Iran's Nuclear Program: Does the Biden Administration Have a Policy?
by Majid Rafizadeh • May 27, 2023 at 5:00 am
Since 2021, the Biden Administration has been cozying up to Iran in a way that has often seemed agonizingly embarrassing to entice it back to the disastrous 2015 "JCPOA" nuclear deal of the Obama Administration. Mercifully those efforts did not succeed: the new deal would still most likely have enabled Iran, after a few years, legitimately to have all the nuclear weapons it liked.
Meanwhile, in Israel, on May 22, US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides was asked, "Can Israel attack Iran without the US? What about the lack of meetings between President Biden and PM Netanyahu?" Nides answered: "The coordination between Israel and US vis-à-vis our mutual enemies, our common threats in the region, is rock solid. One of the things President Biden assured both PM Bennett and Lapid, and Netanyahu, was that there would be complete transparency regarding coordination on Iran.... And it's not just Iran, it's its proxies. We stand here to support Israel and work with it to make sure Iran never attains a nuclear weapon."
The trouble is, can we believe him?
So far, the Biden Administration's lack of strategy towards the Iranian regime also became evident during the recent briefing about Iran that disappointed U.S. Senators.
"Strategic ambiguity on Iran policy only serves to embolden the regime and push our partners closer to China." — Senator Jim Risch, May 17, 2023.
The Biden administration is also not putting any pressure on the European Union to stop trading with Iran. In fact, bragged the Tehran Times, "The value of Iran's export to the European Union (EU)'s member states rose 28 percent in the first nine months of 2022."
Iran's increasing trade with and exports to the EU are also increasing the regime's revenues and assisting it to supply more weapons to Russia.
"The source claimed that two Russian-flagged cargo ships, departed an Iranian port in January bound for Russia via the Caspian Sea, carrying approximately 100 million bullets and around 300,000 shells. Ammunition for rocket launchers, mortars and machine guns was allegedly included in the shipments. The source said Moscow paid for the ammunition in cash." – Sky News, March 8, 2023.
Finally, Iran is now producing more oil and selling it at levels close to the pre-sanctions era to countries such as China, which desperately needs more oil, while the Biden Administration suspended new oil and gas leases on public lands and waters.
The Biden Administration's policies of appeasement are directly energizing the Iranian regime. We need to remember what Winston Churchill warned against about appeasing aggressors: "Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last."
The Biden Administration's reluctance to enforce existing sanctions on Iran -- the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, according to the State Department in 2021 -- looks suspiciously like total appeasement of Iran's ruling mullahs.
Since 2021, the Biden Administration has been cozying up to Iran in a way that has often seemed agonizingly embarrassing to entice it back to the disastrous 2015 "JCPOA" nuclear deal of the Obama Administration. Mercifully those efforts did not succeed: the new deal would still most likely have enabled Iran, after a few years, legitimately to have all the nuclear weapons it liked.
Meanwhile, in Israel, on May 22, US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides was asked, "Can Israel attack Iran without the US? What about the lack of meetings between President Biden and PM Netanyahu?" Nides answered:
