While the Biden administration has made clear that it wants to negotiate a return to the 2015 nuclear agreement with the Islamic Republic—while also speaking of seeking a “longer and stronger deal”—there is no guarantee that Tehran will cooperate. In fact, Elliott Abrams writes, the chances that the deal will be resurrected have grown steadily slimmer in the past few months. But the White House has not yet said what its back-up plan is, or given any indication that it has one. Abrams has some suggestions:
With Iran violating the [nuclear agreement] more and more aggressively despite Biden’s pleas, step one should be maintaining all the Trump-era sanctions, indefinitely. . . . [T]here is no defense for lifting any sanctions while Iran violates the [deal] and continues to support terrorism throughout the Middle East—and even in the United States.
There is a [another] logical step as well: getting serious about Iranian military activity. If Iran is going to continue its recent behavior—building toward a nuclear weapon, leading Shiite militias in Iraq to attack Americans there, engaging in terrorist activities—the United States should respond more directly. President Biden should say what President Obama did about Iranian nukes: that “all elements of American power” will be used to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
The United States should also begin better planning with Israel in view of the potential need, at some future date, to act against Iran’s nuclear program before it creates a weapon. As to terrorism, the president should tell Iran clearly . . . that if an American is killed by a Shiite militia in Iraq linked to and armed by Iran, the United States will respond against Iran—not against some proxy group in Iraq. And he should state clearly that an Iranian-backed terrorist attack in the United States will result in direct consequences for Iran itself.
Read more on National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/biden-needs-a-plan-b-for-the-iran-talks/