Sure, Biden talked tough about imposing sanctions on Russia and called out Putin for his fiendish actions, but the Russians knew that his words were as hollow as Obama’s meaningless sanctions over Crimea. And the Russians gleefully rubbed Biden’s nose in it. Lavrov boasted publicly that the United States had provided written guarantees that sanctions imposed over Ukraine would have no effect on Russia’s nuclear cooperation with Iran. In other words, the cash influx that the JCPOA promised Putin would be unaffected by whatever happened in Ukraine. No matter how many Ukrainians Putin murdered, Biden was going to make the man he called a war criminal even richer. Half a million dead Syrians could testify that America would keep its word.

When the Iran deal is formalized, Iran will be a Russian nuclear client. Russia’s state-controlled Rosatom energy firm and at least four of its major subsidiaries will receive sanctions waivers to finish nuclear projects in Iran worth more than $10 billion. Iran will also be buying weapons from Moscow worth billions of dollars more. By relieving sanctions on Iranian banks, the restored JCPOA provides Putin with financial channels invulnerable to U.S. financial measures.

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