[Breitbart Israel] Critics of the Iranian nuclear deal charged that the Obama administration was not sufficiently concerned with how Iran would spend the money from its post-sanctions windfall. Evidently, departing President Obama and his team thought domestic political pressures would oblige the Iranian government to invest more heavily in constructive economic pursuits.Reuters reports that, on the contrary, Iran is looking forward to more military spending, including more funding for ballistic missile tests that were supposed to be banned by the nuclear deal.
Iranian media announced that lawmakers voted for a five-year development plan that "requires government to increase Iran’s defense capabilities as a regional power and preserve the country’s national security and interests by allocating at least five percent of annual budget" to military spending.
The plan includes funding for "long-range missiles, armed drones, and cyber-war capabilities."
Also still a spending priority for Tehran: arms for terrorists. Despite the nuclear deal, an arms embargo from the United Nations is still nominally in effect, but outgoing Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "expressed concern that Iran may have violated the embargo by supplying weapons and missiles to Hezbollah," according to Reuters.
Ban’s concerns are based, in part, by senior Hezbollah officials loudly boasting in public that all of their expenses, including weapons, are paid by Iran. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah also spent the weekend praising recently-deceased Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani as a "great supporter and backer" of his movement.
Hezbollah has benefited greatly from Iran’s patronage. Newsweek pronounced Hezbollah the "real winner of the Battle of Aleppo" because fighting for Iran in Syria has enormously increased its prestige.