Great minds, and all that. I just posted a reply about same, before I saw yours.
Cash for clunkers took a few million older cars off the streets.
A cash for clunker car could never be registered as an operational vehicle in the US so it’s US domestic value was pretty much zero
When Iranians bought clunkers with illegal drug money, they paid pennies on the dollars for the cars
They then shipped them to Africa where they sold the ex clunkers for a much higher price and not only were Iranians able to launder the drug money, they were able to transport the laundered money out of the country legally and make a healthy resale profit on the cars courtesy of the American taxpayer
The profits then went to finance terrorism