I recently read Joe Biden’s Iran policy with amusement.
After the millennial who wrote it wasted nearly half the column criticizing President Donald Trump, he or she claimed an “unshakable commitment to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”
Stop me if you’ve heard this before.
If Iran would only return to “strict compliance” with the Obama-era nuclear deal, the president-elect promised we “would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations.”
At least Biden admitted John Kerry and Ben Rhodes failed, as we all knew five years ago.
The JCPOA, as it’s known, inexplicably did not cover Iran’s missile programs, support for terrorism, human-rights violations and more. It also contained a “sunset clause” that let Iran off the hook and curtailed important inspections.
Thanks to monumental peace agreements secured by the Trump administration this year, the Middle East has, for the first time in decades, real stability. As importantly, the historic peace deals further isolated Iran from her neighbors.
Angered, Iran continues to send weapons to Hezbollah, Shiite militias, and other terror groups around the region. The mullahs launch missiles, detain our naval personnel, and support al-Qaeda’s number two, until he was killed last month.
So, the nuclear deal stabilized nothing and did not bring order to a Middle East where the Islamic State ruled large parts of Iraq and Syria. The pitiful John Kerry’s concessions arguably only emboldened terrorism.
Why? Like the “Palestinian Authority,” the Islamic Republic of Iran has no interest in peace or the liberty of its own people.
Earlier this month, Kerry’s pal, Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, said “America is in no position to set conditions for its return” to the Iran nuclear deal. He followed with an anti-Semitic rant, supporting the “popular referendum” of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — the Hitlerian who denies the Holocaust and says Israel won’t exist in 25 years — to decide whether the Jewish State should continue to exist.
John Hannah of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies argued for a heuristic approach and no resurrection of the agreement in Foreign Policy Magazine last week.
“Rushing to restore the Iran deal virtually guarantees that Biden will start his presidency with a hugely divisive controversy,” he wrote. “Needless to say, an all-consuming crisis over Iran’s nuclear program has no place in Biden’s agenda, which he has promised will be intently focused on tackling the daunting array of challenges now confronting the American people.”
If evil actors want us to rejoin this “deal,” why would the Biden administration? A straightforward way to stand up to Iran’s lies and heinous actions would be refusing any temptation to reenter.
The outgoing administration successfully crippled Iran’s economy with soaring inflation, killed their most nefarious general, and massive protests against the mullah government took place. (Iranian thugs recently executed the journalist who helped inspire those freedom rallies.) Stability will arrive when the Iranian people put an end to the fascistic Islamic revolution.
Writing in the Hill, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) further summarized the flaws in Biden, Kerry and Obama’s policies:
“From a lack of inspections at military sites, to exceeding its agreed upon stockpile of heavy water, the deal was filled with broken promises and unenforceable mandates. Failing to secure broad support for the agreement showed a lack of leadership on the part of Joe Biden and deviated strongly from our country’s tradition of largely conducting our foreign policy in a bipartisan fashion. Furthermore, blaming the Trump administration for not wanting to follow through on an agreement that congressional Republicans never supported is like asking someone to pick up the tab for a happy hour they were never invited to.”
Perhaps these are reasons there was more bipartisan opposition to the JCPOA in Congress —25 Democrats from 10 states joined Republicans— than perhaps any other Obama administration initiative.
Yet Biden was part of a naive team that got hoodwinked in 2015. The 2021 team, with Uncle Joe at the helm, should avoid the same mistakes.
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.
