Michael Ramirez Essay: Iran's Deadly Spigot 01-07-24
From America's Premier Editorial Cartoonist
IRANIAN ROOTS
by Michael P. Ramirez
Many people today say, “Money is the root of all evil.” It is a misinterpretation of a biblical passage, 1 Timothy 6:10. Apostle Paul wrote a letter to his disciple Timothy and stated, “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” Money itself isn’t evil unless you worship it. The pursuit of money, when money controls you, the bad behavior that is derivative from money is evil.
Let’s look at the Middle East today. The funding of evil has roots that begin deep in the coffers of the Iranian regime. Iran is the principal supporter of terrorism throughout the region.
Since its beginnings as a theocratic dictatorship in 1979, Iran’s biggest export after oil has been murder, mayhem, instability, and war through a global network of terrorist proxies and militias.
The U.S. officially designated Iran a sponsor of terrorism in 1984. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which regularly cultivates, funds, trains, and supplies terrorist organizations abroad, was itself designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States in 2019.
A list of Iranian-backed terror organizations and militias from a U.S. State
Department report in 2021 reads like a Who’s Who list of terrorists:
Hezbollah (Lebanon and Syria).
Hamas (Gaza)
Palestine Islamic Jihad (Gaza)
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (Syria)
Kata’ib Hezbollah (Iraq)
Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba-12th brigade (Syria and Iraq)
Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq-Khazali Network
Al-Ashtar Brigades (Bahrain)
Saraya al-Mukhtar (Bahrain)
Al-Qa’ida-senior members reside in Iran
Houthi militants (Yemen)
The IRGC and Quds Force operatives have been connected to bomb plots in Paris and an assassination in Amsterdam in 2018. According to a report from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, “At least 26 well-documented such plots have occurred in the three years since the Paris plot in places as far afield as Colombia, Cyprus, Denmark, Dubai, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Iraq, Israel, Kenya, the Netherlands, Scotland, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Sanctions were imposed upon IRGC officials in June of 2023 when a plot to kill former National Security Advisor John Bolton for $300,000 was uncovered and $1 million for an “additional job.” Sources believe the second person was former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
With all this in mind, it is hard to believe that in September of 2023, the Biden administration decided to release $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets from a bank in South Korea and five Iranian nationals in exchange for five Americans being held in Iran. Regardless of the restrictions placed upon the use of these funds, money is fungible. Any resources freed up from being used for negotiated “humanitarian reasons” may now be applied to terrorism and serve as a reward for hostage-taking.
The main goal wasn’t to free the Iranian nationals. They were merely setting the price for future American hostages. You may recall that I did a cartoon showing the price for U.S. hostages went up to $1.2 billion a piece.
The perception that Iran and its proxies of terrorism care about their own people, or any people for that matter, is laughable. The Iranian leadership worships death.
A 2020 State Department report estimated that “Since 2012, Iran has spent over $16 billion propping up the Assad Regime and supporting other partners and proxies in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.” Iran has contributed $700 million in funds annually to Hezbollah and supplied weapons and military technology. It supplies millions more to the Houthis in Yemen along with a pipeline of weapons, UAVs, missiles, and lethal aid, the ones being used to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
The report states that Iran sends $100 million annually to Palestinian terror groups, along with smuggling weapons, rockets, and other lethal aid. Iran’s humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people is a shadow of its support for Palestinian terror groups.
According to that same State Department report, “Iran has provided only $20,000 to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the last ten years. This pales in comparison to the nearly $3 billion provided to the UNRWA by the U.S. during this period, as well as the almost $2 billion provided by the EU and the more than $600 million provided by Saudi Arabia.”
In addition to monetary aid, Iran provides training, weapons, support for extremism, and encouragement for carnage… Iranian support to start a war.
The Wall Street Journal reported after the Oct. 7th attack that officers of the Quds Force led specialized combat training for Hamas fighters and other Palestinian militants prior to the invasion. In that same article, the WSJ quoted a Rear Admiral in the Israeli military who stated, “Before the war, Iran directly assisted Hamas with money, training, weapons, and technological know-how.”
Hamas’ military budget is estimated to be from $100 to $350 million annually. The Israeli Defense forces estimated that each tunnel costs about $3 million. In 2021, the IDF destroyed more than 62 miles of tunnels. Experts believed that Hamas had 300 miles of tunnels below the Gaza Strip at the beginning of the war. The IDF has located over 800 tunnel shafts so far.
Imagine what you could do to help your people with almost a billion dollars.
Prior to the October 7th attacks, about 80% of Palestinians in Gaza lived in poverty, and its unemployment rate was 47%. According to estimates by the UN Development Program, 66% of jobs have been lost since the war began, and the poverty rate will increase by 34%.
The per capita income in Gaza before the war was $3,789.
More than $200 billion in trade has been diverted from Red Sea shipping. Shipping rates from Asia to Europe have almost doubled since the attacks began. These attacks may fuel a return of supply shortages and exacerbate global inflation.
Iran’s frozen assets run in the tens of billions. I was thinking the other day that in an equitable world, any increases due to their funding of terrorism should be taken from those frozen assets to pay the cost of their evil deeds.
The election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009 led to the Green Revolution, but the world largely remained silent. The killing by the “morality police” of a 22-year-old Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, for not wearing a hijab led to even larger protests.
The world can no longer remain silent. The regime is on the cusp of developing a nuclear weapon.
Most Iranians are pro-western. Polls show that more than 80 percent oppose the theocratic dictatorship and favor a democratic government.
Holding the oppressive regime accountable for their misdeeds, increasing sanctions, and supporting the Iranian people’s cry for freedom is an opportunity to sever the roots of evil, plant the seed for democracy, and turn off the spigot of destruction.
Have a great week,
-m
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