President Biden
Joe BidenREAD: House Democrats’ Mammoth COVID-19 Relief Act House Panel Reveals .9T Aid Package Nunes Lawsuit Against CNN Thrown Out MOREThe decision to open the door to negotiations with Iran and other nations underscores a sharp turn from its predecessor and back to the diplomacy-first foreign policy defended during the Obama years.
The Biden government said on Thursday that it would accept an invitation from the European Union to talk to Iran and the five other signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal that former President Trump
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Biden’s decision was not surprising, as he campaigned to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). But it came on a fast timeline when his administration wanted to reinstate a deal they see as essential to nuclear weapons control.
Former government officials recognize that rejoining the deal will be a difficult and lengthy process. This week’s developments have already opened Biden to criticism from Republicans who view the original agreement as flawed. They are now intensifying their attacks on the new Democratic president.
Yet Biden’s move represents his latest effort to work with allies on shared challenges and use diplomacy as the primary tool to achieve foreign policy goals, a nearly 180 degree turn from Trump’s ‘America first’ approach to international involvement.
“What it mostly says is that the goal is to make diplomacy a centerpiece of what we do, but also to demonstrate once again that the alliance relationships are important, that we will work to revive them, with which we will cooperate them, ”said Dennis Ross
Dennis Alan Ross Biden’s six-step strategy to get back into the nuclear deal with Iran Sullivan is Biden’s national security ‘listener’ Biden finds a few Trump moves he will keep MORE, a former adviser to former President Obama and a veteran diplomat who worked on Middle East policy.
It is unclear whether Iran will eventually agree to a meeting, although Ross suspected Tehran would do so “reluctantly.” Iranian Secretary of State Javad Zarif tweeted that Iran would “immediately” reverse actions under its nuclear program if the US lifts crippling sanctions imposed by Trump.
Iran has warned it will restrict the access of UN nuclear agency inspectors starting Tuesday, an effort to put pressure on the US to lift Trump-era sanctions.
Biden has said the US will stick to the deal again if Iran does the same. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki
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“This is about having a talk about the way forward,” Psaki said Friday, noting that Iran is “still a long way from complying” with the 2015 accord.
In addition to opening the door to negotiations, the Biden administration on Thursday also reversed the Trump administration’s demand that the UN Security Council reimpose “snapback” sanctions on Iran and ease domestic travel restrictions on Iranian diplomats.
Rep. Michael McCaul
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State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Friday that the steps taken at the UN would align the US with other members of the Security Council who disagreed with the snapback determination and therefore strengthen the position of the US to engage with allies in Iran.
“That deadlock weakened our ability to deal with Iran’s destabilizing activities,” Price said of the snapback disagreement.
While the US has shown solidarity with its European allies by expressing its willingness to talk to Iran, this move is unlikely to be welcomed by other allies such as Israel and the Gulf states.
Biden will have to tackle Iran’s proxy attacks in the region. Tehran is suspected of a missile strike in Iraq that earlier this week killed a US contractor and injured eight other people, although the Biden administration has not publicly blamed Iran.
“We are ready to re-enter negotiations with the P5 + 1 on Iran’s nuclear program,” Biden said in comments at the virtual security conference in Munich on Friday. “We also need to address Iran’s destabilizing activities in the Middle East, and we will work closely with our European and other partners.”
Ross said the challenge for Biden will be to show that he does not admit anything to Iran in advance, while also trying to change Tehran’s behavior.
“The biggest risk is that the Iranians are clearly trying to pressure us, and the question is whether they will conclude that the pressure is working,” Ross said.
Proponents of the 2015 deal argue that this is the best way to limit Iran’s ability to acquire a nuclear weapon, and that Trump’s decision to lift and re-impose sanctions lessens the global community. and left the US isolated from allies.
“The deal is not intended to create a perfect marriage between the US and Iran. It is intended to prevent Iran from acquiring enough nuclear weapon materials in a year, ”said Jon Wolfsthal, senior director of arms control and non-proliferation at the Obama National Security Council. “The current position is worse than where we were under the Iran deal.”
Wolfsthal also distinguished critics of the deal who are really against it and those with political motives. He suspected Biden would work to get lawmakers concerned about re-joining the accord.
“There are reasonable people in Congress, Republicans and Democrat, who are concerned about what will happen in 10 or 15 years’ time when the sunset on the JCPOA sets in,” Wolfsthal said. “President Biden would like to extend the duration of those pledges and I think there is a way to do that.”
Critics argue that the original deal did not do enough to curtail Iran’s nuclear program and express concern about the Biden government’s lifting of sanctions on Tehran before a sufficient deal is reached.
“I am not against negotiations with Iran, but I think it would be a mistake to revert to the original flawed agreement, many of the most restrictive clauses of which are due to the sunset,” said Jim Phillips, senior research fellow for Middle East affairs at the Conservative Heritage Foundation.
“For me, the problem with multilateral diplomacy is that US interests are sacrificed and diluted in the back and forth,” Phillips said of Biden’s approach.
The attempt to open talks with Iran will be an early test for the foreign minister Antony Blink
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The developments in Iran came when Biden met with Group of Seven (G7) partners and highlighted his commitment to alliances and multilateral engagement during the speech before the virtual conference in Munich. Biden announced he would allocate $ 2 billion to Covax, the international program to vaccinate poorer populations, and celebrated Friday that the US officially rejoined the Paris climate agreement.
“The whole strategy is that the US, in conjunction with our allies, will be able to re-establish this deal unless Iran does not want to,” Wolfsthal said. “That’s much better than the US being responsible for breaking the deal.”