Earlier this week, the CIA made public hundreds of thousands of documents from Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound. The trove, obtained during the raid in which he was killed, contains extensive evidence of the depth of al-Qaeda’s relationship with Iran—which sheltered many of the organization’s operatives in its borders, supplied it with funds, and gave it operational support. With the publication of these documents, writes Michael Rubin, it is now clear why the Obama administration struggled so long to hide them from the public eye:

President Obama and his CIA heads . . . released only [those few documents that] upheld and affirmed Obama’s tenuous theories about Iran. Had the U.S. public known about the Iranian leadership’s outreach to, and association with, al-Qaeda, even Democratic congressmen might have been far less willing to tolerate the trust which Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry placed in their Iranian counterparts. . . .

Indeed, the refusal to declassify documents not out of fear that sources and methods might be exposed but rather to enable the White House and State Department to avoid calibrating their own policy goals to reality and in pursuit of Obama and Kerry’s goals appear to be both an abuse of classification and textbook politicization of intelligence.

It’s time to ask under oath and in public hearings what senior officials—including every former CIA director from the time bin Laden was killed—knew about the Iran-al-Qaeda partnership, when they knew it, and why they believed they needed to cover up that information.

To bury proof of an enemy’s culpability with a terrorist group purposefully, to leave that rogue regime with an industrial-scale nuclear program and enough centrifuges to build an arsenal, to provide billions of dollars in untraceable cash under the guise of sanctions relief and ransom payments, and to acquiesce with a nod and a wink in a no-inspections policy in the same military bases that sheltered al-Qaeda operatives is, to put it mildly, policy malpractice.

In his inauguration speech, Donald Trump put forth ambitious goals for his first days in office. An additional item that should be on the agenda of his administration, and also that of the 119th Congress, should be defunding, and ideally dismantling, UNRWA. The UN Relief and Works Organization for Palestine Refugees—to give its full name—is deeply enmeshed with Hamas in Gaza, has inculcated generations of young Palestinians with anti-Semitism, and exists primarily to perpetuate the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Robert Satloff explains what must be done.

[T]here is an inherent contradiction in support for UNRWA (given its anti-resettlement posture) and support for a two-state solution (or any negotiated resolution) to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Providing relief to millions of Palestinians based on the argument that their legitimate, rightful home lies inside Israel is deeply counterproductive to the search for peace.

Last October, the Israeli parliament voted overwhelmingly to pass two laws that will come into effect January 30: a ban on UNRWA operations in Israeli sovereign territory and the severing of all Israeli ties with the agency. This includes cancellation of a post-1967 agreement that allowed UNRWA to operate freely in what was then newly occupied territory.

A more ambitious U.S. approach could score a win-win achievement that advances American interests in Middle East peace while saving millions of taxpayer dollars. Namely, Washington could take advantage of Israel’s new laws to create an alternative support mechanism that eases UNRWA out of Gaza. This would entail raising the stakes with other specialized UN agencies operating in the area. Instead of politely asking them if they can assume UNRWA’s job in Gaza, the Trump administration should put them on notice that continued U.S. funding of their own global operations is contingent on their taking over those tasks. Only such a dramatic step is likely to produce results.