In the immediate aftermath of his withdrawal from Afghanistan – which has become a prime example of a foreign policy failure – President Biden’s administration announced that the White House would be willing to reverse Former President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and enter into discourse with the government in Tehran, re-negotiating a new Iranian Nuclear Deal. 

This easing of the brakes by President Biden comes after a war in 2021 between Israel and Hamas (an Iranian-backed terrorist group), an Iranian missile attack on a United States installation in Iraq, and Iranian blatant support for the tyrannical government of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. A nuclear Iran will fundamentally shift the balance of power in the Middle East, and the Iranian people, who yearn for freedom, will remain stuck under a malevolent dictatorship that will be significantly harder to remove by force. 

The prior years have shown that the US should have never taken regime change against Iran off the table. President Reagan often quipped that the American people were suffering from ‘Vietnam syndrome’ and that because Americans had suffered a humiliating defeat in Southeast Asia, we were afraid of further military entanglement. In 1991, the United States soundly defeated Iraq and in 2003 drove the Ba’athist Government from power in a second invasion. From a military perspective, these wars were conducted with near surgical precision and our losses were sustainable. 

Our failures in the Middle East were due to a flawed attempt to bring Western Democracy to countries that were non-Western and had no desire to become Western. We were never welcomed in Afghanistan or Iraq – we would be in Tehran, as the Iranian people frequently protest against their tyrannical government and appeal to America for help. Instead, it appears that President Biden will seek to continue the foreign policy of his former boss, President Obama – a calamity we cannot allow to be repeated.

In 2009, we saw a window of opportunity in which pro-Democracy forces in Iran launched the Iranian Green Movement, demanding the removal of Mr. Ahmadinejad from office. The highly educated liberal youths, often in urban areas, led a series of protests and demonstrations chanting ‘Down with the Dictator!’. Then-President Obama denied support for the opposition candidates in Iran and refused to admit the Iranian election was rigged, despite clear evidence showing it was. 

Jay Solomon, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, revealed in his book, The Iran Wars, that former-President Obama overruled the CIA and his advisors who wanted to assist with the underground movements. Former President Obama’s inaction led to severe contemporary criticism especially when it became apparent years later that he most likely avoided direct assistance to maintain his outreach to the Ayatollah, who ended up inculpating him for the uprisings anyway.

In fact, Mr. Obama’s love for Iran is a disturbing tale, especially when you consider the criticisms leveled at former-President Trump for cozying up to authoritarian rulers. Mr. Obama stated at the beginning of both his first and second terms that the United States did not seek regime change in Iran, a definite change from the neoconservative policies of his predecessor. 

He reiterated this position in a series of private correspondence with Ahmadinejad and he famously threatened the Syrian dictatorship with military intervention, the so-called ‘redline’, if they ever used chemical weapons; but when they did, he did nothing. This was due to the threat from Iran that there would be no negotiations on a nuclear deal if he intervened in Syria.

Former President Obama’s predilection for a nuclear deal was finally satiated when he reached the final agreement of the JCPOA. This agreement was a complete concession from prior negotiations and demands made of Iran. This ‘flip-flop’ naturally could only be negotiated by an expert in the art: John Kerry, the Secretary of State. Originally, we sought on-demand inspections of nuclear sites, then retracted that request before once more seeking it. Naturally, since the Iranians had all the leverage in this agreement, they managed to sneak that out of the provisions of the deal which Kerry seemed all too willing to go along with. Thus, they now refuse inspections on their sites.

This deal was one of the poorest decisions in the history of American foreign policy and reeks of naive appeasement. It seems former President Obama had imagined a statue of himself would be erected on the empty plinth at Trafalgar Square and that he would be awarded his second Nobel Peace Prize, and yet his flawed logic has plunged us into a dangerous set of affairs that we must now dig our way out of. 

This deal faced severe opposition from even members of his own party, with Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the current chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, blasting President Obama on the Senate floor in 2015 criticizing the administration for “…making excuses for the fact Iran has not reduced its enrichment level which they agreed to do in the Joint Plan of Action.”

Our intelligence – along with that of Israel – has concluded that Iran has been secretly developing nuclear weapons, and was lying about the nature of their experiments. It was evident that they were swindling Mr. Obama, who eagerly played the part of the willing fool, and managed to alleviate sanctions in exchange for vague promises made in bad faith. 

In addition, former-President Obama never reached any form of agreement on their missile technology in which they have ‘the largest and most diverse arsenal in the Middle East.’And as if to encourage their malicious practices, the former President allowed a $1.7 billion dollar payment in cash to Iran, likely illegal under treasury regulations, that they did not even have to make any concessions for. It is important to note that Iran sponsors Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis – all three of which are known terrorist groups. 

 If the deal was successful, which it wasn’t, the Iranians would’ve only had a limited period of time not to pursue nuclear weapons, but a green light to still pursue nuclear research. Expecting them to keep their word on anything would be like guaranteeing the structural integrity of a house built on quicksand: preposterous. Instead of bringing Iran to its knees with sanctions and other pressures, we attempted to placate Tehran in a scene reminiscent of paying an indulgence and asking for forgiveness. 

We caved to the Germans, Russians, and French who wanted to trade with Iran, arguing that they would become more democratic and free if we lifted sanctions and allowed them to become a participant in the global community – the same logic applied in allowing China to join the World Trade Organization, a move which has had disastrous consequences. The sheer irrationality put on display by former Secretary Kerry and former President Obama in negotiating this deal was mind-boggling to anyone with a cultivated foreign policy mind. Clearly, Republicans were correct in campaigning on withdrawal from the deal, which former President Trump later followed through on. 

President Biden has already faced two foreign policy disasters in his ephemeral term – Ukraine and Afghanistan; he does not need to face a third. If the President re-enters the Iranian nuclear deal, we will lose the leverage the Trump-era sanctions had brought; Iran will be able to procure weapons of mass destruction, the Iranian government will be enriched causing further suffering to their people, and stability in the Middle East will be threatened. We already appear to be losing influence with two of our key allies: Saudi Arabia and Israel. Naftali Bennett, the Prime Minister of Israel, recently visited Vladimir Putin in a discussion most likely about the Iran deal, in which Russia is playing a key role in helping to broker. 

In fact, President Biden has stayed shy of complete sanctions against Russia as he requires Putin to play middleman to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. Saudi Arabia recently refused to take the President’s phone call – taking Putin’s instead. Now on the verge of a potentially disastrous deal with the Chinese government, which would see the end of the U.S dollar, it seems the House of Saud has grown tired of the condemnations the Biden Administration has thrown at them for the war in Yemen.

It is unequivocally clear and of the utmost importance that the United States take all necessary measures to ensure our national security and to protect our strategic interests in the Middle East. Additionally, we must take all actions to deter the Iranian government’s aggression, guaranteeing that Iran will never possess nuclear weapons. Further negotiation with the Ayatollah and his President will only ensure legitimacy for the Iranian terror state, which will use revenue from the United States to indirectly harm the Israeli people, through their proxy militias, and countless other innocents throughout the Middle East. And this, we cannot allow.