November 19, 2021
State broadcasting is falsely telling the Iranian public that US President Joseph Biden is pressing other countries to stop all purchases of Iranian oil “to impede progress in the next round of talks” about reviving the JCPOA.
But all Biden has done is sign the standard semi-annual certification to Congress that says continuing sanctions on Iranian oil will not undercut oil supplies.
State broadcasting said Biden’s certification would likely “complicate the upcoming negotiations.”
State broadcasting quoted Biden as saying, “There is a sufficient supply of petroleum and petroleum products from countries other than Iran to permit a significant reduction in the volume of petroleum and petroleum products from Iran.”
That is an accurate quote from the memorandum signed by Biden November 12.
But it is also the identical wording from the memorandum signed by President Barack Obama December 7, 2012, and signed every six months since then by the incumbent president.
Democrats in Congress required presidents to sign the certification every six months because they feared that sanctions on Iran would dry up the oil supply.
The certification has zero relevance to the nuclear talks, but the Islamic Republic prefers to tell the Iranian public that Biden is being dishonorable.
It’s not just state broadcasting that is selling this line to the Iranian public. A few days after state broadcasting first aired this assertion, the Supreme National Security Council issued a statement saying Biden was trying to pressure Iran in the upcoming talks by pretending that a resumption of Iranian crude exports would not have a major impact on global supplies.