Obama sent 1.7 billion dollars in cash to the ayatollahs, but the truly large sums came from sanctions relief. It is none other than Saudi Arabia’s strongman, Mohammed bin Salman, who reveals that Obama granted Tehran sanctions relief amounting to a full 150 billion dollars. The money did not go towards improving living standards, but to weapons systems and the financing of terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hizbollah and the Houthis.
Bin Salman makes no secret of the fact that the region cannot live with a regime that uses its resources to destabilise the world.
The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman delivered one of his most direct public assessments of the Iranian regime, describing it as a purely ideological project with no interest in serving its own people, but with a full focus on financing terrorism and destabilising the region.
His evidence was concrete. Iran received 150 billion dollars in sanctions relief, but did not build a single street, no housing complexes or industrial facilities for its citizens. Every single dollar went to launching missiles at Saudi Arabia and financing terrorist organisations across the world.
MBS went further than most Western leaders have been willing to go publicly, and stated directly that Iran’s support for terrorism extends far beyond Hizbollah and the Houthis. He noted that senior Al-Qaeda leaders are currently residing in Iran, including Osama bin Laden’s son, who grew up in Iran and is now positioning himself as the next leader of Al-Qaeda.
The Crown Prince stated that Saudi Arabia is in no doubt about these dangers and is actively cooperating with partners on how to address them in order to protect the Middle East, Europe and the rest of the world from what he termed “these destructive ideologies”.
The statement represents one of the clearest and most comprehensive public accusations against the Iranian regime from a sitting Arab head of government, made at a moment when Iran is simultaneously firing missiles at Saudi territory and operating networks of proxies from Beirut to Khartoum to Sanaa.