Biden’s Iran Policy After the Protests

The recent wave of unrest is an opportunity to reset America’s approach to the Islamic Republic.

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Few world leaders gathered this week for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) appeared as isolated as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. As he delivered predictable anti-American attacks from the podium, Iranians were risking life and limb to protest the Islamic Republic at home. While the Biden administration’s approach to Iran has featured one too many pulled punches, the recent protests offer an opportunity to recalibrate.

The latest round of protests were sparked by the Iranian government’s killing of a woman named Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old had been detained and beaten by Iran’s morality police—which enforce strict Islamic social norms—over alleged violations of the country’s hijab laws. She was pronounced dead at Tehran’s Kasra hospital last week.

Iranian authorities alleged that Amini had a pre-existing health condition, a dubious explanation rejected by her family and broad swaths of Iranian society. Amini’s death touched off days of protests and acts of defiance across the country. Media reports suggest the regime has killed dozens of people already, and that number is expected to rise. Authorities have again resorted to using internet blackouts to mask the regime’s repression and impede protesters. This is not the first time in recent years that demonstrators have moved from demanding reform to openly seeking revolution.

Yet officials from the Iranian government were welcomed to New York this week, as clear a symbol of the Biden administration’s Iran policy incoherence as any. Raisi sits at the helm of the most sanctioned cabinet in Iranian history. Raisi and his chief of staff are subject to U.S. and EU sanctions, yet both were granted visas to New York. 

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  1. Ben Bobbitt

    An outside observer might be confused about which nation is the superpower. Why we have simply rolled over and allowed insult and provocation time and again is beyond me. We have Iranian agents targeting people in the US, both residents and citizens, seemingly without any response. We know that they are targeting former government officials for assassination. And yet we seem to be obsequiously begging them for a ‘deal’.

    We completely abandoned the Iranian people during the Green Revolution because the Obama administration wanted the original ‘deal’ and now we are seemingly doing all that we can to humiliate ourselves again. This is a hard problem, no doubt, but constantly projecting weakness only encourages their bad behavior.

    The Iranian problem is one that isn’t going away until someone stands up to the mullahs, either from the inside or the outside. All the better if it’s from the inside, so we should be giving the protesters all the support we can, both rhetorically and in more concrete ways.

    I just read a Christopher Hitchens essay from 2009 entitled “Engaging with Iran is like having sex with someone who hates you” and I can’t believe we’re still doing it.

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    George.Skinner

    The Iranian regime has relied on American hostility for decades to shore up domestic support. The problem remains how to support internal Iranian unrest in a way that can overturn the regime without inadvertently reinforcing the regime by rallying anti-American sentiment. Obama was correct on that point, although he was using it as an excuse for engaging with the regime for his JCPOA rather than figuring out how to work around it.

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    Adicesa14

    “Incoherence” is the best descriptor for the Obama-Biden Iran policy (JCPOA, et.al.) I’ve yet seen or heard. No coherent explanation has ever been given for the relentless effort to give the Mullah’s everything they want and get nothing. The desire to keep Iran from a nuclear weapon is cogent but nothing we say, do, or how much we pay deters them. Hello! Stop!

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    EricRemcon@gmail

    Every time that I read an article about Iran, I feel either dumb or disconnected from reality. My basic question is, why does the US need to recognize Iran as a legitimate country? It is a terrorist state that has very little to offer the Western world. Are the approx. 2M barrels of oil that it produces for the world market that critical? I am aware they have a relativity decent military for a Middle East nation, but what else? Their only strength appears to be the nuclear threat which is legitimate, but it is unlikely to be stopped diplomatically.

    I am constantly baffled why we don’t cut off every official nation tie we can and focus on supporting the Iranian PEOPLE wherever we can. I know that is a tough ask because of the control the hard-line government has, but the decades long diplomatic tap dance has obviously failed.

    I acknowledge my foreign policy ignorance, but I can’t be the only one that looks at this situation with a puzzled brow. 🤷‍♂️

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      Paul Reichardt

      For the US to be able to cut off all national ties with Iran and wash our hands of them is actually what JCPOA supporters in essence want. We would then be allowing European and Asian countries to engage in mutually beneficial trade with Iran without punitive American countermeasures. The US could cut all the ties with Iran it wants.

      But the US washing its hands of Iran and losing interest in the region is exactly what Israel and our Gulf State allies fear the most from a policy of rapprochement which is why they oppose and lobby against it.

      With no deal in place, on the other hand, we’re committing to applying and enforcing sanctions, engaging in economic coercion on friendly countries to isolate Iran, and keeping the resultant Iranian reprisals in check with continued heavy US military presence and threats in the region. The fear of those US threats, in turn, drives Iran towards developing a nuclear deterrent.

      In my view, the “no deal” scenario is in reality a commitment for the US to play policeman in the ME for another 100 years to address the concomitant security issues created by our own policies. It’s not really even about nukes.

      Not asking anyone to agree with that viewpoint, but it is nonetheless a legitimate and widely-held viewpoint.

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        EricRemcon@gmail

        So, you are saying the US using every financial mechanism available to apply pressure, removing all diplomats and encouraging every Western nation to do the same while demanding that Saudi Arabia step up to Iran defensively (just a quick list, I’m sure there is much more we could do if I researched it) would be LESS effective than entering a deal where they eventually get a bomb anyway?

        I disagree. If we stopped playing maybe/maybe not, the friendly countries you mention would realize there is no choice but to isolate from Iran. TBC, I’m not advocating any military escalation, just doing everything we can to stop recognizing them as a legitimate country until they stop the aggression.

        BTW: I very much doubt our navy presence in the region is what is driving them toward a bomb (that is putting it politely).

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  5. NYZack

    Visa bans for travel to the United States may be reasonable generally speaking, but is there precedent for denying visas for travel for official United Nations business? I always assumed that, in return for having the UN in the US, we would refrain from interfering in UN business except when absolutely necessary.

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    1. James Ackerman

      Even North Korea gets to have a UN mission. Plus, there's more to be gained for us from letting them in to try and influence them than we gain from purely trying to play at power politics

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      Chris Babcock

      I'm not sure if there is a precedent, but it's worth considering. We must stop pretending that nations have the right to dictate their own affairs; those who murder the innocent must not be allowed on American soil or, if setting foot on our soil, must immediately be imprisoned.

      Iran has a great and proud history - but we need to be explicit that the Islamic Revolution must be undone. Ally with the Shah, ally with the Kurds, ally with the clerics who oppose the regime, and work to actively undo the idea of the Islamic Revolution itself.

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