September 28, 2021 | The Wall Street Journal

Biden Paints Himself Into a Corner on the Iran Nuclear Deal

The White House should use more sticks and fewer carrots to force Tehran to work out a new agreement.
September 28, 2021 | The Wall Street Journal

Biden Paints Himself Into a Corner on the Iran Nuclear Deal

The White House should use more sticks and fewer carrots to force Tehran to work out a new agreement.

Excerpt

At the United Nations General Assembly last week in New York, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian sought to dash the Biden administration’s hopes for a follow-on agreement to President Obama’s nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. “We will not have a so-called longer and stronger deal,” Mr. Amir-Abdollahian declared. He added that to resurrect the 2015 nuclear deal, the Biden administration would have to offer more sanctions relief than the Obama administration did.

What is to be done when carrots aren’t working and the administration refuses to use the stick and return to President Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign? President Biden likely will offer even more carrots and pretend that these will slow the development of Iran’s atomic program. This approach—call it “maximum-carrots diplomacy”—is meant primarily to deter covert actions by Israel’s military and intelligence services against Iran, which Jerusalem is committed to expanding, according to my discussions with Israeli officials. Mr. Biden is also wooing Democrats skeptical of the Iran nuclear deal like Sen. Bob Menendez, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan have repeatedly pointed out that there needs to be a “longer and stronger” follow-on agreement, proving that Mr. Menendez’s skepticism is well-founded. Why do they need to improve the deal Mr. Obama struck only six years ago?

Mr. Dubowitz is chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @mdubowitz. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, non-partisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Issues:

Iran Iran Global Threat Network Iran Nuclear Iran Politics and Economy Iran Sanctions Iran-backed Terrorism Israel Sanctions and Illicit Finance