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Biden Should Be in No Hurry to Change Iran Policy

(Real Clear World) Xiyue Wang - If President-elect Biden truly wants to return to diplomacy, reverse the trajectory of Iran's nuclear program, and achieve the best possible outcome for the U.S., ordinary Iranians, and the broader Middle East, he should understand that time is not on Iran's side. The regime is unstable and the national currency is in a free-fall. Much of the region stands united against the ayatollahs. The U.S. can afford to wait, and it can use Iran's own bargaining style to advance its interests by pushing Iranian leaders to make the first move. It is wrong to suggest that the maximum pressure policy has been a boon to Tehran. Within weeks of the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, Iran's currency had lost half its value, and Iran's economy sank. It is true that Iran's leaders have survived in the short term. The long-term outlook, however, is very different. Iranian leaders bet that the more congenial Joe Biden would reverse sanctions and allow them to avoid a choice between a change of policy or the country's collapse, avoiding any serious dialogue with the Trump administration or concessions on the troubling sunset clauses of the deal. They believed the president-elect would best ensure their regime's survival without requiring key compromises. True strategic diplomacy requires silence and distance at times. If Biden simply decides that he should stand aloof and wait for the Iranians to act first, he might find that the regime's ability to withstand maximum pressure is incredibly short, and the diplomatic options then open to him would be far greater than even he or his aides now imagine. The writer, a Ph.D. candidate in history at Princeton University and an incoming fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was imprisoned in Iran from August 7, 2016, to December 7, 2019.
2020-12-10 00:00:00
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