UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has led calls for an "immediate global ceasefire" to refocus on fighting COVID-19 and on Friday appealed for the "waiving of sanctions that can undermine countries' capacity to respond to the pandemic."
The appeals have fallen on deaf ears in Washington. The Trump administration has kept sweeping sanctions on Iran, one of the countries worst hit by the pandemic, and in recent weeks has blacklisted more Iranians including over the clerical regime's heavy involvement in neighboring Iraq.
On Venezuela, which like Iran has appealed for IMF help to cope with the health crisis, the Justice Department on Thursday unveiled criminal charges on drug-trafficking against President Nicolas Maduro, with a $15 million reward for his arrest.
Yeah, unique in the world, America has not stopped resisting its enemies.
Face it, for people who love America's enemies, the Wuhan Flu is just another reason thrown out to do exactly what they wanted to do before the Wuhan Flu struck:
Top Democrats in Congress are urging the Trump administration to ease sanctions on Iran, Venezuela, and other countries badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic, citing the need to provide medical supplies and humanitarian support.
This kind of effort to rescue Iran is not new. And our sanctions don't interfere with humanitarian aid.
Seriously, what kind of perverse incentive does such a policy of easing up during a disaster give tyrants and enemies? If they know that all they have to do is inflict some type of pain on their own people and count on America caring about those people more than their rulers do, what won't the tyrants and enemies do to their own people to interrupt our sanctions or war effort?
Just remember, much like Jeffrey Epstein, our enemies won't kill themselves.
PRE-PUBLICATION UPDATE: Rouhani admits that the effort to lift sanctions "because of the Wuhan Flu" is just an effort to get money frozen under sanctions. The letter those Democrats wrote has been memory-holed in embarrassment--if not shame, given their politics. So yeah, we'll pass on your "historic opportunity" to lift sanctions that your Obama administration friends are helping you achieve.
If Iran has no problem pleading for victim status even as they foment mayhem all around them, I don't know why we can't keep sanctions on the regime even as we work to help Iranian people directly without letting the mullahs steal the aid.
