Joe Biden will be lobbied hard by the anti-Iran crowd – he must simply tune out and pursue a deal

Iranian elections in June create a tight window for a possible return to the nuclear deal but the benefits of doing so are tangible for both parties, writes Borzou Daragahi

President-elect Joe Biden will be keen to resolve the souring relationship between the US and Iran (AP)

Their lips mouth the words of diplomacy – but their convoluted arguments can only lead to deadlock, confrontation, and even war.

As President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office on 20 January, high on his foreign policy agenda will be unraveling the mess that is the relationship between America and Iran. He and his Secretary of State-designate Anthony Blinken will have their work cut out. Iranian elections in June create a tight window for a possible return to the nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which would include negotiations with some of the same pragmatist players in Tehran – figures like Mohammad Javad Zarif and Abbas Araqchi – who hammered out the original deal under Barack Obama.  

Biden will be lobbied hard by the same influential clique of Washington insiders and foreign operatives who have managed to get their tentacles deep into the policymaking apparatus under the departing Donald Trump.  

Perhaps the unvarnished id of the anti-Iran crowd in Washington is Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA employee and author of a book about a clandestine trip he once took to Iran. Gerecht, who infamously argued that the disastrous US invasion of Iraq would not destabilise the Middle East, has been openly promoting a war with Iran for years. He is now at the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD), a Washington organisation reportedly funded by pro-Israel American oligarchs.  

FDD and others, such as Senator Tom Cotton and leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel, seduced Trump into blowing up the Iran deal, launching a policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran to deprive it of funds to finance its nuclear programme, its support for armed allies and its development of missiles. That, they publicly argued, would force Tehran to come back to the negotiating table and strike a better deal.  

That scheme flopped, as even Gerecht and another anti-Iran Washington fixture acknowledged in a recent piece published by a right wing online website. “Using Trump’s own standard for success, his administration’s Iran policy – increase economic pressure until Tehran agrees to a better deal – has failed,” they concede.

But, they argue without any substantiation, it failed because “no ‘good’ agreement is possible with a revolutionary Islamic state”, a bizarre argument given that the US has managed to repeatedly strike deals with revolutionary Maoist and Stalinist states and has been negotiating for months with Afghanistan’s Taliban, who are far more radical and dynamic than the ageing clerics and generals who run Tehran.  

The piece is filled with half-truths, insisting that the country was on the verge of a popular uprising that would sweep the regime away. Sure thing. Any day now.  

They equate “containment”, the strategy used by the US to prevent the expansion of Communist states during the Cold War, to “patient regime-change", and whine that neither Trump nor Arab Gulf nations were willing to risk blood and treasure to see the policy all the way through  – and this is the key phrase in the entire piece, the one that gives the game away – “despite having overwhelming air superiority”.

Continuing Trump’s Iran policy may win the approval of people like Gerecht, embattled Israeli hardliners, and the Gulf’s tyrannical leaders, whatever that’s worth.  

The benefits of quickly re-entering the deal are more tangible. If Biden returns to the deal shortly after 20 January by removing Trump-era sanctions, so long as Iran slows down production of fissile material and reduces its stockpiles, he would immediately reduce the so-called “breakout time” that Tehran would need to build a bomb.

But re-embracing what America’s European partners see as a signature diplomatic achievement and restoring frayed trust with longtime allies may be the real prize, restoring trust with London, Paris, Berlin and Brussels, as well as opening the way for good-faith negotiations with adversaries in Moscow and Beijing.  

Most experts say Biden can forget about any deals curtailing Iran’s development of missiles, which Tehran sees as essential to countering its rivals’ “overwhelming air superiority”. But it is remotely possible that Biden could use the diplomatic momentum of re-entering the JCPOA to open talks on expanding nuclear safeguards or convince Iran to rein in its support for armed groups abroad.

Iran plays a detrimental role in the peace and security of the region. Its partners in Lebanon and Iraq are a menace and arguably the main impediment to those countries’ well-being and democratic aspirations. Its funneling of weapons and support to Yemen does not contribute to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Its abuses of women, dissidents and journalists – including recent executions of peaceful opponents of the regime – appear to have worsened in recent years.

But in the eyes of much of the rest of the world, the US obsession with Iran is unreasonable. To many, the Islamic Republic is but one of the bad actors in a region filled with them. They include Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Egypt, all of whom move weapons and military personnel around the region in violation of international law and grossly transgress norms on human rights and armed conflict.

America’s partners in the JCPOA, including longtime allies the United Kingdom, France, and Germany along with Russia and China, have been adamant about not linking the nuclear deal to matters such as Iran’s support for Houthis and Iraqi militias, or its threats to Persian Gulf shipping lines, or its continued development of missile technology. The JCPOA, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said on 23 December, is no panacea for Gulf security. 

As Biden decides on a course with Iran, there will be a lot of noise. He will have to listen to the concerns of Israel and the Gulf Arab nations. But if they say they want a “seat” at the negotiating table as the JCPOA is brought back into force, what they likely mean is they want to be able to sabotage it. There is no indication whatsoever that Netanyahu or the boisterous and hyperactive Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates sincerely want to talk about the intricacies of advanced centrifuge designs and acceptable stockpile limits. What they want is to halt any and all diplomacy between Washington and Tehran and ensure endless confrontation and provocation that justifies their own weapons purchase, domestic repression, and overseas adventures.

No doubt “Iran deal” opponents will get their paid trolls to attack people. No doubt they will activate their keyboard warriors to harass journalists and retweet FDD operatives on social media. And no doubt they will have lobbyists and lawmakers scurrying to push the administration to demand whopping concessions from Iran for a return to the deal. Biden can just tune them out.