Joe Biden, Israel, And The Iranian Mullahs

While Washington shifts its attention to other matters, the Israelis continue to cast a wary eye towards Iran. This October in D.C., Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullha bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Afterward, Lapid repeated earlier warnings that “Iran is becoming a nuclear threshold country.” The Biden administration seems to be belatedly coming to realize that Iran has no interest in returning to Vienna to discuss curbing its nuclear ambitions—ambitions that, despite the common narrative, were helped along, not impeded, by the naïve 2015 accord. This was the deal that served up pallets of cash to the theocratic state in return for vague assurances of compliance. (Donald Trump pulled us out of this unilateral agreement in 2018).

What is there to say about Iran? Well, there are two very good standards by which to measure a government: what it says, and what it does. When it comes to Tehran, the Obama administration opted to ignore these two criteria. Trump’s diplomats understood the Mullahs better. And now the Biden people are waking up to a stark reality. US Special Envoy to Iran, Robert Malley, candidly admitted recently: “We have to prepare for a world…where Iran doesn’t have constraints on its nuclear program and we have to consider options for dealing with that, even as we hope that we can get back to the deal.” He must know that no one will deal with this president without demanding huge concessions in their favor. One must wonder, however, if Biden may become so desperate for a foreign policy “win” that he will acquiesce. In the meantime, it is wait and see what Iran has up its nuclear sleeve.

Israel, a nation surrounded by enemies hell-bent on its annihilation, cannot afford to be so glib. They, too, apply the litmus test of words and actions to Tehran…and it is chilling what they find.

First, what do Iran’s leaders, past and present, have to say? It seems to not matter to the West that when he was the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicted the “elimination” of the Jewish State. Nor do many care to remember that when he was president up until August 2021, Hassan Rouhani referred to Israel as the “festering Zionist tumor.” (Interestingly, Rouhani was often touted by the media to be a “centrist” and “reformer.”)  And what of current Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi. As far as this gem goes, Ram Ben-Barak, a former Mossad deputy chief, tweeted: “Raisi’s election as Iran’s next president is conclusive evidence of [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei’s decision to radicalize Iran’s conduct on foreign, nuclear, and terrorist policies.” Khamenei himself has happily proposed that Israel will not exist in a quarter-century. And yet another of their so-called “moderates”, former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, has declared Israel a “fake temporary state” and “a foreign object in the body of a nation and it will be wiped off the map.”

Yes, but how do you really feel?

Perhaps such overtly bellicose clarion calls for Israel’s demolition are just red-meat posturing for their more radicalized citizens. So let us ask instead what does Tehran do? They are the leading sponsor of terrorism in the Levant. Iran continues to support Hamas in Gaza by providing the missiles that routinely rain down upon Israeli civilians. They are a funding agent of Hezbollah in Lebanon. They are the regional destabilizer funneling arms and other materiel to our enemies in Iraq for 20 years, as well as the more militant rebels in Syria. They even have worked with the Taliban in Afghanistan in the past, although that relationship is tenuous.

This is the enemy with whom the Obama administration in one of its many unconstitutional side-steps, made a one-sided deal that prima facie defied common sense…much to Israel’s horror.

During the Cold War, the logic behind the uneasy peace with the U.S.S.R. was that while thousands of nuclear-tipped warheads sat at the ready on either side of the Iron Curtain, the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) kept both sides rational and at bay. Bit what if MAD seems like a great idea to a certain group of apocalyptic jihadists eager to sell their lives (or in the Mullahs’ case the lives of others) to do Allah’s work? What do you do if you are Israel confronted with the very real notion of a nuclear-armed regime that denies the previous Holocaust ever happened while calling for the next one?

The carrot of appeasement has not worked with Iran. And after Afghanistan, few enemies fear the U.S. stick. So perhaps then the best option for the Biden administration is to send Tehran a message by reaffirming in no uncertain terms U.S. support for Israel. Otherwise, with only the feckless Biden to fall back on as its “ally”, the IAF may have

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