Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday (March 9th) the United States is concerned that Iran is becoming more of a military dictatorship and insisted that Tehran will not be permitted to acquire a nuclear weapon. Indeed a strong statement.
Is this the same Joe Biden who in 2002, despite protests from expatriate Iranians in America, held a fundraiser in the California home of a member of AIC (American-Iranian Council), during which the senator delivered a sweeping condemnation of President Bush’s “Axis of Evil.”?
Since its inception in 1997, the AIC has vigorously lobbied American politicians to soften U.S. position towards the radical rulers of Iran and claims that getting Madeline Albright to express regret for mistaken U.S. policies toward Iran as one of its greatest achievements, along with organizing an event in New York in 2007 for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Having Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, appear at this event was seen by the mullahs as a major accomplishment. The fundraiser brought in $30,000 for Biden’s reelection to the Senate that year. The AIC members and other board members of the Iranian Muslim Association of North America (IMAN, www.iman.org) said Biden’s office contacted them to inquire if they would hold a private fundraiser for the senator, who was up for reelection that year, after meeting with them at a pro-Tehran event in New York the previous December. That event was also sponsored by the American-Iranian Council.
I hope Vice President Biden means what he says or the freedom loving Iranians looking up to America for support are going to be utterly disappointed.
In 2007, then Senator Biden refused to name the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, a terrorist organization. Biden voted “Nay” to Senate Amendment 3017 (S. Amdt. 3017) – a piece of legislation amending S. Amdt. 2011 to H.R. 1585 – “to express the sense of the Senate regarding Iran.”
Senator Biden was one of only four senators to vote against the Iran Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act in 1998, a bill that punished foreign companies or other entities that sent Iran sensitive missile technology or expertise.
