At Geopolitical Futures George Friedman assesses the prospects for the Biden Administration’s reviving the JCPOA with Iran:
Politically, if Biden wants to make good on his promises, he needs to resurrect some version of the old treaty. The Iranians read this need as an opportunity to extract concessions, particularly removing sanctions but also, in the long run, minimizing the threat from the forces across the Persian Gulf. These are critical to Iran.
Biden’s problem is that he has not yet begun to govern. The first few months of any new administration is an extension of the campaign. Thus, Biden ordered an airstrike against Iran-backed militias in Syria to demonstrate that he is willing to strike at their prized covert operations. The Iranians are watching carefully to see if the left-wing of the party governs or if the center governs. Similarly, following his campaign commitment to human rights, Biden went after Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman – who, according to U.S. intelligence, authorized the murder of Jamal Khashoggi – before trying to heal whatever breach in relations it might have caused.
The United States needs the Israel-Arab coalition to block Iranian covert ambitions, so it needs Saudi Arabia to be part of it. All presidents must figure out how to square the circle of what they promised to do and what they must do. And in this sense, Biden has a problem: He is pledged to resurrect an agreement that did not really address the problem of Iran, and he must do it to show the Europeans that he is not Trump while making clear to the Iranians that he is not giving away Trump’s strategy without making a fundamental change in America’s Iranian policy. And Iran will make this as hard as possible for him.
There’s also some good stuff about negotiating strategy in the piece.
Along those lines I would observe that in negotiating and perhaps counter-intuitively a lack of options is a position of strength. That explains the Israelis’ situation. They only have one way of defending themselves against an Iranian nuclear attack. You can hardly have a stronger position than that. To the extent the Iranians believe that’s Israel’s posture it calls the rationality of their leadership into question.
Meanwhile the U. S. has lots of alternatives. The Biden Administration could just follow the Trump Administration’s lead with respect to Iran but that would be politically difficult for President Biden given his campaign rhetoric. The administration could continue to revivify the JCPOA but that’s pragmatically difficult. What do we have to offer the Iranians that won’t aggravate everyone else in the Middle East? Ending sanctions? A phlegmatic offer—they’re eroding anyway. The Germans will see to it that continues.
We could become much more aggressive with respect to Iran but that would alienate members of the president’s own caucus. Balancing politics and policy is always tricky but rarely more so than when you’ve positioned yourself as the grownup in the room.
I am surprised Biden did not rejoin the JCPOA on day 1 or now.
I see 2 outcomes from that.
1. Iran rejoins JCPOA. Yes, the Iranians would make trouble in Iraq, Syria, but I thought US troops are to leave those 2 countries. Beyond that, Iran does not have much leverage vis-a-vis the US.
2. Iran does not rejoin JCPOA — in which case Biden can blame the Iranians and wash his hands of the matter by reapplying sanctions.
I have a bit of nuance about alternatives. Negotiation with lots of alternatives and a willingness to be pragmatic on which option to take is a strong position. Negotiations with lots of alternatives but an ideological aversion to many of the options is where you are left with a weak hand. It is difficult politically because many “influencers” have strong ideological views on this subject.
A side note about Saudi Arabia. I’m going to leave aside the strategy of US-Saudi relationship, and just focus on the tactics being used. I don’t understand the tactic of Biden / Blinken focusing their attention on the senile Saudi King while giving MBS (the actual guy in charge) persona non grata treatment. Like they should remember they tried this with Medvedev / Putin; it backfired and resulted in Putin aggressively consolidating his power.
Yep.
JCPOA is a dead letter, not only because the US left it, but also because the French, British, and Germans went along with Trump’s sanctions.
Iran has firmly stated that the US sanctions must be removed before JCPOA can be reactivated. Zarif, Iran’s Foreign Minister, has even raised the ante more by suggesting reparations are in order. It is likely reparations, if any, would be demanded of the EU 3, as well.
There are other issues the Iranians might wish to raise. One would be a reduction in US/NATO forces in the Persian Gulf region. The second would be Israel’s nuclear arsenal.
There is also the issue of vengeance for the Soleimani and Faradhzedeh assassinations. A majority of the Iraqi parliament voted for a non-binding resolution to expel the US forces from Iraq after Soleimani’s murder.
All of these are deal killers for the US/Israel, so the JCPOA is likely dead for ever. The end result of Trump’s cancellation of JCPOA will be a nuclear-armed Iran, with missiles that can reach Europe.
The Biden regime’s recent attack on Kata’ib Hezbollah also complicates matters. Although Kata’ib Hezbollah has is roots as an Iraqi Shia militia that was supported by Iran, nowadays it is part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, which is a collection of some 50 similar militias (mostly, but not entirely Shia) that are now a parallel part of Iraq’s military. They are funded by the Iraqi government and report directly to the Prime Minister of Iraq. So, whatever the Biden regime thought it was doing, it actually attacked part of the Iraqi military.
Iran is suffering, but it is also winning. It is winning the hearts and minds of the region, and it is progressing towards its own nuclear arsenal.
One other comment.
The most powerful tool the United States has to being the “strong hand” and imposing its wishes on Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela are “Texas, North Dakota, and Alberta”.
If the price of crude goes to beyond $100; the world goes back to the days of Venezuela exporting socialism; Saudi and Iranians funding who knows what, etc. For Biden, what’s worse is the Middle East is going to suck up all his attention, and he’ll be talking about increasing our troop presence there, not decreasing it.
But again, ideology barriers to using that tool. And the Green New Deal isn’t a useful tool, since the US isn’t the biggest energy consumer anymore — US leverage are on the production side.