Vladimir Putin: Donald Trump's Leftist Attackers 'Worse Than Prostitutes' (VIDEO)

Well, that's for sure.

I don't normally endorse Old Vladdy, but I think he nailed it this time.

At USA Today, Telegraph U.K., and humorous Jeannie Moos CNN video below:

Putin: Trump attackers 'worse than prostitutes' https://t.co/RCpieZQvEy pic.twitter.com/JtGHj4rDZY

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) January 17, 2017

Vladimir Putin: 'our prostitutes are the best in the world, but I doubt Donald Trump would fall for them' https://t.co/KOXGkXCQvE

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) January 17, 2017

Obama Commutes Bradley Manning's Sentence

Well, supposedly it's "Chelsea Manning," but he's a she now, if you're all into the transgender identity thing (and I'm not).

Perhaps because Bradley came out as as woman and attempted suicide while in prison explains the commutation. O's always an advocate for the "oppressed."

This news is breaking.

I saw it first on Mark Knoller's feed:

Pres Obama commutes sentence of Chelsea Manning, serving 35 years for stealing and disclosing government records. Commuted to May 17, 2017.

— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) January 17, 2017

And Althouse's shock at the president's decision, as well as all the comments there, "Obama frees Chelsea Manning!"

And at the New York Times, via Memeorandum "Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning's Sentence."

Expect updates.

Bwahaha! Congressman John Lewis Looks Exactly Like Crying Baby Mask!

This is great.

Following-up, "Donald Trump Blasts John Lewis."

Seen just now on Twitter, via Andrew Arlink:

@AndrewArlink @RaymondSmith54 @youlivethrice @repjohnlewis Is it just me or does rep Lewis look exactly like the crying baby mask? pic.twitter.com/ggQOQtUUsx

— Wyatt G (@WyattGoodtimes) January 14, 2017

Donald Trump Blasts John Lewis

At USA Today:

Good: Trump blasts Rep. Lewis for saying his election not legitimate. https://t.co/E7qEKpEut1

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 14, 2017

Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to......

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2017

mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2017

Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo: Media's 'Garbage' Reporting is 'Harming the Fabric of Our Society' (VIDEO)

Oh boy, this is an excellent segment, from last night:

The Deep State Goes to War Against President-Elect Trump, as Dems Cheer (VIDEO)

Honestly, I don't think Glenn Greenwald is a good person --- he helped smuggle Edward Snowden's stolen NSA data into Germany, to Laura Poitras (and that's not mentioning his rabid anti-Israel politics) --- but I swear he's been doing the best writing on the Democrats spy-ops smear-ops to take down the incoming Donald Trump administration.

So, with the usual FWIW warning, at the Intercept, "The Deep State Goes to War With President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer":

The legitimate and effective tactics for opposing Trump are being drowned by irrational, desperate ad hoc crusades. https://t.co/athCFT9IeO

— The Intercept (@theintercept) January 11, 2017

IN JANUARY 1961, Dwight Eisenhower delivered his farewell address after serving two terms as U.S. president; the five-star general chose to warn Americans of this specific threat to democracy: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” That warning was issued prior to the decadelong escalation of the Vietnam War, three more decades of Cold War mania, and the post-9/11 era, all of which radically expanded that unelected faction’s power even further.

This is the faction that is now engaged in open warfare against the duly elected and already widely disliked president-elect, Donald Trump. They are using classic Cold War dirty tactics and the defining ingredients of what has until recently been denounced as “Fake News.”

Their most valuable instrument is the U.S. media, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with hidden intelligence officials. And Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss, as well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing — eager — to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry, and damaging those behaviors might be.

The serious dangers posed by a Trump presidency are numerous and manifest. There is a wide array of legitimate and effective tactics for combating those threats: from bipartisan congressional coalitions and constitutional legal challenges to citizen uprisings and sustained and aggressive civil disobedience. All of those strategies have periodically proven themselves effective in times of political crisis or authoritarian overreach.

But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive. Empowering the very entities that have produced the most shameful atrocities and systemic deceit over the last six decades is desperation of the worst kind. Demanding that evidence-free, anonymous assertions be instantly venerated as Truth — despite emanating from the very precincts designed to propagandize and lie — is an assault on journalism, democracy, and basic human rationality. And casually branding domestic adversaries who refuse to go along as traitors and disloyal foreign operatives is morally bankrupt and certain to backfire on those doing it.

Beyond all that, there is no bigger favor that Trump opponents can do for him than attacking him with such lowly, shabby, obvious shams, recruiting large media outlets to lead the way. When it comes time to expose actual Trump corruption and criminality, who is going to believe the people and institutions who have demonstrated they are willing to endorse any assertions no matter how factually baseless, who deploy any journalistic tactic no matter how unreliable and removed from basic means of ensuring accuracy?

Keep reading.

PREVIOUSLY: "Glenn Greenwald: Leftist Media Protect Hillary Clinton (VIDEO)."

Piers Morgan Slams the Sleazy Hookers of the Left-Wing Press

Oh boy, the hits just keep coming.

I think Ben Smith might need to lay low for a while, man.

At London's Daily Mail, via Steve Green, at Instapundit, "The only hookers in this story are the cheap, lazy journalists who ran with fake Trump sleaze to urinate on his presidency."

.@piersmorgan: Shame on you, @BuzzFeed https://t.co/0UiW4GEy0V pic.twitter.com/LT5Ugureni

— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) January 11, 2017

PREVIOUSLY: "Piers Morgan Blasts Meryl Streep's Anti-Trump Golden Globes Tirade."

Columbia Journalism Review Defends BuzzFeed's Despicable Publication of Russian #FakeNews Hack Job

I think I've snarked before, but everything's fake now.

If the CJR, which is supposed to be an uber-establishment institution beyond repute, is defending this BuzzFeed fake news Russian dossier hack publication, then there is no standard for journalism left. Everything's fair game.

And another thing I've mentioned previously: If there's fascism today, we're seeing it in real time in the left's machinations to overturn the results of the election.

Check this out, "BuzzFeed Was Right to Publish Trump-Russia Files":

BuzzFeed was right to publish Trump-Russia files https://t.co/BiuIOzAyj0 pic.twitter.com/fWi4jGovd3

— CJR (@CJR) January 11, 2017

EARLY TUESDAY EVENING, spurred by a CNN story, BuzzFeed published a 35-page dossier on Donald Trump’s alleged long-term relationship with Russia. The documents contain references to compromising information the Russians purportedly gathered about the president-elect and accusations that Trump’s campaign was in regular contact with Russian officials. Within hours, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, among many others, slammed the digital powerhouse for its decision, while pointing out that they, too, had seen the documents but declined to make them public.

BuzzFeed explained that it was publishing the dossier “so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government.” But the Post’s Erik Wemple countered that “Americans can only ‘make up their own minds’ if they build their own intelligence agencies, with a heavy concentration of operatives in Russia and Eastern Europe.” The Guardian, meanwhile, complained that BuzzFeed’s “decision…forced other media outlets to repeat the allegations or ignore a story that lit up the internet.” That writer was quick to note that his paper, too, “had obtained and reviewed the documents in recent weeks but declined to publish because there was no way to independently verify them.”

The media’s full-throated condemnation of BuzzFeed is both self-righteous and self-serving. BuzzFeed noted up front that the documents contained “explosive—but unverified—information,” and Editor in Chief Ben Smith convincingly defended the decision in a staff memo, arguing that the dossier was being read and talked about “at the highest levels of American government and media. It seems to lie behind a set of vague allegations from the Senate Majority Leader to the director of the FBI and a report that intelligence agencies have delivered to the president and president-elect.”

By publishing the documents when it did, accompanied by strong caveats about their reliability, BuzzFeed put itself at the heart of the story and made some of its most prominent journalists go-to people for any tips the dossier might generate. The most typical kind of investigative reporting entails spending months or even years gathering documents and cultivating sources to build an unshakable edifice. BuzzFeed took a different but still well-established approach: Release what you can when you have it and see what new leads it generates. If this strategy pays off, the outlet that has morphed from a cat-video factory to a font of serious journalism could end up with some terrific scoops. You can almost hear the rest of the media muttering, “Damn, why didn’t we think of that first?”

Still more.

It's a highly coordinated attempt to bring down Donald Trump and scuttle his administration.

See, "Coup d'État! Release of BuzzFeed Russia Hack Is Democrat-Leftist Attempt to Overturn the Election!"

Coup d'État! Release of BuzzFeed Russia Hack Is Democrat-Leftist Attempt to Overturn the Election!

It's Mark Levin.

He's got an angry shtick anyway, but he's really pissed off here.

At Conservative Review, "Levin: BuzzFeed’s Russia Hack Job is the Left ‘Staging a Coup’ Against Trump":

“It is time that we stand our ground in defending Donald Trump’s legitimacy,” said Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin during a fiery segment at the beginning of his radio show Wednesday night. “The praetorian guard media, the Democrat party … Academia and Hollywood are seeking a coup of sorts” against the president-elect.

Levin was referring to a widely-panned “news” story at Buzzfeed that reported salacious, unverified, and disputed accounts of Trump’s dealing with Russia.

“What [the Left] seek to do … is drive issues of controversy,” he concluded. “They’re laying the foundation, not only to discredit Trump, but to impeach him down the road.”

He went on to call all “corners of the conservative movement” to rally around the president-elect “not for every issue, not for every nominee, but for the legitimacy of the election … for our country, for our Constitution.”

“The specific major issue of the legitimacy of this election and our Constitution is under attack,” Levin told his audience. “What you saw yesterday was an absolute attempt to overturn the election!”

BuzzFeed's Enormous Favor to Donald Trump

I just got around reading the BuzzFeed report, which you can access in a Google cache page. (BuzzFeed's notorious for its link-bait publishing model, so you won't give them any hits if you read the cached version.)

And see the commentary at the Blaze:

Commentary: BuzzFeed has done Donald Trump an enormous favor https://t.co/2NbRgodbv5 pic.twitter.com/3Rhli219Mp

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) January 12, 2017

Certainly, the impression that President-elect Donald Trump gives in public is that he is upset with prominent online news site BuzzFeed for publishing an alleged dossier full of salacious details that Russian intelligence was allegedly planning to use to compromise him. Furiously upset, even — going so far as to call them a “failing pile of garbage” in a defiant press conference Wednesday morning. And who knows, Trump’s anger might well be genuine; but he really ought to be thanking BuzzFeed for changing the course of this story in a way that has been very positive for him.

Rewind the clock to Tuesday afternoon and recall what Trump was facing. CNN anchor Jake Tapper, who enjoys one of the broadest bipartisan reputations for honesty of any person in the media, was on television, flanked by reporters Jim Sciutto, Evan Perez and Carl Bernstein. Tapper reported that CNN had developed credible information that U.S. intelligence officials had presented evidence to both Trump and outgoing President Barack Obama that Russian intelligence agents claimed to have compromising information about Trump “of both a personal and financial nature.” Further, the agents claimed that surrogates for the Trump campaign had regularly been in contact with Russian officials throughout 2016, directly contradicting Trump’s fierce denials of any such contact.

Tapper made clear that CNN would not be discussing the contents of the allegations. He stated that they had not been able to independently verify them and thus would not repeat what they were. He stated that no one knew if the claims allegedly made by Russian intelligence were true or not. All they knew was that this dossier was out there, and it had been handed to Trump and to Obama, with the message that the Russians were allegedly trying to use its contents to compromise Trump. Responsible reporting if in fact CNN did its due diligence on the report.

Then came BuzzFeed. They, in fact, had no such qualms about publishing the contents of the dossier itself. They emphasized that the material was both “unverified” and likely “unverifiable,” but laid out the claims in all their glory.

As the dust has settled, a general consensus has developed that CNN’s reporting should be distinguished from BuzzFeed’s and that CNN acted responsibly where BuzzFeed was reckless. It should be noted, BuzzFeed has its notable defenders today, including the Columbia Journalism Review, but most members of the media agree: What BuzzFeed did was worse than what CNN did (if you grant that CNN did anything wrong at all).

However, from Trump’s perspective, BuzzFeed’s reporting did him a huge favor. The reason for that is simple: The contents of the dossier were so obviously suspect that they called the veracity of the entire account into question. What reasonable intelligence official would have taken this transparent pulp to the president of the United States without a shred of verification to back it up? None would have, it was virtually obvious from the document’s face.

Imagine if BuzzFeed’s story had never been printed. CNN’s allegation that Russians had unspecified compromising information of both a “personal” and “financial” nature would have been left hanging in the air. And it would have been believable by a large number of people. Polls have shown that, after a brief post-election honeymoon period, Trump is unpopular again and the American public is increasingly uneasy about his public posture toward Russia — a vulnerability that Senate Democrats have mercilessly exploited during the first few days of confirmation hearings for Trump’s Cabinet appointments...

Jim Acosta's Butt Hurt

Following-up, "Donald Trump Berates @CNN Reporter Jim Acosta."

The new regime's in town, and this administration's not going to tolerate fake leftist news memes.

You post fake news, you lose access --- and you know, that's the way it should be.

On Twitter just now:

Regardless of party, @acosta behavior was rude, inappropriate and disrespectful. He owes @realDonaldTrump and his colleagues an apology https://t.co/LnTkYam8IJ

— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) January 12, 2017

An unfortunate statement. Sean you know that you threatened to throw me out of that news conference if I asked another question. #realnews https://t.co/T4dYXZbomd

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) January 12, 2017

I have covered 4 presidential campaigns. Democrats and Republicans. This has never happened. Let's deescalate, find a way to work together. https://t.co/wgNsXlwt4z

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) January 12, 2017

Donald Trump Berates @CNN Reporter Jim Acosta

This is great.

It was an excellent press conference. I was up for a little while watching, then I went back to bed.

I've gotta head into the office for a department meeting, but I should be back by mid-afternoon with more blogging.

Until then, here's the Hill:

Bwahaha! #Trump berates #CNN reporter Jim Acosta: 'You are fake news'. #MAGA #DonaldTrump #PressConference https://t.co/yrViSCXcgW

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 11, 2017

Buzzfeed and CNN Report Potentially 'Compromising' Russian Espionage Story That May Have Been Based on 4Chan Prank

I don't know what to believe anymore.

Julia Ioffe was approached with this story, but couldn't independently confirm the details and declined to report on it.

Here's the headline, at Memeorandum, from CNN, "Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him."

And also from WaPo, via Memeorandum, "Intelligence chiefs briefed Trump and Obama on unconfirmed claims Russia has compromising information on president-elect."

Unconfirmed. That's key. Unconfirmed.

It's fake news.

There's a huge roundup at Hot Air, "Yikes: Intel chiefs told Trump Russia claims to have compromising personal and financial information on him; Update: CNN video added; Update: Memos leaked to BuzzFeed."

Also, at Instapundit, "NEW YORK POST: BuzzFeed’s Trump Report Takes Fake News To A New Level":

So the website BuzzFeed decided to publish a series of memos that have been floating around for months alleging all kinds of terrible things about Donald Trump.

Some of those terrible allegations have to do with efforts to influence the American elections and Trump. Some of them have to do with Trump’s personal sexual conduct.

Readers of this newspaper know well not to include me among Trump’s supporters. But the scurrilousness of what BuzzFeed has done here is so beyond the bounds of what is even remotely acceptable it should compel even those most outraged by Trump’s political excesses to come to his defense and to the defense of a few other people mentioned in these papers whose names are also dragged through the mud.

There is literally no evidence on offer in these memos or from BuzzFeed that any single sentence in these documents is factual or true. What’s more, we know most major news organizations in America had seen them and despite their well-known institutional antipathy toward Trump, had chosen not to publish them or even make reference to them after efforts to substantiate their charges had failed...

More.

See Twitchy as well, "‘How are we going to have an inauguration next week?’ Russians have compromising info on Trump, says source."

And lots of stuff on Twitter, plus CNN's big breaking report at the video below.

CNN going to need more than anon sources to show why the Intel report on its face really is as bad as it looks.

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) January 10, 2017

.@buzzfeednews has published the explosive, secret, unverified reports on Trump and Russia https://t.co/QDXN6mdOyu

— Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen) January 10, 2017

Here's the note I sent to @buzzfeednews staff this evening pic.twitter.com/OcAloWzVzb

— Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen) January 11, 2017

Benjamin Wittes: About that Explosive Trump Story: Take a Deep Breath https://t.co/Hinep12bQv

— Lawfare (@lawfareblog) January 11, 2017

FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

FAKE NEWS: Buzzfeed and CNN fall for @RealDonaldTrump Hooker Story That was 4Chan Prank https://t.co/XxBBqfnnHt

— Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit) January 11, 2017

SCOOP: Two USC baseball sources confirm for me that @MichaelCohen212 + son visited campus on August 29th, time report places him in Prague.

— Elaina Plott (@elainaplott) January 11, 2017

BuzzFeed Posts Unverified Claims on Trump, Stirring Debate https://t.co/2otVX1Ro2z

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) January 11, 2017

BuzzFeed memo "means publishing open libels and slanders is the job of reporters in 2017." https://t.co/2YONUukS0w

— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) January 11, 2017

Expect updates.

Iran Pledges Huge Cash Bonuses to Palestinian Terrorists Who Kill Israeli Jews

This is extremely troubling, from Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Iran Pledges Cash for Killing Jews."

Iranian-Backed Militia Suspected in Kidnapping of 3 Americans in Iraq (VIDEO)

I tweeted that the hostages were probably already in Tehran when this story first broke. The mullahs can act with impunity in the face of the craven Obama administration.

Watch, here's Bill Hemmer, on America's Newsroom.

PREVIOUSLY: "U.S. Pays Steep Ranson for Four Innocent Hostages Held Captive by Iran."

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, Warns Against the 'Deceit and Treachery' of the United States (VIDEO)

It's like the playground bully takes your lunch money and beats you up anyway.

Obama's the hapless kid who keeps giving the playground bully his lunch money only to come in for some more lumps.

Watch, via Euronews:

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that his country remain wary of its old enemy the United States.

In his first comments since most EU sanctions were lifted along with many important US embargoes, Iran's highest authority made it clear that Washington should be treated with suspicion.

"I reiterate the need to be vigilant about the deceit and treachery of arrogant countries, especially the United States...

Family of Robert Levinson 'Betrayed and Devastated' by Obama Administration (VIDEO)

This is why people just hate Barack Hussein. They hate him with an unbridled passion.

At the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, "Family of Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran in 2007, upset he wasn't among freed prisoners, say reports."

And watch, at CBS This Morning, "Levinson family feels "betrayed and devastated" after U.S.-Iran prisoner swap." Levinson’s wife, Christine, didn't even get a phone call notifying them of what was happening.

More at CNN, "The family of Robert Levinson speaks." They're really bitter, understandably. This reminds me of the administration's treatment of the Benghazi families, which has been marked by lies and abandonment.

PREVIOUSLY: "U.S. Pays Steep Ranson for Four Innocent Hostages Held Captive by Iran."

U.S. Pays Steep Ranson for Four Innocent Hostages Held Captive by Iran

I get sick thinking about this.

America is being held hostage, by the Kenyan interloper in the White House most of all.

At WSJ, "Iran’s Hostage Triumph":

Now we know that Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian and three other Americans were hostages held by Iran in return for U.S. concessions, in case there was any doubt. And on Saturday we learned the ransom price: $100 billion as part of the completed nuclear deal and a prisoner swap of Iranians who violated U.S. laws. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps should call this Operation Clean Sweep.

The timing of Iran’s Saturday release of the Americans is no accident. This was also implementation day for the nuclear deal, when United Nations sanctions on Tehran were lifted, which means that more than $100 billion in frozen assets will soon flow to Iran and the regime will get a lift from new investment and oil sales. The mullahs were taking no chances and held the hostages until President Obama’s diplomatic checks cleared.

We’re as relieved as anyone to see the four Americans coming home, though there was no legal basis for their arrests. Mr. Rezaian had been held since July 2014 and was convicted last year of espionage without evidence. The other freed Iranian-Americans include former Marine Amir Hekmati, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, a dual citizen whose detention wasn’t previously reported.

But the Iranians negotiated a steep price for their freedom. The White House agreed to pardon or drop charges against seven Iranian nationals charged with or convicted of crimes in the U.S., mostly for violating sanctions designed to retard Iran’s military or nuclear programs. Iran gets back men who were assisting its military ambitions while we get innocents. This is similar to the lopsided prisoner swaps that Mr. Obama previously made with Cuba for Alan Gross and the Taliban for alleged deserter Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

The U.S. didn’t resolve the case of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007. Iran claims it doesn’t know where he is. Iran also refused to release its newest hostage, oil-industry executive Siamak Namazi, who was detained in October and accused of espionage though no charges have been brought. Perhaps he’ll be held for some future ransom.

The Obama Administration also agreed to drop the names of 14 Iranian nationals from an Interpol watch list. Most notable is the CEO of Mahan Air, an Iranian carrier sanctioned for transporting members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards that is suspected of transferring arms to Bashar Assad’s regime.

The prisoner swap helps to solve the mystery of the Obama Administration’s December flip-flop on new sanctions against Tehran’s ballistic-missile program...

Still more.

United States to Pay $1.7 Billion in Interest to Iran in Settlement of Claims

This is taxpayer funded, of course.

At Twitchy, "'Iran won the Powerball': ABC's Jonathan Karl reports U.S. just made $1.7 billion 'direct payment' to Iran."

And at Hot Air, "Iran getting $1.7B from U.S. in “debt and interest”."

PREVIOUSLY: "Obama Administration Ends Sanctions on Iran," and "Removal of Iran Sanctions Stokes Regional Anxieties."

Removal of Iran Sanctions Stokes Regional Anxieties

Following-up, "Obama Administration Ends Sanctions on Iran."

At WSJ, "Iran Accord Stokes Anxiety Among Its Rivals":

Foes worry about how Tehran will use billions of dollars of unfrozen oil receipts

Iran celebrated the removal of economic sanctions on Sunday, even as regional rivals warned that it was still out to destabilize the Middle East and needed to be closely monitored.

Western officials said the implementation of Iran’s nuclear deal with six world powers, which allowed for the lifting of some economic sanctions, raised prospects for overhauls within Iran’s political system. The deal has been a priority for President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate in the conservative clerical regime who was elected on a platform of engagement with the world in 2013.

Mr. Rouhani hailed the implementation of the deal, saying this had turned a “golden page” in the country’s history and heralded an economic revival.

“Conditions will be better than before for political and economic relations with regional countries, and we can resolve regional problems,” Mr. Rouhani said in a televised news conference, pointing to hope that the deal would create an atmosphere of reconciliation in the region.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country would continue to monitor Iran’s behavior closely.

“Even after the signing of the nuclear agreement, Iran has not relinquished its aspiration to obtain nuclear weapons and it will continue to undermine stability in the Middle East and spread terrorism around the world while violating its international obligations,” a statement from Mr. Netanyahu’s office said.

In Saudi Arabia, there was concern that the lifting of sanctions would bolster Iran and its allies. A statement by 140 Sunni Muslim clerics urged Muslims to unite against the threat of Shiite Iran. It criticized actions by some minority groups in Muslim countries and accused them of “serving foreign agendas,” a veiled reference to what they view as the loyalty of Shiites in Sunni-majority Arab countries to Iran.

Iran’s rivals are also worried that Tehran will spend some of the billions of dollars of oil revenue unfrozen by the lifting of sanctions on aiding regional allies that include Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Shiite group Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Shiite-linked Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Iran’s central bank governor, Valiollah Seif, estimated these funds at $32.6 billion on Sunday. But Treasury Secretary Jack Lew estimated last July that Iran would have access to about $50 billion after sanctions relief.

Mr. Seif said on Saturday that bringing the funds back to Iran would be unreasonable, adding they would likely be used to purchase imports, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. In his speech on Sunday, Mr. Rouhani only said the money “will be at the disposal of our people for economic activities.”

Mr. Seif and other Iranian officials such as Foreign Minister Javad Zarif held up the sanctions relief as a catalyst for investment in Iran and for future cooperation in the fight against terrorism...

More.