By an AIPAC-recruited panel of advisers, the incoming administration tried to craft its approach to Iran relations. Sources close to the new president say that was its strategy to start the administration: tell other nations what Iran does in the wake of Barack Obama’s multi-party nuclear deal with the country. Iran, according to an unnamed administration official, is still free to pursue its ballistic missile program, its financing of terrorists and its activities in the Middle East, including through the Shia militia groups that it supports.
Under normal circumstances, the travel ban could not have taken effect without a formal “advance” green-card application — an application that has to be turned in three months before travel is allowed. But the administration waived it for Iranians that had not properly fumigated their houses, had not been physically present in the U.S. for the past five years or had been unable to defend themselves against terrorism after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
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