Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:

The ZOA thanks and praises new U.S. Ambassador to Germany Rick Grenell for his efforts to obtain German companies’ compliance with economic sanctions on Iran.  Ambassador Grenell appropriately tweeted: “As @realDonaldTrump said, US sanctions will target critical sectors of Iran’s economy. German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.” (@RichardGrenell 11:42 AM – 8 May 2018)   This is excellent advice.

It is shameful and dangerous for German companies and the German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce to insist upon continuing to do business with a regime that promotes the terror sponsored by the Iranian Ayatollahs and Quds forces throughout the world.  Do those German business not realize that the Iranian regime’s sponsorship of terrorism and genocidal nuclear ambitions affect everyone?  Iranian regime operatives are active in Germany.  (See, e.g., “Germany Conducts Raids In Iranian Spy Probe,” Radio Free Europe, Jan. 16, 2018.) Do those German companies really want to do business with a regime that uses sanctions relief proceeds to increase support for Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and other worldwide terrorist activities?  Do such businesses want to continue propping up a catastrophic deal that is so useless that it enables Iran to develop nuclear weapons at military sites that the JCPOA exempted from inspection? Especially when the pressure of economic sanctions could force Iran to the table to negotiate a deal that would actually be effective?

A recent article in German publication BILD Politik (retweeted by Ambassador Grenell) aptly noted:

“Iran has exactly two export hits: oil and terrorism. The revenues from the oil finance and enable terrorism.  The Iran deal has eliminated important sanctions and allowed Iran to regain billions in oil trade. It was the largest and most obscure funding and subsidy program for terrorism in history. . . .  [T]he Iranian regime used the proceeds of the deal to destroy people. At home, as the regime has strengthened the security apparatus, arrested and executed its own citizens, the “reformer” Rouhani more than his predecessors.  The question of what a regime that wants to renounce nuclear weapons (or according to their own information never wanted to build), then need launcher for nuclear weapons, could never answer one of the architects of the deal.  The answer is easy: Iran is building nuclear missiles because it wants nuclear weapons. . . . In Syria, Iranian militia is involved in extermination campaigns against civilians and ethnic cleansing. There is hardly a notable terrorist organization globally that cannot rely on financial support from Tehran. . . . Cynically and icily smiling, the Russians staged this Western taboo [the original sanctions] as stalwarts, only to sell Iran new air defense systems that would protect the regime against any Western military threat scenario. At the same time, Iran sent its murderous militia to Syria to fight alongside Russia for butcher Assad.  Also, all fully funded with the billions that were frozen before the Iran deal by sanctions.  No one can say with certainty whether the deal has stopped or slowed down the Iranian nuclear program.  What is certain, however, is that the deal has provided the world’s most barbarous liars with enough money to secure their power and spread their religious madness with even greater brutality and even more advanced weapons.  This has an end now. And that is good news for the world.”