 2023, a senior Islamic Guard commander renewed the threat on the life of the former U.S. Secretary of State . “[Allah] willing, we are looking to kill Trump, Pompeo … and military commanders who issued the order [to kill Soleimani] should be killed,” Amirali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC’s aerospace force said on state TV.
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