Businesses Should Not Reward Iran for Nuclear Weapons Development

           The recent nuclear weapons deal concluded by the United States and other world powers with the Islamic Republic of Iran has rewarded the tyrannical Islamist regime for its nuclear weapons program.  The payoff in particular for Iran was the lifting of economic sanctions by the U.S. that had been imposed on the Iranian dictatorship because of its state sponsorship of terrorism.  Iran is the most active state sponsor of terrorism in the world.    

These specific sanctions for terrorism were separate from those that were imposed on Iran by the U.S. and other world powers specifically because of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons program, which were also lifted.  Over $100 billion of Iranian assets that had been frozen because of its weapons program were also unfrozen.  Although the lifting of these particular sanctions and unfreezing of these assets will be beneficial to the Iranian dictatorship, at least they did not represent a reward for its nuclear weapons program because these measures had only been imposed because of the program.  A return to the status quo ante by ending the measures thus did not provide an advantage to Iran from what its situation had been prior to its nuclear weapons development. 

Engaging in any commerce with the Iranian regime would provide it with even more funds than it has received from the ending of the sanctions and unfreezing of its assets to continue to stay in power to oppress the Iranian people, foment Islamist revolution abroad by acts of violent jihad, which includes the targeted killing and injuring of American soldiers, and engage in terrorism.  These reasons are each sufficient alone to boycott trade with Iran in the first place, but engaging in those specific types of commerce that had been banned because of Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism would constitute a reward for the Islamic Republic’s development of its nuclear weapons program. 

Such a reward would encourage the development by other rogue regimes of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. 

It is up to businesses whether the nuclear weapons deal between Iran and the world powers will advantage the Iranian regime beyond the unfreezing of Iranian assets.  Businesses must especially not reward the Islamist dictatorship for its nuclear weapons development by engaging in commerce with those responsible for terrorism, with whom they should never trade in the first place.  Only if businesses do not engage in commerce with Iran that had been prohibited for the Iranian regime’s state sponsorship of terrorism, then Iran would fail to have been successful through the nuclear weapons deal in having extracted any meaningful concessions by threatening the world with the horror of nuclear destruction specifically in order to end the sanctions imposed because of its sponsorship of terrorism.  

The world would be both more peaceful and prosperous if it deters terrorism, violent Islamist revolution and nuclear proliferation by rogue regimes like Iran’s.