Iran Claims Progress Over Frozen Funds, US Denies Prisoner Swap

Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.) -- the co-chair of the Senate Human Rights Caucus -- and James Lankford (R-Okla.) introduced the resolution on Thursday condemning the death of the Iranian woman, whose killing earlier in Sptember by Iran’s “morality police” sparked nationwide protests. The resolution urges the Islamic Republic to end its “systemic persecution of women."

“This resolution sends a clear message that the United States stands behind the rights of women and peaceful protesters in Iran and reaffirms that our commitment to human rights, women’s rights, and democratic freedoms is core to our values and foreign policy,” Coons said.

Senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have also voiced support for the popular protests in Iran.

Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who is the chairman Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Thursday that Iranian protesters should know that people in the US and everywhere in the world see and praise their courage against the violent, oppressive and misogynistic regime of Iran, expressing hope to see a free Iran that is in peace with its neighbors and people.

Jim Risch (R-Idaho) ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the protests indicate Iranians’ desire for a free and peaceful country, adding that the Biden administration's blind pursuit of a new nuclear deal will only empower the regime.

Critics have been accusing the Biden administration of not seriously implementing sanctions imposed by former President Donald Trump, while negotiating with Tehran to revive the 2015 nuclear accord, the JCPOA. They argue that a substantial increase in Iranian oil exports to China occurred when President Joe Biden assumed office. This in turn made Iran more intransigent in nuclear talks that began in April 2021.

The latest warning came on September 23 from an advocacy group, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), opposed to the revival of the JCPOA. In a report UANI argued that since President Joe Biden’s election, China has bought around $38 billion of crude oil from Iran in violation of US third-party sanctions.

The US State Department spokesperson Ned Price on September 28 evaded a question from Iran International during his daily briefing about the UANI report.

“I think what we can say with some confidence is that some of the open-source statistics have been inflated, and that is the case when it comes to certain reports of Iranian oil exports to the PRC,” Price said when he was asked about the administration’s response to the UANI report.

But the shipment of at least 750,000 barrels of crude per day to China has been reported by industry sources, news agencies and experts since early 2021, which triggered the warnings by critics of the administration’s Iran policy. Although prices Iran charges small Chinese refineries is a secret and it is reported that discounts are offered, Iran must have earned close to $30 billion in this period by shipping 350-400 million barrels of crude to China.

Although this is far below the heyday of Iran’s $100 billion annual oil export earnings around 2010, but it was sufficient to convince Tehran that it can weather the economic pressure while negotiating with the Biden administration.

Now, the Biden administration is left with no discernible Iran policy except tightening enforcement of sanctions, the same ‘maximum pressure’ strategy Trump was using when he lost the 2020 election.

In addition, a popular revolt against the clerical regime in Tehran has exposed the degree to which the rulers are willing to use violence against their own citizens, forcing the Biden team to impose new human rights sanctions.

The protests were triggered by the death in custody of a 22-year-old woman who received fatal blows to her head while being arrested for “inappropriate hijab”. Both her killing and the ensuing protests have generated a high level of international support for the people in Iran, which can be a double nail in the coffin of the JCPOA talks.

A renewed deal would have released tens of billion of dollars for the Islamic Republic and in the current atmosphere of human rights violations by Tehran, signing a nuclear agreement that would lift sanctions and enrich the government, seems improbable.

The Biden administration has apparently reached the conclusion that Iran does not want a nuclear agreement, which would mean that the way it tried to revive the JCPOA simply allowed Iran to sell more oil and greatly advance its nuclear program. It calculated that maybe it can reach the nuclear weapons threshold and have enough income to survive.

On Thursday, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned an international network of companies involved in the sale of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian petrochemicals and petroleum products to end users in South and East Asia.

Several Iranian brokers and front companies in the UAE, Hong Kong, and India that have facilitated financial transfers and shipping of Iranian petroleum and petrochemical products were targeted in the new move.

“These entities have played a critical role in concealing the origin of the Iranian shipments and enabling two sanctioned Iranian brokers, Triliance Petrochemical Co. Ltd. (Triliance) and Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industry Commercial Co. (PGPICC), to transfer funds and ship Iranian petroleum and petrochemicals to buyers in Asia,” the Treasury said.

In addition to the measures by the Treasury, the Department of State designated two China-based entities, namely Zhonggu Storage and Transportation Co. Ltd. and WS Shipping Co. Ltd., for their involvement in Iran’s petrochemical trade.

Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson said, “The United States is committed to severely restricting Iran’s illicit oil and petrochemical sales. So long as Iran refuses a mutual return to full implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the United States will continue to enforce its sanctions on the sale of Iranian petroleum and petrochemical products.”

The Beacon said this was concluded by senior US officials in a classified briefing two weeks ago to members of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. The outlet cited Darrell Issa, a Republican house member, and “other congressional sources familiar with the briefing.”

Issa, a supporter of former president Donald Trump, said they “are stymied over how they get to a deal because they’ve negotiated all there was to negotiate.” Issa said Iran was “basically on the eve of getting a nuclear weapon and don’t want to be talked out of it.”

Since the confidential House briefing September 14, US officials have publicly stressed their support for continuing efforts to revive the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which limited Iran’s nuclear program and eased international sanctions.

A State Department official told journalists September 22 that talks had “hit a wall.” Ned Price, State Department spokesman, defended the JCPOA Monday by arguing US withdrawal had increased Iran’s “actions against our partners, the potential targeting even of American facilities and personnel…[making Iran] more aggressive, and … deadlier.”

Iran Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian restated Wednesday that Iran wanted US ‘guarantees’ of economic cushions should the US leave a revived JCPOA, as it did during Trump’s presidency in 2018 when imposing ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions.

Several US senators told Iran International that Washington should stop talks with the Islamic Republic over revival of the 2015 nuclear deal, especially considering the ongoing popular protests.

Democratic Senator from New Jersey Bob Menendez, who is the chairman Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told our correspondent that the United States should get ready for the fall of the regime in Iran, noting that the last time Iranians revolted against the government, the US did not have any plans. 

“I hope we'd be ready, and we'd have our contingencies and engagement, because we lost in the Green Revolution, we should be able to be ready for it now,” he said. 

Utah’s Republican Senator Mitt Romney also voiced his support for the popular uprising of the Iranians -- triggered by the death of 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini in the hands of hijab police – saying that currently it is not a good idea to be negotiating with Iran on a nuclear deal. “Iran is a bad actor and providing more resources to them and relieving sanctions would be a big mistake.”

Echoing similar sentiments, Alabama’s Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville warned against further nuclear negotiations with Iran while the country is in turmoil. “We don't need to get back to that dialog with Iran. They're obviously having problems over there right now. They need to work out their own problems.” 

Calling the Islamic Republic’s authorities “dictators,” he said he is not surprised that “the Iranian regime is clamping down on Iranian protesters.”

Republican Senator from North Carolina Thom Tillis described the Biden administration's plan to go back to negotiating table with Iran as “ill-advised,” underlining that the Islamic Republic is a “state sponsor of terror” that every year “invests hundreds of millions of dollars” to destabilize the Middle East. 

He added that it is beyond his comprehension that the Biden administration “thinks it'd be wise to do anything that would bolster that leadership versus stand with the Iranian people who want change.”

Pennsylvania's Senator Pat Toomey, also a Republican, called on the Biden administration to voice very strong, clear support for the protesters, highlighting that they are “only protesting for basic human rights, and they deserve those rights.”

He told our Congressional reporter Arash Alaei that “I don't think we can get a workable nuclear deal with this regime.”

Toomey said he does not have the expertise to make a prediction about the collapse of the regime, adding that “Sadly we know authoritarian regimes are able to retain power for a long period of time even when they're not popular.”

Republican Senator Mike Rounds from South Dakota also urged the administration against negotiating with Iran right now, emphasizing that the Islamic Republic is “a terrorist state.” 

He touched upon the suffering of Iranians under the regime, saying, “Once again they're using some of those same tactics against their own people.”

Stressing that the “terrorist” regime in power in Iran is different from the Iranians who are good people themselves, he said that “we're having a difficult time in trying to find common ground with them (the regime). And that hurts our ability to have a good relationship with the people of Iran.”

Chris Van Hollen, Maryland's Democratic senator, also denounced the Islamic Republic's “vicious crackdown” on protesters as a “gross violation of women's rights and human rights,” expressing satisfaction that Washington slapped sanctions on hijab police and some security officials involved in the crackdown on peaceful protesters.

The Treasury Department said last week that its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) isdesignating Iran’s Morality Police “for abuse and violence against Iranian women and the violation of the rights of peaceful Iranian protestors.”

However, he said repression is already brutal in Iran without a nuclear deal, “So the idea that entering an agreement would cause the Iranian regime to be more brutal in its crackdown doesn't make sense to me.” “A nuclear armed Iran is worse for the US and our allies than a non-nuclear Iran,” he said, implying support for revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).