Amid revelations that the U.S. transferred $1.7 billion to Iran at the beginning of the year, the White House has insisted (a) that the payments were intended to settle a 30-year-old dispute between the two countries over an aborted arms deal and (b) that the money was transferred in cash rather than by wire “precisely because,” in the president’s own words, “we are so strict in maintaining sanctions [that] we could not wire the money.” Mark Dubowitz and Annie Fixler disprove the explanation and trace the consequences of the transfer:

U.S. regulations permit all transactions between the American and Iranian financial systems related to settlements [of the arms-deal dispute]. Moreover, Washington wired payments to Iran in July 2015 and again in April 2016, further disproving the president’s statement.

It is certainly possible that banks were unwilling to wire the $1.7 billion no matter what guarantees they got from the administration. Banks have a healthy fear of sanctions and their penalties. If so, it raises a troubling question: how did Tehran receive the billions of dollars in sanctions relief released under both the interim and final nuclear agreements?

During the nuclear negotiations, the clerical regime received access to about $700 million per month, totaling $11.9 billion between January 2014 and July 2015. . . . If no mechanism existed to transfer the funds through the formal financial system, what mechanism was used to transfer the $11.9 billion? A senior official admitted that “some” of this money was sent in cash, and that “we had to find all these strange ways of delivering the monthly allotment.” . . .

Of course, cash is useful for funding outlawed organizations likes Hamas and Hizballah, or Shiite militias in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, or subversive activities in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. In other words, write Dubowitz and Fixler, the “nuclear deal has already led the United States to fund terrorists, sectarian warfare, and chaos in the Middle East.”

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.