For all of his “progressive” ambitions at home, President Joe Biden’s Middle East policy is remarkably regressive.
Led by long-time Israel critic and Iran apologist Robert Malley, the Biden administration recently left the western hardliners and joined the pro-Iran Europeans.
The president also has distanced himself from Israel and moved closer to the Palestinians. He’s even appeased the Houthi terrorists in Yemen. What more can we conclude but that Biden seeks to bring back former President Barack Obama’s failed Middle East policies?
“The administration has behaved precisely as their critics said they would,” Noah Rothman said on Monday’s Commentary Magazine podcast. “We have no indication to suggest they won’t keep doing that. The State Department will continue to pursue the same methods and processes at the expense of the United States’ national interests and interests of our allies in the region.”
The indirect talks in Vienna continue, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Israel, but Washington already gave in, with the State Department ready to lift sanctions on the irredentist regime in order to rejoin the nuclear deal. Iran gave nothing.
Spokesman Ned Price said the U.S. is ready to remove sanctions “inconsistent with” the flawed Obama-era deal. He then refused to rule out imposing separate sanctions on Iran for its terrorism, human-rights violations and ballistic-missile program.
This appalling cave came after days of failed diplomacy that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani proclaimed a “success.” To whom? Corporate media described the indirect talks as “positive” and a “new chapter,” which means they’ve been disastrous for the U.S.
The British, French and Germans asked Biden to lift sanctions during his first days in office, but the president said Iran needed to take the first step by reversing a set of nuclear activities — enrichment of uranium at 20 percent and stopping its production of uranium metal — it restarted in response to former President Donald Trump’s rejection of the one-sided deal.
“After four years of trying to keep this agreement together under the Trump administration, the Europeans are hoping that it doesn’t fall apart under a Biden administration,” said Ellie Geranmayeh of the European Council on Foreign Relations last month. “There would be a real tragic irony in that happening.”
The irony is in your tragically naive statement, ma’am.
Led by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Trump administration’s pressure campaign greatly hampered Iran, especially after its citizens revolted when the regime spent the billions received in the deal on terrorism instead of feeding its own people. Akin to kowtowing to teachers unions at home, Biden seems poised to allow the regime the resources to commit even more acts of evil.
The Europeans, in consultation with Team Biden, gave away leverage, offering to release $1 billion in frozen oil revenue if Iran froze some of its enriched uranium production. Tehran predictably rejected that, made unreasonable demands on the U.S., and last weekend reopened advanced centrifuges. (After damage Sunday at the Natanz enrichment facility, Iran openly proclaimed they will expand their terroristic endeavors.)
We’ve seen this nonsense before, so why would Biden rush into failed diplomacy? The nuclear deal’s sunset provisions let Iran go nuclear within a decade as is. Only Tehran should hurry, because until we lift sanctions, it can only do business with fellow rogue regimes like China and Venezuela.
Instead, Biden is set to give totalitarians more money to aid their goals of killing millions of innocent Jews, echoing Obama’s legacy of naïveté and failure.
Nearly 20 years after 9/11, many Americans — including Biden the Trumpists — may not care about foreign policy but it cares about us. While some fight natural weather patterns, many of us remain committed to fighting evil.
A.J. Kaufman
A.J. Kaufman is an Alpha News columnist. His work has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Florida Sun-Sentinel, Indianapolis Star, Israel National News, Orange County Register, St. Cloud Times, Star-Tribune, and across AIM Media Midwest and the Internet. Kaufman previously worked as a school teacher and military historian.
