All of this goes to show just how good of a deal the JCPOA was. It took 20 months to negotiate, it had everything the US had ever asked Iran to cooperate on, and Iran was not only cooperating but on a path away from extremism.
It was blown up out of pure spite, jealousy, and meddling from Netanyahu.
Right now, it looks like we're looking at a deal that is significantly worse in every conceivable way.
When you consider how much of those "gifts" were required to be spent in the US and on US goods, it's much much more in the case of Iran. Granted this money isn't coming from the US, but the Gulf states.
A lot of the Israeli funding was actually a gift to US arms manufacturers. I was watching some footage of the Israeli military in Lebanon in 1982 and was puzzled by the fact that it was all US military equipment, it was like one of those WWII films where they use surplussed modern military gear and pretend it's WWII-vintage, only in this case it was US military gear but the people using it looked more middle-eastern than the US troops would have. I asked an Israeli friend who had served in Lebanon about it and he said that's how it works, the US sends aid money to Israel, Israel uses it to buy US weapons. So a lot of the "aid" is actually a US taxpayer gift to US weapons manufacturers.
I'm assuming those silly Persians will instead use it for frivolous things like rebuilding their destroyed infrastructure, schools, hospitals, water facilities, etc.
That's usually true. And yet... after WWII, the US paid a lot of money to rebuild Germany and Japan.
Do I think that's what's going on here? No, I don't. Nor do I think that the money is real. (If it is, it sounds like it's coming from the Gulf states - essentially "please stop blowing us up" money.)
The governments of Germany and Japan were completely destroyed, their nations were then occupied and then rebuilt to be friendly to the US and other Western nations to fight against communism.
But here, Iran's government has not been overthrown nor their nation occupied.
Article makes some distinction, though the $25MM number doesn't match your link.
> In addition to the U.S. and its allies paying $300 billion in reconstruction funds, Iran reports that the U.S. has agreed to release $25 billion in frozen Iranian assets.
I’m wildly speculating that the amount of funds unfrozen will be higher. (I’ll add to that speculation by guessing some fraction of it will wind up with Trump, Kushner and Witkoff.)
This was a completely predictable to anyone with a basic understanding of either economics or geopolitics, and yet for weeks after the war broke out this forum was filled with people claiming it would be over in a matter of days with a guaranteed US victory. I predict these people will learn nothing, and they will continue to blindly support the fascist trump administration. After all, we're in a new age and conservatives have abandoned facts in favor of their feelings and fears.
It was blown up out of pure spite, jealousy, and meddling from Netanyahu.
Right now, it looks like we're looking at a deal that is significantly worse in every conceivable way.