US Renews 120-Day Waiver to Allow Iraq to Buy Electricity From Iran

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The State Department has previously said that the $10 billion in funds can only be used by Iran for humanitarian purposes.

The United States has renewed a waiver to allow Iraq to buy electricity from Iran, a U.S. Department of State spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

The State Department issued the 120-day waiver on Nov. 8, the spokesperson said. It was the 23rd waiver issued since 2018. The last waiver was issued in July.

Critics have said that the waiver financially benefits Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, which could be used for malign activities such as funding their proxies including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. There has been an active war between Israel and the first two groups.

“The issue here is money is fungible—and limiting use for humanitarian purposes opens up other streams of funding for the Islamic Republic to feed to its terror proxies and partners,” Jason Brodsky, policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran, previously told The Epoch Times.

Iraq will pay Iran $10 billion for the electricity. The U.S. State Department has previously said that Iran can only use the money for humanitarian purposes.

During its tenure, the Biden administration has lifted some sanctions on Iran, which allowed billions of dollars to flow into the country, mostly in oil sales revenue.

While the Trump’s first administration also issued a waiver to Iraq to buy Iranian electricity, Trump has suggested he would take a hardline stance on Iran if reelected.

“Iran was weak, Iran was broke, they had no money, and they wanted to make a deal,” he told the Republican Jewish Coalition in September.

Trump has also expressed an openness to making a deal with Iran.

“Sure, I would do that,” he said at a press conference in September. ”We have to make a deal, because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal.”

Trump did not go into specifics on what a deal would look like.

The Trump administration launched in 2018 what it called a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran, withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and reinstating sanctions lifted under it in addition to enacting fresh sanctions.

In an interview this month with CNN, Brian Hook, who was the special envoy to Iran and currently leads the State Department portfolio for the Trump transition team, said that Trump would resume his strategy toward Iran.

“President Trump’s foreign policy is hiding in plain sight. … I just think that it’s fairly obvious what he did in the first term,” he said.

“He isolated Iran and he weakened Iran economically. And you talked about a regional balance of power shifting. … I have no reason to think that he won’t do that again. And he was very successful at it.”