Trump made mistake; Biden ducked responsibility
By Ebrahim Behnam
Guest contributor
The US secretary of state once again brought up the recurring stance of the Joe Biden administration on America’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran on the sidelines of the Davos summit in Switzerland. Anthony Blinken called the move that took place under former president Donald Trump in 2018 “deeply unfortunate”.
Blinken said that “it was a big mistake to tear up the Iran nuclear agreement,” because it had kept Iran’s nuclear program “in the box”.
“Since the agreement was torn up, it’s escaped from that box,” he added.
The acknowledgement of the wrongness of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the JCPOA dates back to 4 years ago and during the 2020 US presidential election campaigns. Biden went even a step further in his statement and, upon entering the White House, announced that one of his administration’s key foreign policy initiatives would be the revival of the JCPOA and Washington’s return to the nuclear agreement.
Now Biden’s secretary of state says that the US is “now at a place where we didn’t want to be because we don’t have the agreement.”
Such a stance reveals a sort of evasion and attempt to dodge responsibility on the part of the US government. Mr. Blinken and other US statesmen and decision-makers have failed to ask themselves why they find themselves in such an undesirable position. Who is accountable for creating such a situation? Why did multiple rounds of negotiations to bring back to life the nuclear deal not yield results?
Undoubtedly, Trump’s decision was wrong, but what has the Biden administration done to make up for its predecessor’s mistake? Have they charted a new course aimed at resolving the issue, or have they brough the talks to a standstill by introducing non-JCPOA matters into the nuclear talks and pressing for their own excessive demands?
What is evident is that the Biden administration has not taken any constructive measures to return to the JCPOA and allow Iran to reap the benefits of the nuclear deal. Furthermore, they have imposed new sanctions on Tehran. The US government, alongside the European troika – France, Britian and Germany – has yet to even lift the arms embargo against Iran as stipulated in the JCPOA.
Hence, raising Trump’s ill-advised move to withdraw from the nuclear deal ahead of the US presidential election, while taking into account election campaigns and a new potential confrontation between Trump and Biden, only serves as a gesture to win more votes and not a genuine step toward breaking the gridlock in the nuclear saga. The admission of mistake will prove useful only when it is followed by the US government’s accountability and clear determination to resuscitate the nuclear agreement. It goes without saying that until such resolve is realized, the unfortunate situation as asserted by the US secretary of state, will persist and perhaps even worsen.