When the news of an explosion at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility broke in early April, the response from some Democrats was anger. Sen. Chris Murphy tweeted that he was demanding a “security briefing” on the latest events in Iran. He went on to write, “It should go without saying that there is no viable military path to divorcing Iran from a nuclear weapon. Only a diplomatic path. And now, the diplomatic road is more difficult.”
The explosion, which was widely blamed on Israel, occurred soon after the first formal meetings of representatives of the P5+1 nations that had signed on to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal. Under the leadership of veteran diplomat Robert Malley, the talks proceeded with European envoys shuttling between the Americans and the Iranians. The meetings of those diplomats in Vienna represented the first step toward the Biden administration’s stated goal of reviving the pact. They also signaled Joe Biden’s commitment to the process by indicating that the president was prepared to start lifting sanctions imposed on Iran by former President Donald Trump that were “inconsistent” with the 2015 agreement.
The moves were hailed by liberal outlets. The New York Times declared Trump’s effort to exert “maximum pressure” on Iran a failure and lauded Malley, whose reputation as a serial apologist for the likes of Yasser Arafat and the Iranian ayatollahs makes him the ideal diplomat in the view of Biden’s supporters. (Malley’s appointment was opposed by an array of experts who usually stay out of such personnel decisions, the hiring itself seen as a gift to Tehran.)
What would “success” look like to a team so desperate for Iranian approval?
It is far from clear that faith in the diplomatic process would actually prompt Iran to return to the weak provisions of an agreement that was considered Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement, let alone get the United States closer to Trump’s goal of a renegotiation that would restrict Tehran’s missile program or support for international terrorism. Given that Iran was demanding U.S. concessions in exchange for the privilege of talking with it and boasting of how it could accelerate its program, hopes of eliminating the nuclear deal’s sunset clauses that expire at the end of the decade, and allow a legal path to a bomb after that, seem a pipe dream.
Yet for Malley’s cheerleaders, the prospect of more negotiations was itself comforting. That was true even if, like the 2015 agreement itself, any “progress” that was achieved seemed utterly divorced from accomplishing the supposed goal of denying the Iranian regime possession of a nuclear weapon.
That is why what is presumed to be another in a long line of successful acts of Israeli sabotage of Iran’s nuclear program, which in this case appears to have destroyed most of the centrifuges at Natanz, is so resented by supporters of the Vienna negotiations. As the Times editorial board indicated, they feel the same way about a letter signed by a bipartisan group of 43 U.S. senators that appeared to call for the Biden administration to keep sanctions in place until the actual goals of the negotiations with respect to missiles, terrorism, and sunset clauses are achieved. Since the Iranians have proven throughout the last decade to be tough negotiators, the prospect of more pressure, whether in the form of sanctions or military options short of war, such as those employed by the Israelis, was abhorrent to supporters of administration policy because it makes Iranian acceptance of American acquiescence less likely.
While this latest chapter in a decadelong debate about Iran appears on the surface to be about negotiating tactics or what kinds of sanctions work or the exact terms of the nuclear deal, the truth is that the real divide over Iran in the U.S. has always had little to do with those details.
The arguments of Israel and its supporters, as well as the Gulf states that fear Iran as much as, if not more than, the Jewish state and have embraced Jerusalem as an ally, are largely based on their belief that the Iran deal is a threat to their security.
But American supporters of diplomacy with Iran have never been particularly interested in the specifics of its nuclear program or how sanctions have worked to constrict the power of the Islamist regime. As was the case during the negotiations conducted by the Obama administration, whose foreign policy team was largely made up of the same players who have returned to work for Biden, the object was always to keep talking, not devising tactics designed to bend Tehran to their will.
From 2013 to 2015, when, after Obama was dragged by Congress into implementing tough sanctions, the Iranians decided to negotiate, the Americans responded to each “no” with resignation and more concessions. That is how Obama, who promised during his 2012 foreign policy debate with Mitt Romney that any agreement with Iran would mean an end to its nuclear program, wound up agreeing not only to approving its continued existence but to allowing it to go on with advanced research and the right to operate equipment, such as the centrifuges. There would be no “anytime, anywhere inspections” by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
One of the ways Obama was able to rally so much support for his deal was by making it a partisan litmus test for Democrats. That was made easier by the Republicans inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress to campaign against the agreement, something many Democrats and especially members of the Congressional Black Caucus treated as an insult. He also benefited from what his deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes referred to as the administration’s media “echo chamber,” in which members of the legacy media slavishly repeated White House spin about the deal. That was especially true with respect to the false narrative that the only choice facing the U.S. was between appeasement and war, something that Trump’s “maximum pressure” effort proved wrong.
But those arguments resonated on the Left in large measure because they fit in with a mindset that considers diplomatic engagement to be an end in itself.
By the same token, Trump’s more aggressive pressure tactics offended those like Murphy and the editorial board of the Times not because they considered them less likely to bring Iran to heel, but because they were an unacceptable expression of American power. The same was true of Trump’s ability to confound Obama’s prediction that the Europeans could exercise a veto over a U.S. attempt to withdraw from the deal and that they could not be dragged by his successor into compliance with Iran sanctions they opposed. Faith in multilateralism is still not a matter of believing it could work better to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions than tougher stances. It is because meetings like those now being held in Vienna are the sort of things liberals believe in whether or not they work to America’s advantage.
It’s equally true that Trump’s conservative supporters disliked Obama’s and now Biden’s multilateralist policies for some of the same reasons liberals applauded them. Trump’s muscular approach to Iran, which contradicted the assumption that his “America first” foreign policy was actually isolationist rather than in most respects a traditional Republican strategy, brought conservative cheers and liberal dismay.
There is a school of thought that argues that Obama’s purpose was to shift American policy from one of an alliance with Israel and the moderate Arab states to one with Iran, rather than, as the former president said, to give the regime a path to “get right with the world.” Seen from that perspective, a deal whose consequences not only empowered and enriched Tehran but also gave it an eventual path to a nuclear weapon must be the result of deliberate intention. The validity of that assertion is still unprovable, and the same is true with respect to assumptions about Biden’s ultimate intentions.
Yet Biden’s low-key acquiescence to an Iranian economic deal with China, which U.S. insistence on enforcing sanctions could effectively scuttle, provides another test of his sincerity about wanting to stop the Islamist regime’s nuclear efforts. Should the U.S. let it go through, it would be a signal that the current administration is prepared to give sanctions up as a viable option in the future.
But for most of the public, the merits of more sanctions or even of what are presumed to be Israeli actions intended to delay Iran’s nuclear progress are not the crux of the matter. Rather, as we have seen first with Obama, then Trump, and now Biden, the lines being drawn are not a matter of how best to halt Iran’s quest for regional hegemony and a nuclear weapon but are rooted in sensibilities about how nations ought to behave.
Just as so much of the debate about Trump came down to one about manners and personal disgust with his style of speech and approach to governance rather than policy, so, too, the national discussion about what appears to be another attempt to appease Iran will divide the country along similar lines.
Chris Murphy has no idea whether limited military action or sanctions can stop Iran. Neither does he seem willing to acknowledge that diplomacy has brought Iran closer rather than further away from a bomb. But Joe Biden can count on liberal support so long as he keeps talking to Tehran, regardless of whether such dialogue has a ghost of a chance to restrain the regime.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS.org and a columnist for the New York Post. Follow him on Twitter at @jonathans_tobin.
