Wait a minute, President Biden, you can’t get away with making a move like this in silence.
The Biden Administration just opted to renew multiple sanctions waivers in Iran’s nuclear work. They include a plan to cooperate with Russia, according to what the State Department told lawmakers on Friday.
The sanctions waivers were first reported by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). They allow Iran to work with Russia at nuclear enrichment sites suspected of being used for military purposes.
The waivers focus on converting Iran’s Arak reactor into a less threatening light-water reactor, according to WSJ. These waivers would also allow fuel to be shipped to civilian sites in Tehran along with the Bushehr reactor.
The State Department let lawmakers know about this through a non-public notification that was sent several days after the waivers were renewed.
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is trying to make sure that there is new legislation so they can prevent the Biden Administration from renewing waivers in the future. A spokesman for Cruz told the Free Beacon that the administration is “pathologically obsessed with reentering a nuclear deal with Iran.”
Cruz has been on this warpath before. He criticized the administration previously for being obsessed with reviving the JCPOA.
Ned Price, a spokesperson for the State Department, said he was “not sure how [they] could be more clear” that the Iran nuclear deal is not currently on the agenda for the administration.
What the State Department and Congress have both been trying to do is curtail cooperation between Iran and Russia. Iran has been at the forefront of supplying military aid to Moscow during the war with Ukraine.
The waivers could result in billions of dollars in profit for Russian state firms like Rosatom which is a Russian nuclear energy company that does work at Iran’s Fordow nuclear plant.
What is the Biden Administration thinking?
