President Joe Biden reportedly wanted to send Iran $200 billion “no strings attached” in the weeks immediately following the 9/11 terror attacks.
“Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran,” Biden reportedly said at the time, according to a report from POLITICO released Sunday.
Biden, then a senator, apparently made the suggestion as an attempt at a “grand gesture” to strengthen American/Iranian ties. He was immediately shut down by staffers (emphasis added):
The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which led to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, also helped improve relations somewhat. Iran, a Shia Muslim-majority country, did not care for the extreme Sunni Islamist government of the Taliban in Afghanistan and was happy to see the U.S. topple it. Iran’s government even reportedly helped fund and supply the leaders of Northern Alliance militias that the U.S. turned to for help in ousting the Taliban government. But U.S. President George W. Bush’s decision to list Iran as an “Axis of Evil” nation in his January 2002 State of the Union speech dealt a blow to the improving ties.
Biden, though, didn’t want to give up.
In the weeks immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, Biden — known for a lack of verbal discipline — suggested to aides … that maybe America should make a grand gesture of sorts to a region often suspicious of its motives. “Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran,” Biden is quoted as saying. (The offhand suggestion did not go over well with his staffers, one of whom responded: “I think they’d send it back.”)
In a speech to the American Iranian Council following the 9/11 attacks, Biden “spoke of how ordinary Iranians had held candlelight vigils for the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, and how the countries had cooperated to some degree in Afghanistan,” the report said. “Biden even invited Iranian lawmakers to meet with him, wherever and whenever they would like.” – READ MORE
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