„Iran’s demands are escalating. The supreme leader is sounding the alarm about American mendacity. An anxious U.S. secretary of state is practically begging companies to return to Iran. Cautious banking executives and a distrustful and angry Congress are pushing back. Welcome to the fallout from the nuclear deal, which merely signaled the beginning of negotiations with the Islamic Republic. (…) President Barack Obama’s administration went even further. After committing to ‚actively encourage‘ state and local government to lift their own sanctions, the administration sent letters to all 50 governors urging them to reconsider all Iran-sanctions measures.
Even this was not enough for the Islamic Republic. ‚On paper the United States allows foreign banks to deal with Iran, but in practice they create Iranophobia so no one does business with Iran,‘ thundered Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. This is the same Iran that, in case anyone has forgotten, remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism and is still engaged in a wide variety of sanctionable financial illegalities. These include financing Hezbollah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, paying for the illicit procurement of parts for its missile program, and money-laundering and sanctions-evasion schemes to hide these crimes. Iran has found a way to bully the world into forgetting its bloody track record. The Obama administration opened the door to this strategy when it agreed to the nuclear deal“.
(Mark Dubowitz, Annie Fixler: „The Obama Administration Needs to Stand Strong on Iran Sanctions“)