Completing a total reversal of 74-year-old President Donald Trump’s domestic and foreign policy, 78-year-old President Joe Biden signaled he’s ready to rejoin the P5+1 July 15, 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] AKA “the Iranian Nuke Deal” cancelled by Trump May 8, 2018. Trump sought to stop Iran from waging proxy war against Saudi Arabia and Israel, re-imposing economic and trade sanctions. When 71-year-old Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu heard U.S. intentions to re-join the JCPOA he wasn’t happy. “Israel believes that going back to the old nuclear agreement would pave Iran’s path to a nuclear arsenal. We remain committed to preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. Israel doesn’t know whether Trump canceling the JCPOA in 2018 slowed Iran pursuit of an A-bomb or accelerated it.
Netanyahu opposed former President Barack Obama’s attempt to slow Iran’s nuclear program, entering into the JCPOA, in exchange for Iran agreeing to limit its uranium enrichment to 3.5%. Trump administration officials insisted handing Iran $1.6 billion in cash and $150 billion in sanctions relief enabled Iran to wage proxy war against Saudi Arabia and Israel. Once Trump cancelled the JCPOA, there was no guarantee that Iran would stop enriching uranium, in fact, all indications point to Iran’s 81-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khaemenei breaching the JCPOA’s limits, ramping up uranium production to 20%, just under weapons grade. Netanyahu can’t point to anything Trump did canceling the JCPOA to contain Iran’s uranium enrichment production. If anything, canceling he JCPOA drove the Ayatollah to put hid pedal to the metal with uranium enrichment.
Iran has always denied that it was working on an A-bomb, something believed by most Western nuclear experts. Obama’s administration, led by 77-year-old former Secretary of State John Kerry, led the way to negotiate the JCPOA with 60-year-old Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Netanyahu opposed the deal from the get-go because he thought removing economic sanctions would embolden Iran to enrich more, not less, uranium. Netanyahu’s main concern about any international treaty was that Iran would cheat, continue to work on a bomb while deceiving U.N. weapons’ inspectors. When Obama inked the JCPOA in 2015, it didn’t force Tehran into intrusive inspections in Iran’s secret military sites. Before Biden and Blinken rejoin the Nuke Deal, they must insist this time around on verification at any of Iran’s secret military enrichment facilities.
If Netanyahu sees that the U.S. means business this time around with intrusive inspections of all Iran’s enrichment sites, Israel will come to see it’s in their best interests to accept a change in policy. Netanyahu was on the same page as 57-year-old former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who took a hard line with Iran. Trump and Pompeo saw that Iran was actively involved in proxy wars in Yemen, supplying arms-and-cash to attack Saudi Arabia. There’s no love lost between Israel and Iran, with Iran’s 81-year-old Suipreme Leader Ali Khamenei threatening to wipe Israel off the map. What Obama administration officials, including Biden, didn’t get was that Israel saw Iran’s nuke program as and existential threat. Keeping the bomb out of Iran’s hands should be a high priority for the Biden administration, as it was for Obama. Obama’s Nuke Deal didn’t force Iran into intrusive inspections.
Blinken told EU foreign ministers in France and Germany and the U.K. that the Biden administration was prepared to rejoin the JCPOA. EU’s 62-year-od Spanish senior foreign policy official Enrique Mora proposed an informal meeting with the P5+1 with Zarif, to begin the process of rejoining the agreement. Iran’s slated Feb. 23 withdraw from “additional protocols” on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NNPT] something that could end Iran’s participation in the JCPOA. U.S. and EU diplomats want to proceed toward re-instating the JCPOA to insure Iran’s compliance with the NNPT. Blinken has already notified the U.N. that the Biden administration will lift Trump-era travel restrictions on Iranian diplomats, returning to the same travel requirements for diplomats attending the U.N. General Assembly. Iran knows that there’s a news sheriff on the block and it’s not Trump.
Israel has nothing to fear with the Biden administration re-engaging with Iran. Biden and Blinken have signaled that the U.S. plans to rejoin multilateral diplomacy, joining counterparts in the EU on matters of foreign policy. While most see that as a good thing, it’s not goof if Biden continues his overly aggressive stance toward 68-uear-old Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. Putin has been upset with the U.S. and EU for demanding that the Kremlin release from his two-year-eight month prison sentence 44-year-old dissident Alexi Navalny. Navalny survived an alleged Novichok poisoning incident last August, air lifted to Berlin for life-saving medical treatment. Whatever the issues with Navalny, the U.S. and EU can’t afford to break off diplomatic relations with Moscow. Putin and his 71-year-old Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the U.S. and EU about new sanctions.
