The US Treasury claims that its targeted sanctions program is hitting Al Qaeda and rogue nations, such as Iran, hard.
We’ve no doubt that Iran, the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism, has been substantially effected by sanctions and we would concede that Al Qaeda has no doubt been impacted in some way.
But we would point out that Al Qaeda is but one enemy in the global Islamic insurgency and recent reports have indicated that the Taliban’s funding sources remain largely intact, for instance.
Most worrying to us is the fact that we know that the US Treasury’s longstanding position of promoting Shariah Finance and the complete denial that there may be something to be concerned about with regard to zakat.
In fact, readers may recall that in his famous speech to the Muslim world in Cairo a few years ago, President Obama pledged to ease scrutiny of zakat. This came despite the details in the bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report in which it was revealed that Al Qaeda received substantial funding through the zakat system.
For this reason, we have to remain skeptical that Al Qaeda’s funding sources have dried up due to US sanctions policy…
There Cohen goes again. He’s never able to give credit to the U.S. military for mopping up Al Qaeda and capturing/killing its financiers, particularly with Al Qaeda in Iraq. All the credit always goes to a little bureaucratic office in Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, Turkey is buying oil/gas from Iran to offset the Western oil sanctions. We’re not slowing their march to the bomb.
That is something that sticks in my craw too. The administration acts as if no Al Qaeda were killed before Obama came to the White House when the reality is that 75% of Al Qaeda’s command structure was eliminated in both Afghanistan and Iraq before Obama was ever elected.
US sanctions against Iran have always been a mirage. When ever they come up with a new round of “tougher” sanctions at Treasury with great fanfare, I am left wondering, “They’ve been working on The Bomb since the early 1990s at least. They have been sponsoring terrorism since 1980. Why are there any sanctions left to impose?”