“Five things to know about the $6 billion Iran deal now back in spotlight,” The Hill, 10-12-23.

“In first, Saudi Arabia’s bin Salman speaks to Iran’s Raisi about Israel-Hamas war,” Times of Israel, 10-12-23.

This news just broke.  “U.S., Qatar agree to stop Iran from tapping $6 billion fund after Hamas attack,” Washington Post, 10-12-23.  My first thoughts–the $6 billion was an immoral act–paying blackmail to terrorists, was unsustainable (remember the $400 million per head from the Obama hostage deal?) for future hostage payments, and was unneeded–the U.S. agreed to a person to person number of prisoners with Iran (that is the maximum that should ever be agreed, a one for one swap).  So freezing the $6B is the first step, the second is that Pres. Biden needs to declare the payment is cancelled.  Iran’s support of the Hamas attack has cost them.

“Hamas Invasion Rewrites Rules in Middle East,” WSJ, 10-12-23.  Another interesting quote–“At a very strategic level, Hezbollah and Iran are not very interested, as yet, to jump into this fight,” said Emile Hokayem, a senior fellow for Middle East security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “The fundamental calculus for Iran still holds: Hezbollah is such a unique and powerful instrument of its security policy that it’s not going to waste it on this war. Hezbollah is to be used and deployed when the regime in Iran, its very existence, is threatened.”

Back to talk face-to-face with Hezbollah’s Nasrallah in a soundproof room.  “Iran’s foreign minister to travel to Lebanon to discuss Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Al Arabiya, 10-12-13.

Is the Regime calling for military allies?  “Iran calls on Islamic, Arab countries to confront Israel over its war on Hamas,” Times of Israel, 10-12-13.

This post records a quote from a portion of an article to capture what is called a shill’s statement (critics delve into this further).  And consider the logic—You can’t trust the U.S. if it breaks its words twice.  Well, considering how many times Iran has broken its word in the Middle East (think solely about how it treats other countries with regard to Hormuz passage), the score of Two to Multitude seems an indicator of why countries prefer to deal with the U.S.  Here’s the article, “US reportedly persuaded Qatar to halt $6bn to Iran in breach of deal,” Guardian, 10-12-23.  “Trita Parsi, of the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said re-freezing the funds would signal acceptance of this argument and warned that it could kill any future US-Iran diplomacy. “This would be the second time in five years that the US has reneged on an agreement with Iran,” said Parsi. “But the last time was the Trump administration pulling out of the JCPA nuclear accords agreed with Barack Obama. This is very different – it’s Biden’s own deal that he made four weeks ago. “Even if we accept that the JCPA is dead, it doesn’t mean that some kind of agreement down the road cannot be pursued. However, reversing after four weeks on this issue makes it very difficult to have any diplomacy going forward, because the image in Iran is that the US is a serial betrayer of any agreement it signs.””