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Iran looms

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends a meeting with President Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration in Tehran, Iran, on Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

President Joe Biden came into the White House with a foreign policy chip on his shoulder. He wanted to prove his decades in the Senate had equipped him to know more about the world than his former boss, President Barack Obama, ever gave him credit for.

While he tried to separate himself from the Obama White House legacy in Afghanistan — to horrific results, as commemorated earlier this week — Biden was insistent on carrying the torch for one policy in particular. He kept up the dogged pursuit of mending relations with Iran.