I wrote “postponed” because I believe that the Biden administration has not given up on this pernicious endeavor.
But here’s the news:
For the last several weeks, reports of a new JCPOA “nuclear” deal with Iran being imminent have surfaced. Even as Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States was said to be forging ahead, with an announcement to be made any day. That despite the fact that Russia itself was the chief mediator.
Russia was the chief mediator?
More here:
…[L]ast Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov unexpectedly demanded sweeping guarantees that Russian trade with Iran would not be affected by sanctions imposed on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine – a demand Western powers say is unacceptable and Washington has insisted it will not agree to.
Unexpectedly?
Russia’s envoy to the talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, dismissed suggestions that Moscow was the reason the talks had stalled, however.
“The conclusion of the deal does not depend on Russia only,” he told reporters after meeting EU coordinator Enrique Mora. “There are others actors who need additional time and who have additional concerns, and they are being discussed.”
He said he hoped the talks would conclude at the earliest time – but he could give no timeline for when they may resume.
Interesting.
European negotiators from France, Britain and Germany had already left a week ago as they believed they had gone as far as they could and it was now up to the United States and Iran to agree on the outstanding issues…
Four Western diplomats had said the talks were all but finalised until Russia made its demands.
So what’s going on? Do we have a temporary reprieve of sorts regarding the Biden administration’s intentions regarding Iran, due to Russian demands in light of its invasion of Ukraine? And if so, why, and is that the only reason?
My own theory – for what it’s worth – goes as follows: it’s partly that the Russians figured that while the US was making concession after concession after concession to Iran, they might as well get a concession that would be important to them. Why not, given how weak this administration is? So they may have miscalculated on that. But why would the US negotiators not just give in, in order to get their much-desired deal? I believe it may be because they thought better of signing a deal right now that most of America would hate if and when voters discovered what was in it.
And by “right now” I mean prior to the midterms, which are not all that far away. Most of this Iran deal isn’t a big story yet to anyone except political junkies. Perhaps it behooves the administration to keep it that way until after the November election, after which they may suddenly discover that they will have more flexibility. And then I predict that, even if the Democrats do poorly in the Congressional elections in November, the Biden administration can go full stem ahead with the deal as planned.
That’s my theory of the moment, anyway.
Two days ago I wrote a post in which I speculated on the administration’s motives in pursuing a deal so awful, and I added that I hoped that “there will be some sort of sticking point that will mean that no accord is reached.” That appears to be what has happened – for now. I have little doubt that the Biden administration has the same goals as before, though.
What are those goals? We already discussed some possibilities in that previous thread I just linked. But right now I’d like to add a suggestion to ponder, from this article by Caroline Glick:
The Biden administration justifies its pro-Iranian and anti-Israel/Sunni Arab policy by claiming it is a means to disengage the U.S. from the Middle East at a time that Washington is keen to concentrate its resources and attention on Asia and the rising threat of China. While on its face, this justification seems reasonable, it stands on a rotten foundation.
During his term in office, then president Donald Trump sought to minimize U.S. presence in the Middle East in order to focus U.S. efforts and resources in Asia to contend with the rising threat from China. To achieve this goal, Trump empowered America’s allies – Israel and the Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia. He provided political, diplomatic, logistical and when necessary, military support to ensure the success of their efforts to combat Iranian aggression against them.
Trump’s concept, which was successfully diminishing both the level of violence in the region and the U.S.’s direct involvement in the Middle East, was that since America’s allies share the U.S.’s interests in the Middle East, the more able they are to defend their own interests, the less the U.S. will have to invest in protecting its interests in the region.
Trump created institutional frameworks for cooperation between U.S. allies both by forging the Abraham Accords which effectively ended the Arab conflict with Israel, and by integrating Israel into Central Command and so fostering operational military cooperation between Israel and the U.S.’s Arab allies under the aegis of the U.S. military.
Those were the days, my friend.
Then, the deliberate reversal:
Biden’s policies are the polar opposite of Trump’s policies both conceptually and substantively. Biden’s policies represent a reinstatement and escalation of Barack Obama’s policies for Iran and the wider Middle East. In contrast to Trump, Obama, Biden and their advisors believe that the U.S.’s Middle Eastern allies – Israel and the Sunni Arab Gulf states – maliciously worked for decades to entangle the United States in the wars of the Middle East. To disentangle America from the region and its pernicious “allies” the Obama-Biden doctrine posits the U.S. must realign itself away from its allies and weaken them, and towards Iran, which it must empower.
This brings us to Israel, and what its government must do in the face of the administration’s betrayal. Since supporting Iran and undermining Israel are the founding principles of Biden’s Middle East policies, they are not subject to change. Israel cannot influence them. It doesn’t matter how many times Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid gush about Israel’s “true friends,” Biden and Blinken. They have chosen a path that is impermeable to reason and argument.
It appears that Glick’s article was written prior to the current stalling of the Iran Deal talks. But I don’t think that the stoppage would affect her analysis of what’s behind the administration’s policy and whether it will ever change.
Glick adds:
In 2014-2015, in their efforts to sell their original cataclysmic nuclear deal with Iran, Obama and his advisors ran a campaign to demonize Israel and its supporters in Congress specifically and in U.S. public life more generally. Now that Biden has agreed to an even more dangerous nuclear deal, Israel can expect for the demonization campaign that awaits it to dwarf its predecessor.
I would add that, because an Iran Deal was a prioritized goal of Obama from the very outset of his presidency, the retreat from decades of consistent US policy towards Israel began much earlier than 2014-2015. It took the form of Obama rejecting Netanyahu, and was spun as being about Netanyahu and his administration. But although Obama detested Netanyahu, I don’t think it really was about that at all. It was part of Obama’s campaign to ingratiate the US with Iran, in the service of the great big deal.
The Biden administration and its negotiators are still fully onboard with that general policy. Glick may indeed be correct about the reasons behind it; her explanation is a better one that most I’ve seen so far. One flaw, though, is that I don’t think this administration has any interest in “concentrateing its resources and attention on Asia and the rising threat of China.” I think that’s some sort of excuse. Perhaps the more basic reason behind this is to diminish the influence of the US and Israel – as well as Western nations in general – on the world stage.
