In an interview with an Israeli journalist just before his trip to the Middle East, President Biden said that he would, “as a last resort,” use military force to stop Iran from producing nuclear weapons. Matthew Continetti comments:
An air and naval campaign to destroy the nuclear sites known to Western intelligence and to degrade the Islamic Republic’s capacity to retaliate is the best means of delaying and potentially foreclosing the possibility of an Iranian bomb. The objective of such an operation wouldn’t be regime change. The goal would be prevention. Israel and the Gulf States would support us. And Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping would pay attention. They would be put on notice: the American president means what he says.
But, Continetti fears, he doesn’t:
Biden acknowledged the possibility of a military strike only when Israeli media forced him to. . . . Indirect talks between the United States and Iran, mediated by Europe and by, incredibly, Russia, have lasted for over a year. They’ve gone nowhere. Worse than nowhere: Iran’s nuclear “breakout” time is now zero. Last month Iran turned off the cameras that the International Atomic Energy Agency uses to monitor its disclosed nuclear facilities. The cameras remain dark. The Iran crisis is here, but President Biden acts as if it hasn’t yet arrived.
The zombie negotiations in Vienna—with endless talks despite longstanding impasses over the status of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and whether Biden’s successor will have the power to scuttle the arrangement (which of course he will)—have become an end in themselves. Nor is there reason to expect the administration to cut them off so long as Iran doesn’t make too much trouble. Especially when Biden would like to bring Iranian oil back on the market.
Should Israel and America’s Middle East partners take him seriously? Look at his actions rather than his words. And if he fails to act, others should.
Read more on Washington Free Beacon: https://freebeacon.com/columns/why-should-we-believe-biden/