Last week, Bernie Sanders took to Twitter to call on the U.S. government to suspend some or all sanctions on the Islamic Republic, lest Washington be guilty of “contributing to [the] humanitarian disaster” brought about by the coronavirus. A similar case has been made by other opponents of the sanctions, but such arguments uniformly misunderstand why the effects of COVID-19 have been so severe in Iran. Danielle Pletka explains that not sanctions but the ayatollahs’ misallocation of resources lie at the heart of the country’s current public-health crisis:

Do the Iranian people blame the United States for their economic hardship? Despite shifting attitudes toward the United States (which has generally enjoyed substantial popularity with the Iranian people), polling shows that the public places fault squarely at the regime’s feet. Why? Because they aren’t fools. They are well aware of what their government is up to, both at home and abroad. Abroad, Iran’s costly commitment to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad has exhausted resources. The war in Syria is estimated to have cost the regime from $30 billion to $100 billion.

Then there’s Iran’s arming, payment, and sustenance of Hizballah, which costs an estimated $700 million a year. Iran also transfers cash to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, to the tune of $100 million per annum. And don’t forget Iran’s arming and support for Yemen’s Houthis, another several million dollars a year. Finally, there are Iran’s costly adventures in Iraq.

At home, another persistent fly in the Iranian economic ointment is outright theft. In this, the regime’s mullahs resemble the run-of-the-mill regional kleptocrat.

Then there’s the Cuba-style scandal of stockpiling key medicines for regime friends and officials. And the false stories blaming sanctions for deaths. Not to speak of the rejection of an offer of U.S. assistance during the coronavirus crisis. And finally, in reaction to an aggressive campaign of disinformation from the supreme leader himself, yesterday Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleged that the regime has plundered over a billion euros slated for food and medical assistance.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”