White House Says Iran Will Use Sanctions Relief to Fix Economy, Not Support Terror

White House officials yesterday held a private conference call with members of foreign policy groups to discuss ways of pressuring Washington lawmakers into supporting a nuclear deal with Iran.

Matt Nosanchuk, an official in the White House Office of Public Engagement, told participants: “With respect to criticisms that any agreement that affords sanctions relief will open the floodgates so that Iran receives all this money it can then pour into its nefarious activities in the region, our response to that is they’re doing it anyway….Our expectation is that sanctions relief will go into bolstering the Iranian economy and not into supporting all these other activities.”

Under the proposed deal, Iran would, within six to 12 months, have access to what are now frozen accounts that may total as much as $150 billion. Even if it chose to use 90% of those funds to address real domestic needs, $15 billion could have a dramatic effect on Iran’s ability to use Hizbullah and other Shiite militias to pursue its “resistance” agenda in the region and continue to shift the balance of power in its favor.

{CB Frommer-Matzav.com Newscenter}