Is President Biden focused on, in Ukraine, the most consequential battle of our time? President Zelensky pressed that question in his moving virtual address today to Congress. Winding up, Mr. Zelensky addressed Mr. Biden in a way that no other foreign leader has addressed an American president from the Capitol: “As a leader of my nation,” Mr. Zelensky said, “I’m addressing President Biden: You’re the leader of the nation. I wish you to be the leader of the world.”President Zelensky addresses Congress. YouTubeFor an answer, follow the money. The Ukrainian leader came armed with a wish list of items he says are needed to emerge victorious in a war likely to determine whether the free world can survive an assault from the globe’s powerful authoritarians. That wish list includes a no-fly zone over Ukrainian skies, humanitarian corridors for the Ukrainians suffering under President Putin’s guns, and, yes, those MiG 29 jets America so far has declined to deliver. Mr. Biden will rightly counter that we already deliver a lot of military equipment, including air defense systems, anti-tank weapons, and drones, and provide Ukraine with real time intelligence. We’ve also imposed sanctions on Mr. Putin. Most crucially, Mr. Biden highlights a bipartisan bill he signed yesterday, which includes $13.6 billion in aid to Ukraine. He noted today that just this week America allocated over $1 billion for aid to Ukraine.Mr. Zelensky is undoubtedly thankful for all the help he gets. His masterful mobilization of global efforts to add even more aid has been successful so far. When he compares Washington’s cash aid to his country to America’s generosity toward Iran, though, the story starts to shift. It turns out that the aid Mr. Biden is eyeing for Ukraine is small beans compared to the transfers the American president is preparing to make to Mr. Putin’s allies in Iran.According to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Saeed Ghasseminejad, once sanctions are lifted as part of the renewal of the articles of appeasement originally struck by President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry, Tehran is expected to gain access to up to $130.5 billion in foreign assets. Our Benny Avni has reported that Iran can initially expect up to $11 billion, over a quarter of its annual budget.That $11 billion would be additional money, just to release four American hostages. In a similar deal just this morning, Britain paid $530 million for the release of two British citizens held in Iran on trumped-up charges. Partisans of appeasement will insist that such payments are made with money that isn’t ours. True, the funds in question are mostly frozen Iranian assets that have been held up as collateral when Iran violated basic norms of behavior.Yet it still does. In any event and either way, the ayatollahs’ coffers will be filled with cash that no one expects — or could expect — them to use for good causes. It happens that a warning on this head was made to a joint meeting of Congress much like the one President Zelensky made today. The leader who issued that warning, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, was met with accusations that he was interfering in American politics.We’re not expecting any treatment of the Ukrainian leader similar to that which once greeted Mr. Netanyahu. We are, though, suggesting that Mr. Biden’s priorities are out of kilter. Follow the money. It makes no sense for the administration to bankroll a country that forces its people to chant “death to America” and is allied with Russia to boot, particularly not when it could be using the billions to save the democracy in Ukraine.
