“Nothing in their rhetoric indicates they would make destructive use of such technology, provided you disregard about half their rhetoric and all of their actions.”
Washington, February 7 – Senior administration officials suggested today that the review announced two weeks ago of an upcoming sale of advanced fighter aircraft to a moderate Persian Gulf ally will lead to not just to cancelation of the transaction, but to the provision of those strategic and tactical assets to that ally’s enemies, as part of a shift back to the Obama-era approach of empowering the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism.
During a press conference at the White House, Press Secretary Jen Psaki addressed the Biden administration’s decision to reexamine the Trump administration’s agreement to sell F-35 fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates, an agreement that played a role in encouraging the UAE and several other Arab states to normalize relations with Israel over the last several months. Psaki noted that the strengthening of the anti-Iran coalition that includes Israel and those Arab states will get in the way of a reboot of Obama’s Iran policy, which viewed Iran, with its conduct of proxy ward throughout the region and its financing and arming of numerous terrorist groups opposed to US and Western interests, as a stabilizing force in the region and a good candidate for responsible ownership of nuclear weapons.
“I want to circle back to an earlier point,” Psaki stated in answer to a reporter’s question. “I mean, we want to circle back to 2015, when we flew pallets of cash to Tehran overnight to grease the wheels of the JCPOA and smooth the Islamic Republic’s path toward atomic weapons. Nothing in their rhetoric indicates they would make destructive or misguided use of such technology, least of all as a bulwark against retaliation for fomenting violence, provided you disregard about half their rhetoric and all of their actions. The best way to circle back might be to provide Iran with some of the incentives the previous administration offered to other countries in that region.”
The F-35’s tactical superiority over other fighters and its stealth capabilities offer advantages that could tip the balance of power in the Middle East; Israel has already deployed the aircraft in operations against Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Syria, and has dropped broad hints of contingency plans to strike at Iran’s weapons production and research facilities with the plane to prevent the Islamic Republic from obtaining nuclear weapons capability. Psaki noted that provision of the F-35 to Iran instead of the UAE would help encourage the mullahs to see the rewards of good behavior, just as all of Obama’s concessions to the regime between 2009 and 2017 pretended was happening.
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