House to hold first Iran hearings since 2020.
The House of Representatives Holds Hearings on Iran
The House of Representatives is scheduled this week to hold its first hearings on Iran since 2020.
The Biden administration has come under fire on the right for its Tehran policy—from seeking to reenter the 2015 nuclear deal to loosening the Trump-era “maximum pressure” campaign. Rob Malley, the point person on the negotiations to reenter the deal or have a new deal with Iran, has been on leave since his security clearance came under review for reasons not publicly known.
Regardless, the Department of Justice announced on Sept. 8 it has reached the first criminal resolution related to the illicit trade of Iranian oil.
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Subcommittees of the House Oversight Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee are set to host this week’s two hearings. No Biden administration officials are scheduled to testify at either.
The Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs has scheduled the first hearing, titled ”A Dangerous Strategy: Examining the Biden Administration’s Failures on Iran,” for Sept. 13.
Witnesses include Richard Goldberg, who worked on Iran policy at the National Security Council during the Trump administration and is now a senior adviser at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington think tank that’s known to be hawkish on the Iranian regime; Jewish Institute for National Security President and CEO Michael Makovsky; and Victoria Coates, who was deputy national security adviser for Middle East and North African affairs in the Trump administration and is currently vice president of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank in Washington.
The hearing, according to a House Oversight Committee statement, “will examine how the Biden administration has repeatedly engaged in secret negotiations with Iran, ignoring the emerging threats arising from Iran and its proxies,” and “look at ways the Biden administration has fallen short in assisting Americans trapped abroad and circumstances around dismissals of high-level officials.”
“The Biden administration’s foreign policy decisions regarding Iran continue to defy logic and are actively making Americans less safe at home and abroad,” the subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.), said in a statement.
“Despite promises, the Biden administration has failed to deliver transparency throughout negotiations of Iran’s nuclear arsenal program and in its murky decision to dismiss high-level U.S. envoys,” he said.
Mr. Grothman cited last month’s transfer of American hostages detained in Iran to house arrest from prison, reportedly as part of a deal in which the United States would give Iran $6 billion in oil sanctions relief. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said Iran wouldn’t get such relief in any deal and that oil revenue would be allowed to go only into restricted accounts to be used for strictly humanitarian purposes.
“The Iranian regime poses a great threat to American foreign interests and stability in the Middle East region, and this hearing is a great opportunity to examine all these issues and provide Americans at home with what the Biden administration refuses to: transparency and answers,” Mr. Grothman said.
Mr. Goldberg told The Epoch Times that the hearing is part of confronting the administration’s Iran policy.
“The Biden administration is skirting a number of Iran-related laws enacted by Congress with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. Congress needs to defend its Iran sanctions architecture,” he said.
“Exposing the details of the secret nuclear deal with Iran is the first step in stopping the secret nuclear deal with Iran.”
The second hearing is set for Sept. 14. Hosted by the Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, it’s titled “Iran’s Escalating Threats: Assessing U.S. Policy Toward Iran’s Malign Activities.”
Witnesses include Norman Roule, who was the national intelligence manager for Iran at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under Republican and Democrat presidents; Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the FDD; Iranian author and activist Masih Alinejad; and Suzanne Maloney, vice president and director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, a left-wing think tank in Washington.
“The hearings [are] both welcome and overdue—like a doctor finally prescribing an aspirin
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