Iran seems more emboldened than ever, now attacking Israel directly, attacking U.S. interests in the Middle East through its proxy groups like the Houthis, and threatening assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump. All of this comes as the regime is flush with oil revenues, despite sanctions that are supposed to prevent that. A new report shows Iranian oil revenues have surged under the Biden-Harris administration, from $16 billion in 2020 (Donald Trump's last year in office) to $53 billion in both 2022 and 2023, and $34 billion so far in 2024.
All told, Iran has raked in some $178 billion in oil revenues since Joe Biden took office, not counting billions more unfrozen by the U.S. as part of sanctions waivers. "Iran is the number one state sponsor of terror in the world...common sense would tell you, you don't reward terrorism as the Biden administration did," says Jeff Addicott, terrorism law professor at St. Mary's University. "And there's a direct cause and effect of what happened with the money the Biden administration allowed them to accumulate, and the attacks on Israel and on our own forces in the region."
Addicott notes there's a good reason Iran is actively trying to prevent Trump from being elected again. "Trump has proven he knows what to do (on Iran), and he'll do exactly what he did before," Addicott tells KTRH. "We don't need to go to war with Iran, we just need to impose strict sanctions, and for any country that tries to break those sanctions, you put tariffs on them."
"We need to reestablish this issue of deterrence," he continues. "Because that is how you keep bad guys in their cages, through deterrence."