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Biden
Goes to Extremes to Appease Tehran
The world has truly turned upside down when a U.S. president begs America’s
allies to have a United Nations agency go easy on a terrorist nuclear proliferator.
The Biden administration’s reported pleading on behalf of Iran isn’t merely a
tactical error about yet another biodegradable U.N. resolution. It’s a
persistent strategic blindness that existentially threatens key U.S. partners
and endangers our own peace and security. Iran’s largely successful effort to
conceal critical aspects of its nu[1]clear-weapons complex
from scrutiny by the International Atomic Energy Agency and Western
intelligence services is nearing culmination. IAEA reports about Iran’s
uranium-enrichment program—and Tehran’s disdain for IAEA inspections, extending
over two decades—finally have the Europeans worried. Instead of welcoming this
awakening, President Biden is reportedly lobbying European allies to avoid a
tough anti-Iran resolution at this week’s quarterly IAEA board of governors
meeting. The administration denies it. But limpness on Iran’s nu[1]clear threat fits the
Obama-Biden pattern of missing the big picture, before and after Hamas’s Oct. 7
attack on Israel, including cash-for[1]hostages swaps with Iran
as recently as last year. Mr. Biden has two objectives. The first is to keep
gasoline prices low and foreign distractions to a mini[1]mum
before November’s election. The second is the Obama-Biden ob[1]session with appeasing
Iran’s ayatollahs, hoping they will become less medieval and more compliant if
treated nicely. Both objectives are misguided, even dangerous. Election worries
about gas prices have also weakened U.S. sanctions against Russia, which are
failing because of their contradictory goals. It simply isn’t possible to
restrict Russian revenue while keeping U.S. pump prices low. The ayatollahs
don’t worry about elections, but they know weakness when they see it, including
Mr. Biden’s relaxed enforcement of sanctions on Iranian oil exports. Mr.
Biden’s greater mistake is re[1]fusing to acknowledge
Iran’s “ring of fire” strategy to intimidate Israel and achieve regional
hegemony over the oil-producing monarchies and other inconvenient Arab states.
The foundational muscle for achieving these quasi-imperial aspirations is
Iran’s nuclear program, precisely the issue at the IAEA. Starting in his 2020
campaign, Mr. Biden repeatedly alienated Gulf Arabs, especially Saudi Arabia,
which felt particularly threatened by his zeal to re-join the failed 2015
nuclear deal. Mr. Biden’s willingness to exclude Israel and the Arabs from
negotiations with Tehran, as Mr. Obama did, convinced Arab governments that
Washington was again hopelessly feckless. Israel concurred. Arab leaders
privately see the need to eliminate Tehran’s terrorist proxies. Saying so
publicly, however—even quietly—requires political cover, which Washington has
failed to provide. The Biden administration could have sought to destroy, not
merely inhibit, the Iran[1]backed Houthis’ capacity
to close shipping routes in the Suez Canal and Red Sea. Since the U.S. failed
to do so, rising prices from higher shipping costs increase the risk of a de facto
Iran-Houthi veto over freedom of the seas. Not surprisingly, Iran now threatens
to blockade Israel itself. Mr. Biden decided to concentrate world attention on
Gaza rather than on Iran as the puppet-master. Doing so has helped obscure that
Gaza is only one component of the larger ring-of-fire threat. Many Israelis, including
several members of the war cabinet, have long focused on the close-to-home
threat of Palestinian terrorists rather than the existential threat of a
nuclear-armed Iran. This joint failure enabled Tehran’s propaganda to outmatch
Jerusalem’s, leaving the false impression of a moral equivalence. Had the U.S.
and Israel explained the barbarity of Oct. 7 in such broader strategic terms,
they would necessarily have concentrated attention on Iran’s coming succession
crisis. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is old and ailing. President Ebrahim
Raisi’s still-unexplained demise has already launched a succession struggle
that could trans[1]form Iran. The U.S. and
its allies should help the Iranian opposition fracture the Islamic Revolution
at the top. Instead, Mr. Biden, who couldn’t conceive of overthrowing the
ayatollahs, has dispatched envoys to beg Iran not to stir things up further
before November. Sending Tehran what diplomats call a “strong message” from the
IAEA isn’t much, but treating Iran as if it calls the shots is far worse.
Praying that Mr. Biden wakes up to reality may be the world’s only hope.
By: Mr. Bolton served as White House national security
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