You may be aware of President Biden’s intention to revive the treaty with Iran on nuclear weapons from which his predecessor withdrew the United States. Since the Iranians are eager to bring the agreement back to life, the task should be easy, right?
Wrong. Biden wants a few changes, but Iran is insisting the original treaty, agreed to in 2015, be restored. And Iranian leaders are demanding a host of concessions to make up for the years since the pact was killed in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump.
That’s not all. Iran is reported to have set seven conditions for its officials merely to join with U.S. officials for talks. And then, there’s the critical requirement the U.S. lift all Trump-imposed sanctions before Iran responds by resuming limits on nuclear production.
You might think the Iranians, who are notoriously hard-nosed negotiators, would be embarrassed by their bad manners. They won’t be. It was key to forcing President Barack Obama to allow Iran’s missile research to continue, though Iran-chummy Hezbollah has doubled its missiles targeted on Israel in the past year.
The job of dealing with Iran now falls to Biden, who lacks Obama’s vision of an Iran that is supposed to emerge as a peaceful nation happy to give up its dream of becoming a nuclear power and a regional powerhouse. Biden exploited his own campaign last year to tout the scheme to resume the treaty, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Liberals were thrilled by the news. And Obama, who negotiated the original deal, must have been cheered. It was the signature policy of his eight-year term, after all.
But for Biden, it’s another in a long line of issues he’s inherited from other senators. He’s famous for having few, if any, policy ideas of his own. Whatever Democrats unveil, he’s for.
In the case of the Iran treaty, there’s difficulty and frustration for Biden now. Trump did far more than just facilitate a pact with a recalcitrant country. He changed the Middle East in breathtaking ways that will take years to alter, assuming that doing so is even possible. Biden has his hands full.
Trump spurned the Palestinians, denying them the clout to bar Arab countries from recognizing Israel. It was a power that, among other unearned blessings, allowed them to collect billions in U.S. aid. Biden’s response was to restore ties to the Palestinians, but whether they can still thwart Israel is doubtful.
Then came a big Middle East surprise: the Abraham Accords involving Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, assessed the breakthrough this way in Tablet:
“Not only have the Palestinians lost their veto over normalization between Israel and other Arab states, but the entire ‘Resistance Alliance,’ led by Iran, has revealed itself as incapable of placing obstacles in the way of Israel’s integration into the Arab state system. True, the UAE and Bahrain are small powers, but behind them looms Saudi Arabia, which is by far the influential Arab state.”
Meanwhile, in late 2020, two more Arab states, Morocco and Sudan, announced their normalizing of relations with Israel. It brings to 15 the number of Arab states recognizing Israel.
All this activity involving Israel, spurred with Trump’s help, is important for two reasons. First, the increasingly strong ties between Israel and Arab countries affect the politics of the Mideast favorably, unless you’re a Syrian, Iranian, or Russian. Israel is now far from isolated. It is a major power in the region with Arab allies.
And second, the Israeli-American connection has grown in strategical significance. Israel has cracked Iran’s wall of secrecy and developed what must be an underground of spies there. Are they Iranians or Israelis or some other nationalities? I haven’t a clue. But they’re bound to have strengthened U.S. knowledge of Iranian dangers to the U.S.
There’s a domestic aspect to the American-Israel alliance and the Trump-Netanyahu bond (now in abeyance, I assume). These across-the-globe ties are driving left-wing people crazy, I’m told. They tend to make conservatives more appealing in the U.S. They must not be religious nuts or dopes.
Doran, a wise analyst of clever strategies, credited Trump with breaking the “debilitating lock” on the “hold of the Washington foreign policy establishment on Middle East peacemaking business.” They dismissed the idea of the “revitalization of the Arab-Israeli peace process” as absurd. “Trump got it right.”
Biden should ignore Obama and tap into Trump.
Fred Barnes is a Washington Examiner senior columnist.
