How Iran has become the common denominator for Biden’s first Middle East visit

NEW YORK CITY: When Arab leaders sit down with US President Joe Biden in Riyadh this week, undoubtedly one topic they will be eager to raise is the threat posed by Iran and how Tehran’s nuclear ambitions can be thwarted or controlled. Is.

During his campaign for the presidential nomination in 2020, Biden vowed to re-enter the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, from which his predecessor Donald Trump withdrew in 2018, arguing that it was too much. had not gone away.

Though keen to revive the deal he had helped broker Barack Obama’s vice president, Biden said it needed to be updated to take into account Iran’s malign activities in the region, which analysts said. It is said that since then it has spread.

Policymakers say closer consultations with regional allies such as Saudi Arabia, along with an integrated air and missile defense system for the US and its allies, will go a long way toward building a more comprehensive Iran policy.

Regional states have long understood the threat posed by Iran, even before the nuclear issue took its toll. Indeed, the regime’s ballistic missile program, its drone and naval activities, and its sponsorship of militia proxies across the region have wreaked havoc.

From the support of armed groups in Iraq and Hezbollah’s longstanding sponsorship in Lebanon to the use of mercenaries to prop up the Assad regime in Syria and the lethal aid given to Yemen’s Houthis, Iran’s actions have not only contributed to regional stability. but also according to experts has threatened freedom of navigation and the wider global economy.

He also believes that Iran’s acts of aggression abroad are in line with its campaign of repression at home. In response to widespread protests in November 2019, 1,500 people were killed and thousands jailed in a regime crackdown.

Nevertheless, negotiations in Vienna, and most recently in Doha, aimed at reviving the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, have affected Iran’s external activities and domestic violence. Repression is bypassed. Critics say European and US negotiators have instead focused on the sole issue of Iran’s nuclear file.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan think-tank based in Washington DC, believes that “one of the biggest issues with the JCPOA is not even its content, but the way it is done.” Kind of a deal. is coming. Whether under the Obama administration that negotiated, the Trump administration that abandoned it, or the Biden administration that is trying to pull it back at all costs, it has sucked all the oxygen in the room when it comes to planning for Iran policy. . non-nuclear related.”

Ben Taleblu says it is a shame “because the threat posed by the Islamic Republic’s foreign and security policy has always far exceeded the nuclear issue.”

Although some negotiators have tried to square the circle, “everyone eventually put their eggs in the deal-or-no-deal basket, and President Biden is no different,” he said.

Washington has attacked Iran in recent months, when the Biden administration actively implemented oil and petrochemical sanctions on the Iranian regime. In June, with the help of European partners, it also issued a resolution of condemnation against Iran to the Assembly of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

While Ben Taleblu thinks these steps may be too little, too late, they could signal a major change in the administration’s Iran policy.

“If I had to guess what was the reason for Biden embracing the pressure so late in the game, maybe it was starting to initiate talks (a way for) with his allies and allies (including) Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.” What a more coherent plan could look like in this area, and maybe trying to get (his colleagues) a taste of it, as things move forward,” he said.

There have also been some indications of plans to build more integrated air and missile defense systems in the Middle East. “But so far it’s just talk,” said Ben Taleblu. “Let’s hope that after (Biden’s) visit to the Middle East, this becomes a reality.”

Conservatives claim that Biden has a clear weakness for the Islamic Republic (“a lust in his heart for Iran”). His defenders say his record in the Senate is mixed: Biden has voted on the issue of Iran several times, sometimes as a supporter of engagement, but at times as a proponent of pressure.

Ben Taleblu believes that “it would not be wise to try to philosophize and over-estimate any kind of positive or negative sentiment from Biden’s record towards the Islamic Republic.”

More revealing, perhaps, will be the test of his time in office as president and his efforts to return to the nuclear deal.

“Based on that point of view, it seems to me that the Biden administration has almost exclusively denied Iran the nuclear issue,” Ben Talebalu said.

“And you can tell that this administration is generally not interested in foreign policy. It is interested in managing the full range of crises. It kind of thinks like the Obama administration thought long ago in 2008 – that the world would welcome it if it was only seen as an attempt to change the political direction it inherited from its predecessor.

“But states like Iran pocketing these concessions and these measures of goodwill further exacerbate the threat.”

Ben Talebalu says understanding this is an important step toward understanding what exactly prevents Iran – a deterrence that the US and its allies, many would argue, have failed to mobilize.

The last three US administrations, says Ben Taleblu, have viewed the issue of detention as “at once, as black and white”, while detention is in fact “very dynamic”.

“It’s very interactive. It’s always changing because you have an adversary who found their foreign policy cheap, who fights in the gray zone using odd weapons, and who values ​​life less than you, and a Fighting offshore through various proxies for a very long time.

“Therefore, this regime has on paper many different strengths than traditional political, economic and military weaknesses. And I think some of the failure of the Resistance has been a failure to understand this.”

Understanding this better could give the US more clarity about how the UAE should react when it comes to a drone strike. Indeed, the US has been caught before by Iran-backed attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities and civilian infrastructure.

“And the Iranians are seeing this, which is why the (Iranians) know to reach out to the Arab world, from the United Arab Emirates to Saudi Arabia, that kind of diplomatic outreach is based on trying to assess whether the American partner feels comfortable today. and where they feel. Uncomfortable. Because Iranians are trying to use this kind of diplomacy with American partners, to see how confident these partners are that if anything less happens, the US will do their best. Will have a pat on the back,” said Ben Talebalu.

“So, I think when Biden is preparing to go into this area, it’s his behavior to get everyone on the same page on these issues.”

Still, the Biden administration appears to be defining its Iran policy around a return to the JCPOA, which promised Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. Far from stopping these activities, Iran now has enough fissile material to build a nuclear device.

Ben Taleblu believes that would be the perfect starting point for Biden to completely dismantle the old framework and work closely with US partners on a “shared Plan B”.

Indeed, despite the recent ups and downs in Saudi-US relations, Ben Taleblu believes there is little doubt that both countries are locking down on Middle East security.

“I think it’s very, very clear now, for example, do you want freedom of navigation, energy security, compliance with sanctions, assistance in countering terrorism, broadly supporting the US-led regional order in the Middle East? Speaking of countering the Islamic Republic, Iran helps push back the Houthis with the war in Yemen – on all these fronts – Saudi Arabia shares common US interests.”