Biden’s Iran Policy Is About to Change—One Way or the Other

Excerpt

Last week Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo reportedly told House Democrats that the $6 billion ransom the Biden administration agreed to send Iran—oil payments that had been frozen in South Korea and released to Qatar—ostensibly to secure the release of five American-Iranian dual nationals had been refrozen. The action was provoked, the story suggested, by Tehran’s long-standing support of Hamas, which invaded Israel on October 7, killing and kidnapping with abandon. Among the dead and kidnapped are Americans.

The Islamic Republic is denying that the Qatar funds have been locked. Iranian state media even reported that Qatar’s central bank governor had said, “The rumors about the refreezing of Iran’s funds in Qatari banks were of no real value, and were more like a joke and media game.” John Kirby, the U.S. national security council spokesman, hasn’t answered the question explicitly, though he told The Dispatch “none of it has been spent or accessed by Iranian authorities, and we’re watching it very closely.”  Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed the same line, also not clearly stating that the dollars had been refrozen but implying that Iran hadn’t been allowed to spend a cent. 

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.