Joe Biden: The Ayatollahs' Best Friend

President Joe Biden showed leadership and courage this week by flying into a war zone to personify solidarity with America's embattled friends and allies in Israel.

Too bad Biden's appeasement of Iran made the trip necessary.

Perhaps Biden went to Tel Aviv to atone for his years of financial assistance to the ayatollahs. Biden's folly — believing that kindness would tame the mullahs — exploded in his face on October 7: Iran's Hamas puppets shocked Israel with the most brutal attack it has endured since the Yom Kippur War, almost exactly 50 years earlier.

Biden's Fair Play for Tehran policy has replenished its finances after President Donald J. Trump's "maximum-pressure" campaign drained them. But rather than cooperation, Iran has shown Biden contempt. And its proxies, subsidized directly or fungibly with American cash, have killed at least 1,400 people in today's War on Israel.

"The Biden Administration's decision to release $6 billion to Iran — the world's leading state sponsor of terror -- was a grave mistake that created a market for American hostages, emboldened our adversaries, and put a credit on the balance sheets of one of Hamas' biggest backers," Senator Tim Scott (R — South Carolina) told Fox Business Network on Tuesday.

Alas, Biden has been the ayatollahs' best friend since long before this $6 billion prisoner-swap payoff.

• Biden relaxed sanctions on Iran, while obsessively demolishing anything that Trump accomplished.

• By letting the mullahs sell more oil, particularly to China (another international beauty), Iran's oil production swelled from 2.7 million barrels per day on December 31, 2020 — just before Trump departed — to 3.4 million barrels on May 31, 2023 — up 25.9%.

• Biden's War on Domestic Oil hiked prices. This has gilded Tehran's coffers. Brent crude averaged $57.96 per barrel under Trump and $83.84 on Biden's watch, per the US Energy Information Administration. This increased Iran's oil revenue — up 44.65%.

• As Iran International reported, "Iranian oil shipments began to pick up toward the end of 2020, as candidate Joe Biden announced in September of that year his intention to revive the 2015 JCPOA," AKA the Iran-nuclear deal, which Trump correctly hurled atop the ash heap of history. Iran's exports subsequently soared from a low of 100,000 barrels per day in 2020, according to Reuters, to 1.5 million barrels in August — up 1,400%.

• Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe explained October 8 to Fox News Channels' Trey Gowdy: "Iran's access to foreign-exchange reserves went from $4 billion in the Trump administration to $72 billion in the Biden administration" — up 1,700%. Biden has impoverished America and enriched Iran. The ayatollahs returned the favor by underwriting Hamas, which has killed 32 Americans in its War on Israel. Up to 11 others are missing and feared kidnapped.

The circle of strife is complete.

Biden did all of this, even while Iran topped the State Department's list of state-sponsors of terrorism.

"Iran has, unfortunately, always used and focused its funds on supporting terrorism, on supporting groups like Hamas," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said October 8 on NBC's Meet the Press. "And it's done that when there have been sanctions. It's done that when there haven't been sanctions. And it's always prioritized that."

So, for the love of G od, why would Biden send even one rusty penny to a nation that his own State Department certifies as terrorists?

This largesse might be worthy if it taught Iran manners. <>Au contraire, during Biden's misrule, Iran routinely attacks US GIs. These bad deeds largely have gone unpunished.

Iran and its proxies have unleashed "about 83 attacks" against US troops in Iraq and Syria under Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a March 28 Senate hearing. "We've launched four major retaliations," Austin added. Senator Tom Cotton (R — Arkansas) observed: "So, 79 and 4 is Iran's record right now."

Biden replaced Trump's Peace Through Strength approach with his own Softer Than Tapioca Doctrine. Joe Biden's weakness ignited the Middle East's raging infernos.