President Donald Trump's memorandum of understanding to end the war in the Middle East is running into a familiar criticism. "We're going to be releasing billions of dollars to this enemy," Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.) told the BBC. Sen. Chris Murphy (D–Conn.) called the memorandum "a payment to Iran" in a speech to reporters. Trump's former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, accused Trump of trying to "pay the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] to build a WMD [Weapon of Mass Destruction] program and terrorize the world."
It was, ironically, the same criticism that Trump had levied against Democratic outreach to Iran. "American taxpayer dollars helped fund [Hamas] attacks, which many reports are saying came from the Biden administration," he said in 2023, speaking of a deal to unfreeze Iranian bank accounts in Qatar. Trump was also obsessed with the image of President Barack Obama giving "pallets of cash" to Iran. Then, as now, hawks are confusing and deceiving the public about what sanctions relief really is.
