Biden, Harris gave billions to Iran for peace, but Tehran responded with destabilizing terror

At the height of the gas price crisis in 2021, Americans occasionally were greeted at the gas pump by surreptitiously placed stickers of a smirking Joe Biden pointing to the inflated price and proclaiming “I did that.”

Three years later, Biden and his understudy Kamala Harris could easily have been given similar credit for the horror that unfurled in the skies over Israel on Tuesday when Iran launched scores of missiles in its largest one-day attack ever against the Jewish state.

On the ground, a band of terrorists opened fire on innocent civilians in Jaffa, killing at least six and wounding many more.

While Israel’s famed “Iron Dome” anti-missile system knocked down most of the rockets, the light flashes and loud bangs above Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities affirmed a harsh reality: the Biden-Harris strategy of appeasing Iran with tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief and oil sales only resulted in Tehran’s mullahs emboldened to route those funds into a proxy war of terror though Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis that has destabilized the entire globe.

American voters are presented with a stark contrast to consider in an election just 34 days away. Under former President Donald Trump, the United States starved Iran of money and drained its accounts down to a few billion, assassinated Iran’s top general and canceled an Obama-era nuclear deal over clear evidence that Tehran was cheating. As a result, Iranian-backed aggression waned.

“How do you think the biggest state sponsor of a terror Iran is getting their money?” Rep. Peter Stauber, R-Minn., asked this week. “They're allowed to sell their oil on the world market."

“Now under President Trump. Iran was hurting. They had no money. They have over $100 billion now to support Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis who are trying to extinguish Israel off the face of the earth. That's what they say. And it's all because of a lack of leadership. It's a lack of leadership by the Biden Harris administration,” Stauber added.

Even Democrats backing away from Biden-Harris appeasement

Such criticism isn’t limited to Republicans. Many vulnerable Democrats in Senate and House races have distanced themselves from the Biden-Harris Middle East strategy and record, especially after Iran-backed Hamas carried out the atrocities on Oct. 7, 2023, against Israeli citizens, killing more than 1,200 in the single deadliest day of terrorism in modern history.

“We want to be sure that we’re not doing anything to support Iran in this time or giving Hamas or Hezbollah any assets or any support, which we know that they’re both proxies of Iran,” Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), a former synagogue president in a tight re-election race, declared earlier this year.”

Fellow West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin, who declined to run for re-election, was more blunt and called the Biden-Harris deal in which the United States unfroze $6 billion in Iranian funds for the release of some prisoners a strategic mistake. “The prisoner swap, the $6 billion, I never was for that,” Manchin admitted.

Trump weighed in Tuesday after the new missile attacks with a similar message. “This is what the policies of weakness and appeasement have brought to the world,” he said.

Harris asks Israel to show restraint

Harris criticized Iran on Tuesday without mentioning her administration’s prior financial support for Tehran. "I'm clear-eyed that Iran is a destabilizing, dangerous force in the Middle East," Harris said during a press briefing. "I will always ensure that Israel has the ability to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist militias."

But just a week before she uttered those words, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel should show restraint and engage in a ceasefire. “The best way is through diplomacy, through a cease-fire and then reaching an agreement that pulls back forces from the border and gives people confidence that they can go back to their houses,” he said.

Such mixed messages have been a hallmark of the Biden-Harris Mideast policy.

Many in the national security world expected the Biden-Harris team to pivot after the Hamas' atrocities last Oct, 7. But the administration has continually tried to handcuff Israel from conducting a full-scale elimination of Hamas and Hezbollah, repeatedly trying to impose a ceasefire or demanding Benjamin Netanyahu retreat with restraint.

The most recent request came in April. Israel acceded to some degree, only to see Iran and its proxies step up their violence.

Shipping lanes in the Red Sea are disrupted by constant attacks by Houthis. American troops in Iraq and Syria have been attacked more than 180 times and Hezbollah joined the Hamas war with a constant volley of rocket attacks that made large parts of northern Israel uninhabitable.

Netanyahu finally ignored the Biden-Harris pleas, unleashing a three-week counter attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon that began with a James Bond-worthy operation of exploding pagers and radios, followed by massive airstrikes that killed a dozen top terror groups leaders, including its longtime No.1, Hassan Nasrallah.

Iran’s counterattack on Tuesday was retaliation for the big losses its proxy suffered in succession.

Victoria Coates, Trump’s former deputy national security advisor, suggested Tuesday the world was better off because Israel ignored the latest pleas of appeasement from Biden and Harris.

“The administration's been running scared from the Iranians for a year now, and terribly scared of escalation,” Coates told the "Just the News, No Noise" television show. “Israel theoretically escalated three weeks ago. This is the response. So how much of the conventional wisdom that they're pushing on us is false, and how much should we be supportive of Israel now they've shown the willingness to actually go into Lebanon, not to just inconvenience Hezbollah, but to actually defeat them. And I think that we need just a full reassessment, not that this administration is capable of it, but the American people should think, gee, do we want another year of grinding war, or do we want to get to victory here.”

Coates said there is clear evidence Israel has significantly degraded Hamas and has begun to reduce the capabilities of Hezbollah’s warfare and terrorism.

“I think Hamas is pretty close to being completed,” she said. “They've been degraded from a military force to a guerrilla force. That's a very important step, and I think that's what Israel is proposing to do with Hezbollah. So I would hope that this is a moment for the people of Lebanon to realize that they can throw off the death grip that Hezbollah has had on them.”