Tunisia wins, Iran loses in US spending bill
12/16/2015
America’s Arab allies got gifts of gold while Iran and the United Nations got a stocking full of coal from the congressional Santa Claus.
House and Senate budget negotiators unveiled a $1.1 trillion FY2016 spending bill in the early hours of Dec. 16 that boosts support for countries on the front line of the fight against terrorism. Meanwhile, lawmakers held the line on tightening the rules for visa-free travel to the United States for dual citizens of Iran and punishing UN agencies that recognize Palestine as a state.
Despite a flurry of last-minute calls from Secretary of State John Kerry and US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, lawmakers declined to allow the State Department to resume funding to UNESCO. And the so-called “omnibus” adds new restrictions on funding for the UN Human Rights Council by requiring that the council first take “steps to remove Israel as a permanent agenda item.”
One of the biggest surprises in the bill was a $142 million allocation for Tunisia, which has struggled to live up to its promise as the Arab Spring’s sole success story. The Senate had resisted signing off on the State Department’s $134 million request, but in the end appropriators ended up giving the terrorism-plagued nation the full amount and then some.
Jordan also fared remarkably well, with a $1.275 billion allotment — 25% more than what the State Department had requested. Egypt, meanwhile, gets mixed results: The bill retains the $1.3 billion in annual military aid but sets new conditions for its release, which the secretary of state may waive for national security reasons.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/12/tunisia-win-iran-lose-year-end-spending-bill.html#ixzz3ubJma2sX
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