Date: Wednesday, October 16, 2019
To: Friends & Supporters
From: Gary L. Bauer, Director

Iran's Shrinking Economy

As you know, the Trump Administration withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and reimposed sanctions against the Iranian regime. At various times, the administration has tightened the sanctions and added new ones. The reason it did so was because the deal was fundamentally flawed.

It did not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons nor did it address Iran's nefarious behavior throughout the Middle East. In fact, top military leaders warned us that Iran's behavior got worse AFTER the deal was signed. That was clear from Iran's continued meddling in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as well as terrorist plots in Europe and increased funding to its terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah.

That's what the Iranian regime did with the windfall it received from sanctions relief granted by the 2015 nuclear deal. It directed those new resources not to building new hospitals, roads, bridges or schools for the Iranian people but to new bombs, rockets, drones and missiles for its Revolutionary Guards and terrorist allies.

And that is why President Trump was right to withdraw from the 2015 deal. Iran was using the deal to spread more chaos, more death and more destruction throughout the Middle East.

To counter Iran's belligerence, President Trump reimposed sanctions and those sanctions are crippling Iran's economy. According to the latest economic forecasts by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Iran's economy will shrink nearly 10% this year. And Iran's currency, the rial, has lost more than one-third of its value.

These tough U.S. sanctions are having an impact. The New York Times reported earlier this year that Iranian militias in Syria are not getting paid. The Washington Post adds that Hezbollah in Lebanon is also feeling the pain.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has often said, "If Iran wants to be treated like a normal country, it should act like a normal country."

The Trump Administration's sanctions against the Islamic Republic should remain in place until the world's leading state-sponsor of terrorism changes its behavior, stops calling for a second Holocaust through the annihilation of the Jewish state and stops attacking its neighbors in the region.

Speaking of attacks, Reuters reports that the United States launched a cyberattack against Iran's propaganda outlets in response to last month's missile strike against Saudi Arabian oil facilities. The Pentagon would not confirm the report. But it did announce recently that additional troops, aircraft and missile defense systems were being sent to Saudi Arabia.