For U.S. officials, past and present, to be professing concern for the stewardship of the Iranian people’s public funds strains credulity.
by Alireza Ahmadi
July 11, 2020
The specter of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) extending a loan to Iran to assist with the challenges of the coronavirus epidemic has raised objections from many U.S. officials. In an opinion article, Ambassador Nikki Haley argued that the United States should do everything in its power to block the IMF loan based on Iran’s policies in the region. Her arguments in favor of a political response to a public health emergency is typical of Trump administration officials and speak to a broader politicization with the lives of innocent people hanging in the balance. So is this an effort to block funds from an unruly actor or a cynical ploy to use the circumstances created by an epidemic for political gain as Iran has charged?
Some of Haley’s claims require addressing. First, despite her claim, the IMF is not a “subsidiary” of the UN. These organizations do not function as privately-owned corporate entities do. The IMF is an independently developed intergovernmental organization that is only part of the “UN System” because of a negotiated agreement between the two in which the IMF retains its legal independence including a separate budget, staff and decisionmaking structure. Second, the notion that they would provide a loan to Iran at the current juncture is also not an anti-American conspiracy. For decades now, the IMF has made a mission of extending financial assistance in the form of loans to countries experiencing public health crises. In this context, Iran requested a $5 billion loan from the IMF to better deal with the coronavirus crisis.
Haley’s problems with understanding the structure and roles of international organizations were readily apparent during her time in office as well as afterward. Haley uses her book, published in 2019, to make her dislike of Secretary Rex Tillerson very clear. She has a cabinet-level position and a direct line to the president. This, she feels, should mean that she is ostensibly an independent organ of the U.S. government wholly separate from the State Department—or a “free electron” as former National Security Advisor John Bolton called her. She has no interest in the State Department having any input in her staffing, policy positions, or formal statements. Her connection to Trump may be direct but it seems too irregular and unsystematic to be an effective mechanism of policy coordination between the American Embassy in Turtle Bay and the White House.
Haley twice claims that Tillerson, trying to head off her trip to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters in Geneva, lied about having a team to look into the organization’s monitoring of the Iran deal’s implementation. She wanted to personally travel there to interrogate IAEA staff about the Iran nuclear deal that she vehemently opposed. Haley says that Tillerson told her that the trip is unnecessary as he has staff in Geneva meeting with IAEA officials on Iran related issues. She then writes that “I strongly suspected that Rex was making things up as he went along. I had heard nothing about his staff consulting with the IAEA about the Iran deal”. The State Department has an Ambassador-level Permanent Mission to the International Organizations in Vienna which includes the IAEA.
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