Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of
the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
John Kirby, though someone I don’t like, is a darned sight better
at presiding over a White House presser than is, for instance, KJP. That’s
about the best I have to say about him. But the way he sneered at Fox News
Chief Legal Correspondent, Journalist Shannon Bream, in an April interview, literally
turned my stomach.
Ugh. It was like he
was saying, “Listen little Lady, you stay in your corner, and let the big boys
handle this.”
Well, like I said, this was back in April, but the subject
of that interview,
covert US support for Iran, remains relevant to our current news cycle, with
Israel looking at a face-off with the evil Iranian proxy, Hezbollah. Biden’s
support of Iran was relevant too, in
November, when I wrote about the money
trail that led to October 7. It irritated me, the way the Biden administration
kept saying that Iran can’t possibly use its own money to fund its war machine.
I hear that stuff and say out loud, squinting my eyes at my computer screen, “You
know darned well that money is fungible, you blankety blank blank.”
Fungible. It’s not that difficult a
concept. When one anticipates money coming in, they risk taking it from
somewhere else. Some not of my religion might call this “robbing Peter to pay
Paul.”
You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand any of this, right? Yet here was Shannon Bream, a lawyer, polite, refined, asking a reasonable question, and all John Kirby does is sneer and leer at her. You can practically hear Kirby rolling his eyes.
Here's how the conversation went:
Shannon Bream: There are a number of critics, most of them on the GOP side of the Hill, who say, “We shouldn’t be in this position.”
That there are things that were done by this administration, that let Iran think it had an opening here, or others that want to go after Israel. Senator Marsha Blackburn among those, posting on X last night, she says,
“Under President Trump, Iran was broke.
“President Biden gifted them billions of dollars and then naively said, ‘Don’t.’
“‘Don’t.’ is not a foreign policy.”
Under President Trump, Iran was broke.
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) April 13, 2024
President Biden gifted them billions of dollars and then naively said “don’t.”
“Don’t” is not a foreign policy.
Shannon Bream: You know the conversations about unfreezing assets, about waivers on sanctions . . .
John Kirby: Yeah, Yeah. (laughs)
Shannon Bream: Could this administration [have been] tougher on Iran?
John Kirby: (shakes head) It’s hard to look at what President Biden has done with respect to Iran and . . .Shannon Bream: (interrupts) but we’re also leaving sanctions.
John Kirby: . . . say that he hasn’t been tough on Iran, that we haven’t put pressure on them, that we haven’t—an additional 500 sanctions, additional resources in the region and let’s take a look at that ballistic missiles—okay, so they launched more than 100 ballistic missiles, and how many got through? And the reason they didn’t get through is because President Biden made sure that we pre-position forces in the region to help Israel—will shoot them down—so this vaunted ballistic missile program of theirs, last night (stutters) didn’t turn out to be so vaunted last night.Shannon Bream: (interrupts) But why not support something that would have stopped that program or at least contained it in some way, so it’s not launching at Israel, so that we aren’t having to get involved defensively?
John Kirby: Again, Shannon, let’s look at the sanctions we put in place with Iran, the resources in the region ... it’s hard to take a look at what President Biden has done and say that we’ve somehow gone soft on Iran. It was the previous administration that promised, that promised to get us out of the Iran Deal and now Iran is so much dramatically closer to a potential nuclear weapon capability than they were before, uh, before, uh, before Mr. Trump was elected. (sneers)
Shannon Bream: Is it not fair to say though, that there have been moves by this administration that have opened up cash and other opportunities for them which we know are fungible, in ways that are not helping the Iranian people (Kirby laughs) but are benefitting the elites and people there who chant “Death to America.” And “Death to Israel.”
John Kirby: You and I have had this fungibility argument, eh, (stutters) before em, um, I obviously take a different issue, uh, take an issue with that characterization. The (gestures), the sanctions relief that has come about. . . or it’s not even sanctions relief, but eh, (stutters) the eh, eh, additional funds which have been made available to Iran, due to the sanctions relief program that the Trump administration put in place. (shakes head) It can only be used for humanitarian goods; it doesn’t go to the regime. And the idea that the regime was somehow . . . felt like they were freed up to support these proxies because of that it just doesn’t comport with the facts that they have been supporting these proxies for many, many years.
Shannon Bream: And it comports with their language though, saying, we will use this money in the way that we want to use it.
John Kirby: They can’t (shakes head, laughs, sneers). They can’t! They physically can’t do that.
It’s upsetting. Bream is pretty, but
that doesn’t mean she is empty-headed. Rather she is fiercely smart, and a
lawyer to boot, and should not be treated with so little regard. I was sickened
by his insulting manner toward a lady, and an intelligent one, at that.
Aside from this, Kirby never answered
her question—never managed to explain why the fact that money is fungible is
something to dismiss. Why would Iran not take advantage the fact that
money is fungible to build its war machine? Bream has a good question, and
deserves a good answer from this administration. We all do.
But there is no good answer. The
Biden administration knowingly assisted Iran in building up its nuclear
arsenal, and also gave Iran the power to fuel the October 7 massacre, and the volcano
about to erupt in Northern Israel and Lebanon. Shannon Bream knows this, and so
does Kirby—every time he stutters, you know he’s concealing something. In spite
of this, John Kirby treats Shannon Bream as though she were a simpleton. This
was profoundly disturbing to me, both as a woman and as a human being.
The silky words tripping off Kirby’s
tongue, brought to my mind nothing so much as the snake who used cunning words
to goad Eve on to eat the apple.
In this case the snake was just another
Biden hack who’d sold his soul to the highest bidder.
I think Bream did a great job of exposing
Kirby for what he is, for anyone who saw the interview and noted his demeaning
manner toward his host, Bream. I cannot see how any woman, Democrat or
Republican, can sit through that interview and not see how slimy he is.
And now, as June comes to a close,
the United States has let slip, by way of US Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Brown, that America will not be
helping Israel fight Iran/Hezbollah this time around, not necessarily because
America doesn’t want to, but because, it claims, the US doesn’t have the capability.
“From our perspective,” said Charles Brown, “based on where
our forces are, the short-range between Lebanon and Israel, it’s harder for us
to be able to support them in the same way we did back in April.”
In other words, those over 100 ballistic missiles Kirby
referenced back in April were one thing, but not this. “Sorry,” says America to
Israel. “We can’t help you with this one. Now, you’re on your own.”
Here is the logical—the only—answer to Bream’s question,
solid proof that money is always fungible, even in the case of Iran. The
lifting of sanctions by the Biden administration has directly led to the
current existential threat to Israel and, one might add, to Lebanon.
The Biden administration has enabled Iran, all the while
doing what it can to stymie Israel. The president feeds the enemy with fungible
funds while starving his ally of promised weaponry and other assistance.
Some speak of a coming world war, while people like Kirby,
continue to sneer and laugh and lie to intelligent people like Shannon Bream,
who see right through them. At some point, John Kirby’s act will grow old—he
was never meant to be anything but mid-level management. Not to worry—they’ll
find a use for Kirby somewhere. Like I said, he gives a mean White House
presser.
Or perhaps they can bury him in mounds of paperwork behind a desk, hidden away from public view.
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