Biden and the Middle East – USA Gov Policy

A Biden Administration could spell the end of progress for peace in the Middle East, if it follows the policy of appeasement and support for the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism, Iran. The first step would be a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iran nuclear deal.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar, writing for The Jewish Press, emphasizes that “Joe Biden played an important role in shaping White House policy toward the region when he was Barak Obama’s vice president for eight years. Moreover, members of the Democratic Party like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib have a clear Middle East agenda, and if Biden retires during his term he will be replaced by Kamala Harris, who it seems clear will adopt this line of policy.”

Much of the extraordinary gains made in that region are the direct result of the Trump Administration’s willingness to counter Iran’s influence. James Carafano, writing for the Heritage Foundation, notes:

“The Trump administration inherited a Middle East policy from the Obama administration that was collapsing…Iran had become more belligerent after the Iran Nuclear Deal and its surrogates were on the march everywhere. ISIS was governing a murderous caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq. Syria had collapsed in civil war. Iraq teetered. Israel faced increasing international isolation.”

President Trump took the opposite course, openly opposed the Tehran regime, and rejected the nuclear deal that virtually guaranteed that the terrorist-supporting mullahs would soon get nuclear weapons. That was completely different than the Obama-Biden policy, which clearly tilted towards Iran.

The Trump Administration’s successes have been extraordinary. Israel and Sudan have agreed to make peace. That deal came soon after a groundbreaking agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, as well as one between Israel and Bahrain.

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo emphasizes that President Trump’s “Maximum Pressure” campaign against Iran is extraordinarily effective. That nation’s economy faces a currency crisis, mounting public debt, and rising inflation. Prior to the Maximum Pressure campaign, Iran was exporting nearly 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. Now it struggles to export even a quarter of that volume. Since May 2018, The U.S. has denied the regime direct access to more than $70 billion in oil revenue. The Iranian rial has depreciated to one fifth of its former value against the dollar since the start of the campaign, while Iran’s GDP has shrunk by around 6% for three consecutive years.

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Pompeo notes that the sanctions deprive Tehran the funds it would use to carry out its support of terrorism across the globe, its attempts to destabilize the Middle East, and its ambitious nuclear weapons program.

In addition to agreeing to the nuclear deal that gave Tehran the legal right to eventually develop atomic weapons, the Obama-Biden Administration violated existing sanctions on Iran and clandestinely attempted to give that nation unlawful access to America’s financial system. The White House specifically and repeatedly lied to both Congress and the American public about this.

That was just part of the Obama-Biden financial aid to Iran. According to the Wall Street Journal “The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran … Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland….”

The use of cash, as opposed to more conventional international payment means, allowed Tehran to provide more clandestine support for terrorists across the globe.

More than that, it is a clear signal to other regional nations that Iran is clearly the power to be reckoned with, and they engage in peace talks at their own, imminent, peril.

Illustration: Iranian flag (Pixabay)

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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