By Jonathan Schanzer, The Dispatch—
One year into his presidency, Joe Biden endeavors to pivot away from the Middle East. The Middle East simply won’t let him. Like his predecessors, the president continues to struggle with the right approach to this important and perilous region. To date, many of Biden’s approaches have amounted to unforced errors. A number of them are likely to haunt him.
Afghanistan: Though the country is not technically not part of the Middle East, Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan last year continues to impact how states in that region view America’s role in their neighborhood. The botched sequencing of the withdrawal was the primary focus (removing military assets before political assets). But the fact that the U.S. described the Taliban terrorist group as a “partner” in its retreat sent shockwaves around the world. Moreover, the Arab states and Israel cannot help but note that a ragtag, untrained army forced a superpower to flee under duress. Admittedly, the Taliban had help from state sponsors (notably Pakistan and Iran). However, the neo-isolationist trends in American politics that ultimately justified the embarrassing and unceremonious end to this American war effort raises troubling questions about the future of the U.S. commitment to the order it established in the Middle East. It’s also worth remembering that the defeat of the Soviet army at the hands of the mujahedeen in 1989 inspired Osama bin Laden (and his Palestinian partner Abdullah Azzam) to leverage the Islamist fighters (who believed that theirs was a divine victory) to create the al-Qaeda terrorist network. Whether we witness a resurgence in Islamist terrorism as a result of Biden’s Afghanistan disaster remains to be seen.
Iran: In the wake of the Afghanistan debacle, the region is nervously watching as the White House signals its intent to completely capitulate to the clerical regime in Tehran at the negotiating table in Vienna. The administration’s determined effort to rejoin the deeply flawed nuclear agreement of 2015 at any cost has yielded too much leverage to the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism. While the negotiations have not yet concluded, it appears that the regime will walk away having legitimized a number of its alarming advances toward a nuclear weapon, with the Biden administration demanding fewer restrictions and granting tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief as remuneration for a weaker deal. The White House is aware of the terrible optics. The concerns are even more acute in light of the fact that most of Iran’s nuclear expansion occurred after Biden’s election. This was the result of Biden’s decision to reverse “maximum pressure” to what can only be described as “maximum deference.” Rumors are now swirling that the White House has sought out a high-priced public relations firm to handle the fallout. In the meantime, officials are doing their best to blame the Trump administration for whatever terrible deal is reached, citing Trump’s hasty exit from the nuclear accord in 2018. Try as they may, whatever deal is struck will be Biden’s to own. Right now, the chances are high that Iran pockets American concessions and still makes a dash for a bomb. Continue Reading….
