An Iraqi official with alleged ties to the Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies traveled this week to the United States for high-level meetings amid a global energy crisis that has sent oil prices skyrocketing.
Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar Ismail, Iraq’s oil minister and acting finance minister, is listed as an official Iraqi government participant for World Bank meetings scheduled to be held in Washington, D.C., according to a list of participants published by the organization. He is also expected to hold meetings with Biden administration officials, according to sources familiar with the matter. A coalition of Republican lawmakers want to know why the Biden administration is "roll[ing] out the red carpet" for Ismail and how he was able to obtain a U.S. visa.
Three Republican foreign policy leaders in Congress are pressuring the Biden administration to reconsider engaging with Ismail, citing his alleged ties to Iran’s terrorist regime and the country’s efforts to evade U.S. economic sanctions.
Under Ismail’s leadership, Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization "has a track record of business dealings with Iran, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Iranian-backed terrorist organizations Asa’ib ahl al-Haq and Katai’b Hezbollah," Reps. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), and Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) wrote on Wednesday to the White House, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The lawmakers say it is inappropriate for the United States to host an official believed to be enabling the Iranian regime’s global terrorism enterprise, particularly amid mass protests in Iran that threaten to topple the hardline government.
