Biden’s Focus on Iran Hurts US Interests and Allies

The Biden administration’s responses to two seemingly unrelated events — coming on the heels of an escalation in its maximum pressure campaign to restrain Israel by in part fomenting a coup against its prime minister — reveals the president’s stubborn commitment to an “Iran First” agenda that imperils America and our allies.

The first of the events was when Iran’s president and foreign minister, among others, were reportedly found dead in a helicopter crash during a return trip from the Iran-Azerbaijan border on May 20. Ebrahim Raisi, the eighth president of Iran, was one of the casualties. However, the world is undoubtedly a better place without Raisi in it. His reputation richly earned the moniker the “Butcher of Tehran.”

The administration’s first concern was about ensuring Iran knew the U.S. did not assassinate Raisi, lest it incur Tehran’s wrath. Out of fear, it chose to appease by treating Raisi like any other fallen foreign leader. The appeasement was ham-handed, granted sucking up to the regime could have made the Biden administration look a bit more guilty. The State Department extended its “official condolences.”

When the United Nations Security Council held a moment of silence for Raisi, U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood stood in solidarity with our adversaries to honor him.

Raisi, a U.S.-sanctioned should-have-been-pariah seen as a potential successor to the evil theocrat Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, oversaw the execution of thousands of political prisoners in the 1980s, cracked down on the Green Movement protests in 2009, and likewise brutally suppressed the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protesters of recent years. This list is not exhaustive of the terror Raisi has caused.

When pressed on why the administration offered its sympathies to the world’s leading state sponsor of jihad upon the death of someone responsible for terrorizing Americans, Israelis, Iranians, and countless other innocents, White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said:

No question this was a man who had a lot of blood on his hands. That said, as we would in any other case, we certainly regret in general the loss of life, and offered official condolences as appropriate.

Iran knew the U.S. was not complicit in the crash, as this would have contradicted more than a decade of Obama-Biden policy to placate the mullahs.

In fact, Iran solicited American help in the recovery effort. The Biden administration was happy to accommodate that request, though it proved “unable” to help given purported logistical issues. Not to mention Washington essentially tipped off Tehran to an impending Islamic State terror attack back in January, and we now learn the Biden administration has been maintaining a robust backchannel Iran.

Recall that the Biden administration worked overtime to de-link Iran from the Oct. 7 attack and prevented Israel from striking Iran-backed Hezbollah hard in the massacre’s wake, forcing tens of thousands of Israelis to evacuate from the north and rendering them refugees in their own country now for over half a year. Biden imposed superficial sanctions on the Iran-backed Houthis in response to their maritime blockade and repeated attacks on U.S. assets — while continuing to allow oil revenues to flow into Tehran’s coffers and granting sanctions waivers still further underwriting the regime’s malign efforts. The administration furiously rushed to distance itself from the strike on Iranian military leaders attributed to Israel in Syria, a strike that preceded Iran’s unprecedented direct attack on the Jewish state.

The same underlying rationale drives the administration’s condolences for Raisi, setting aside whatever diplomatic niceties toward monsters and moral cretins, particularly in anti-American international forums, that leftism otherwise demands.

Meanwhile, within hours of Raisi’s death, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan announced he was filing applications for warrants of arrest for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, alongside three Hamas leaders. Khan alleges that Netanyahu and Gallant are responsible for starving and intentionally targeting civilians and engaging in other crimes against humanity, making Israel’s wartime leaders equivalent to those of Hamas’ genocidal jihadist terror network.

In a lesser-noticed act, Khan rendered Israel less legitimate than its would-be destroyers by referring to “crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Israel and the State of Palestine” (emphasis mine).

But remember, this is a Biden administration that has similarly slandered and castigated Israel over its war conduct, contributing to the same blood libel at the heart of the warrant applications.

Perhaps the administration’s most genuine expression of concern came at the end of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s response to the ICC, in which he wrote:

Fundamentally, this decision does nothing to help, and could jeopardize, ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement that would get hostages out [of Gaza] and surge humanitarian assistance in, which are the goals the United States continues to pursue relentlessly.

The persecution of Israel’s political and military leadership is only likely to unify the country behind the Netanyahu-led government, something its opponents openly lament, making Israel all the more determined to destroy Hamas and win the war.

The White House wants Israel to effectively surrender by ending the war in Gaza and ceding control over it to a bloc of U.S.-favored, often Hamas-sympathetic forces. All would be part of an effort to cement Iran’s de facto rule over lands to Israel’s immediate north, west, and east, and beyond, isolating Israel and imperiling its existence to make Iran the regional hegemon.

The administration’s fingerprints are all over the recent public challenges to Netanyahu by war cabinet members, Minister Benny Gantz, and defense chief Gallant, over the war and post-war plans. Rumor has it that the Biden administration is directly colluding with Iran in this regime change operation.

More immediately, the Biden administration wants Israel boxed — to end the war in Gaza and prevent Israel from eliminating the threats from Iran and its proxies elsewhere — so there is quiet in the region.

The White House’s fearmongering over “escalation,” compelling submission to Iran, and imposing strictures on Israel all may stem in the immediate term from genuine terror at the idea that oil prices could skyrocket with the Middle East ablaze, sending the U.S. economy into a tailspin, and the Biden administration packing come January 2025.

That issue may trump whatever concerns the administration has about losing support from Muslim voters in Michigan and Minnesota — a political calculation that may well be fundamentally unsound anyway — let alone longer-term desires to make Iran the regional strong horse, whether rooted in malevolence, naivete, or greed.

Regardless, “Iran First” sentiment governs all, from the condolences for Raisi to the condemnation of the ICC to the attempted coup against Netanyahu.

America’s national interest suffers as a consequence of this intervention on behalf of the world’s leading state sponsor of jihad.