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The side paying reparations is the side that lost the war.

That's usually true. And yet... after WWII, the US paid a lot of money to rebuild Germany and Japan.

Do I think that's what's going on here? No, I don't. Nor do I think that the money is real. (If it is, it sounds like it's coming from the Gulf states - essentially "please stop blowing us up" money.)

A third of it is probably frozen assets [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_frozen_assets

Article makes some distinction, though the $25MM number doesn't match your link.

> In addition to the U.S. and its allies paying $300 billion in reconstruction funds, Iran reports that the U.S. has agreed to release $25 billion in frozen Iranian assets.

I’m wildly speculating that the amount of funds unfrozen will be higher. (I’ll add to that speculation by guessing some fraction of it will wind up with Trump, Kushner and Witkoff.)

The governments of Germany and Japan were completely destroyed, their nations were then occupied and then rebuilt to be friendly to the US and other Western nations to fight against communism.

But here, Iran's government has not been overthrown nor their nation occupied.

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