Biden’s two dangerous foreign policy initiatives

President Joe Biden has swept away many of his predecessor’s more egregious decisions but has retained two dangerously damaging foreign policy initiatives: Donald Trump’s abandonment of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

Having pledged to return the US to the nuclear deal from which Trump pulled out in 2018 and piled punitive sanctions on Iran, Biden’s team has procrastinated and prevaricated during six rounds of European Union-brokered negotiations in Vienna. Iran has said it will resume full compliance once the US returns to the deal and lifts sanctions imposed by Trump. The Biden administration has retorted by staying Iran had to be first to comply, although it was the US which withdrew not Iran, and has refused to consider removing all Trump’s sanctions.

Fearing backsliding and even another US rejection of the deal by a future US administration, Tehran has demanded guarantees that the US will not repeat Trump’s betrayal. To put pressure on Britain, France and Germany, the European powers involved in the negotiations as well as the US, Iran has responded to Biden’s delaying tactics by continuing the policy adopted while Trump was in office of pulling back on its commitments, stage by stage, under the nuclear deal.

Ironically, the US, the prime mover of the crisis, and its partners hold Iran responsible, for the failure, so far, to reconsecrate the deal, and the Western media have joined in the blame game. The headline — “US frets that the time is running out to revive the Iran nuclear deal” — on an article by Nick Wadhams published by Bloomberg is a prime example of misleading the public.

Wadhams writes, “Hopes for a quick re-entry to the accord that Donald Trump abandoned have dimmed after six rounds of negotiations in Vienna, with little sign of when a seventh might start.

“The stalemate is compounded by Iran’s technological advances and the election of a new hardline president, raising doubt about whether the agreement reached in 2015 would be sufficient to constrain the country’s nuclear ambitions anymore.”

He then goes into how Iran’s recent activities — enriching uranium to higher levels than allowed, manufacturing uranium metal, and deploying state-of-the-art centrifuges — make it more difficult to revive the nuclear deal. Iran’s President-elect Ebrahim Raisi has said Iran will return to the deal but made it clear he will not discuss either his country’s ballistic missile programme or support for groups the US “considers terrorists.”

Biden could have avoided all these unwelcome developments if he had re-entered the deal soon after taking office. Instead, he appointed officials who disagree on how to approach Iran, cancelling each other out and creating an impasse in his own negotiating team. He has refused to lay down the law by telling them to “get the job done now.” Delay has also built up opposition from Iran hawks and activists who want to scrap the deal.

If Biden had acted earlier to re-enter the deal, he would have prevented Iran from taking fresh steps in violation of the nuclear agreement which he had helped sell to Congress. He would have handed a victory to outgoing moderate President Hassan Rouhani, given the moderates a boost in the presidential election stakes, and, perhaps, secured the election of another moderate. By reestablishing relations with Iran, he could have lifted sanctions that have crippled the country’s economy and bludgeoned its population, and, perhaps, even restored trust in the US. This would have created a positive atmosphere in which other issues that worry the US might have been discussed. Instead, Biden has failed all round.

Consequently, the world is stuck with the pursuit of Trump’s destructive policies by both the US and Iran on this all-important issue.

Furthermore, Biden’s adoption of Trump’s decision to withdraw the remaining 2,500 US troops from Afghanistan has already empowered the Taliban and its allies which have seized large swathes of territory and could, ultimately, enable the Taliban to take over from the US-backed government.

Even The Economist, usually a staunch US-media ally, slams this policy with this headline: “America’s war in Afghanistan is ending in crushing defeat;” and this sub-headline: “The consequences of the conflict for Afghans, already catastrophic, are likely to get worse.”

Biden’s main rival for the Democratic party’s nomination for the presidency, Hillary Clinton was critical of his decision. She warned that Afghanistan could erupt into civil war, extremist groups could resume their activities, and Afghans could flee their country. All three things are already happening.

Biden rejected comparisons with the humiliating US abandonment of South Vietnam in 1975 and with former President George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” statement after the disastrous 2003 Iraq war. Biden claimed the US mission was “accomplished” in 2011 when the US killed Osama Bin Laden,” author of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. If that was the case, why did the Obama administration, in which Biden was vice-president, continue with the Afghan war after eliminating Bin Laden?

The pullout from Bagram air base, the symbol of US power and pride, in the early hours of the morning of July 2nd without notifying the Afghan commander of what was happening was, both shameful and cowardly. Contrary to Biden’s assurances that the US will remain engaged militarily engaged from afar and continue to provide Afghans with political backing and civilian aid, the Bagram sneak-out demonstrated that the US was no longer committed to Afghanistan. He said as much when he told Afghans it is time to fend for themselves.

They cannot because the legacy of the 20-year US occupation has not prepared the Afghan armed forces and politicians to meet the challenge the Taliban represents. Like the Iraqi army, recruited and trained by the US after its occupation of that country, the Afghan military is no match for dedicated militants who have spent decades fighting. Experts argue Afghan troops have been provided with US weapons they cannot manage and are badly led and poorly paid. Like the post-US occupation Iraqi government, Afghanistan’s rulers are corrupt and have failed to build enduring institutions.

Even the US commander in Afghanistan, General Austin “Scott” Miller, warned last month that the country could descend into civil war.

The Taliban is making gains not only in the south but also in the north, where instead of holding their ground, 1,600 Afghan troops fled into Tajikistan when attacked. Some, reportedly, left their weapons and vehicles behind. The men did not see the point of fighting and dying in a losing war.

As the saying goes, “All politics is local.” Biden clearly is a believer. A survey conducted in late May revealed that 62 per cent of respondents said they approved of the Afghan withdrawal, while 29 per cent did not, and 9 per cent had no opinion (the last lot probably did not know the US was at war in Afghanistan or, even, where the country is located on the globe).