that money is fungible.

Republican foreign policy leaders say that while the $6 billion in funds that were a part of that deal did not literally fund the Hamas attack, the U.S.-enabled payments likely allowed Iran to reallocate significant parts of its budget—including funds it would have been forced to spend on food and medical aid—toward its global terror operations.
"Iran normally has to allocate its limited foreign exchange reserves for food/medicine months in advance to facilitate trade flows. Not anymore," said Gabriel Noronha, a former State Department adviser on Iran. "The $6 billion payment freed up huge reserves to ensure that Iran could continue this support."
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday seemed to concede the point, telling NBC News' Kristen Welker, "Iran has unfortunately always used and focused its funds on supporting terrorism, on supporting groups like Hamas, and it's done that when there have been sanctions, it's done that when there haven't been sanctions. It's always prioritized that."
A Treasury Department report in 2019 indicated that the Iranian military has sent tens of millions of dollars to Hamas’s military wing for terrorist activities. Iranian state news outlets reported in 2021 that the government was funding Hamas’s production of rockets used to attack Israeli civilians.
Jonathan Schanzer, an Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the Biden administration’s decision to unfreeze the cash in exchange for U.S. prisoners also encouraged the mass hostage-taking by Hamas.
"Whether the cash has been transferred to Iran or it hasn’t, the message the United States sent to Iran was this: Hostage diplomacy is fair game," Schanzer said. "Hamas appears to have taken that message to heart. The end result is that five Americans have been sent home, but more than 100 Israelis are now held in Gaza."
Republican lawmakers are blasting the Biden administration over the Iran funding and blaming it for bankrolling Hamas’s attack.
"Money is fungible and regime officials calculate for it, including for shoring up their foreign exchange reserve," said Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), adding that the administration was "on track to send over $45 billion to the ayatollah this year through waivers and not enforcing sanctions, including this $6 billion they admit was ransom."
Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), a longtime member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who is currently on the ground in the Middle East, said the connection between the Iran funding and the terrorist attack was predictable.
"The Biden foreign policy team came to power calling themselves the ‘adults in the room,’ but they’re really hopelessly naive appeasers on the world stage," said Issa. "It must be embarrassing for them to insist the $6 billion in ransom they paid to Iran would be spent on anything but terror—but perhaps they’re getting used to it."
[Post edited by JMHoo at 10/09/2023 07:08AM]