Foreign Funding for Flood Relief in Iran Cut Off by U.S. Sanctions

April 8, 2019 (EIRNS)—On April 2, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement blaming catastrophic flooding across Iran on the government of Iran, itself. “On behalf of the American people, we offer our condolences to the victims of the recent floods in Iran,” Pompeo said. “These floods once again show the level of Iranian regime mismanagement in urban planning and in emergency preparedness.”

Perhaps Pompeo was “blocking,” as they say, in regard to the catastrophic flooding that has hit the U.S. Plains States in the past few weeks, including parts of his home state of Kansas, and the fact that it has been aggravated by the failure to invest in adequate flood-control infrastructure over a period of decades, as EIR documents in this issue.

Whatever the role of Iranian government mismanagement may be in the current flood disaster, U.S. sanctions appear to be playing a role in blocking international aid to the victims. The Iranian Red Crescent Society charged yesterday that the sanctions are making it impossible for the relief organization to obtain foreign financial aid to help victims of the floods.

“No foreign cash help has been given to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. With attention to the inhuman American sanctions, there is no way to send this cash assistance,” the Red Crescent said in a statement. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif tweeted last week, that the blocking of flood relief efforts by the sanctions is not just economic warfare, “it’s economic TERRORISM.”