This @nytopinion piece needs corrections from the very start. The title should read “Accept mercy, Mr. Khamenei” as it fails to ever mention that the United States has offered #COVID assistance to #Iran publicly and privately, several times since... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/opinion/iran-trump-sanctions-covid.html?referringSource=articleShare

February 28th, the latest time last week. Iran has rejected U.S. offers every single time, as recently as yesterday. Why no mention of them or call on the regime to say yes to the U.S. offer? Conspicuously, this piece neglects to mention the regime’s agency in its predicaments.

The NYT insinuates that lifting U.S. sanction would help Iranians without examining how Iran uses hard currency. In March, after weeks of requests to provide cash from the National Development Fund for COVID work, Khamenei instead increased the budget proposal for the #IRGC by...

33% and doubled funding for the #Basij. He also allocated $400M from the NDF to pay for government salaries. Khamenei eventually promised $1B to the Ministry of Health in March. But two weeks ago the Health Minister wrote on Instagram that he had barely received any of it.

And his predecessor resigned in 2019 because of a lack of funding. I’ve yet to see such a complaint from the Basij. As long as Iran funnels money to terror instead of its people, giving money to the regime would be an act of gross negligence.

Does the NYT sincerely think we should give the regime cash with that track record, just hoping that it will go to the Iranian people?

As a technical correction to the op-ed, the wind-down for the financial sanctions ends on November 22, not in December. Regardless, we’ve even been assured by Central Bank of Iran’s Governor Hemmati just last Thursday that “Foreigners who traded with [the sanctioned banks]...

...have in fact received the necessary exemptions and licenses to finance the exchange of medicine and food products.”

The piece asserts with any evidence, as many pundits continue to do, (hoping that repetition will substitute for proof) that U.S. policy has strengthened hardliners. That’s an interesting notion that entirely neglects the fact that Khamenei’s Guardian Council...

...not the United States, controls who can take and exercise power in a regime led by a “Supreme Leader”. Considering they blocked over half the candidates from running in February’s Majles election, it’s surprising the “experts” so often don’t mention their role.

It’s just another instance of how critics blame sanctions for any of the regimes many conscious choices to advance their radical cause at the expense of their nation.

Entirely neglected in the piece is any mention that Iran has failed for years to pass the #FATF reforms for...

anti-money laundering and counter-terror financing that resulted in the 44-nation organization reimposing full banking countermeasures on Iran this year. Iran joined North Korea in ignominy as the only other nation on @FATFNews' “blacklist”.

Regime officials have consistently opposed passing the FATF reforms, even though they’ve known the consequences.

In March 2019, the Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman said “not joining FATF will undoubtedly make Iran’s international trade more difficult and, in some cases...

impossible. It will make Iran’s partners engaged in legal transactions with Iran face serious and costly problems.”

If the regime knew the consequences of its inaction but ignored it, then what do they care about the most?

Clearly it is Hizballah, Hamas, and Houthis, but not Hospitals. Iran has within its power the ability to provide for its people, but chooses proxies. This documentation is extensive - I hope the NYT includes some next time they want to know why Iranians are suffering from COVID.

With all that being said, I'm glad that @nytopinion raises Nasrin Sotoudeh's case and those of other political prisoners in their editorial. The regime should let them free immediately, especially given the crowded and unsanitary conditions of the regime's prisons.

Lastly, quoting Barbara Slavin, really? Would you quote pals of Kim Jong Un, Maduro, or Assad in pieces highlighting their regimes’ failures?