Over the past six months, Michael Doran writes, Iranian operatives have “actively pursued plans to assassinate the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, the former Iran envoy Brian Hook, and the former national security advisor John Bolton.” When, in the course of nuclear negotiations in Vienna, the Biden team asked Iranian diplomats to end these attempts, they refused. Tehran has also directly attacked American forces in Syria, and launched multiple attacks on American allies, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Doran seeks to explain why the Biden administration has consistently played down these and other overt provocations.

The obvious answer is that the White House does not want to do anything to slow down or derail its effort to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the nuclear deal is formally known. The Biden administration operates within the lines that President Obama drew when he first sold the Iran deal. “There really are only two alternatives here: either Iran getting a nuclear weapon is resolved diplomatically through negotiation,” Obama said. “Or it is resolved through force, through war.”

But even the most cursory examination of the deal reveals that it resolves nothing. On the contrary, it permits Tehran to keep everything it needs to build a nuclear bomb, even including, for example, the secure bunker dug deep under a mountain near Fordow. Designed to shield Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities from attack, Fordow’s sole purpose is military in nature. We know this with certainty thanks to the nuclear archive that the Israelis captured in a Tehran warehouse in 2018. What’s more, the deal permits Tehran to make advances in its weapons program—by, for example, developing advanced centrifuges—even while its nuclear activities are still formally under international restrictions.

The upshot is this: by 2031, under the terms of this supposedly excellent deal, Iran will have a major, unfettered nuclear-weapons program. . . . So again, we must ask: why? Why is America making moves that seem nothing less than appeasement? What makes the Biden team so eager to cut a deal that guarantees a nuclear Iran? Why has the White House placed Moscow in the catbird seat in these negotiations? Why is it treating China as a key partner in the deal, even as China openly proclaims its intention to overturn the American-led world order? And why has Biden entirely excluded traditional allies, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, from the negotiations?

Last Sunday marked the eighth anniversary of a Saudi-led alliance’s intervention in the Yemeni civil war, intended to defeat the Iran-backed Houthi militia that had overthrown the previous government. In the wake of the rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, diplomats are hoping that the talks between the Saudis and the Houthis—which have been ongoing since last summer—will finally succeed in ending the war. To Nadwa Al-Dawsari, such an outcome seems highly unlikely:

The Houthis’ military gains have allowed them to dictate the path of international diplomacy in Yemen. They know Saudi Arabia is desperate to extricate itself and the international community wants the Yemen problem to go away. They do not recognize and refuse to negotiate with the [Riyadh-supported] Presidential Leadership Council or other Yemeni factions that they cast as “Saudi mercenaries.”

Indeed, even as the Houthis were making progress in talks with the Saudis, the rebel group continued to expand its recruitment, mobilization, and stockpiling of arms during last year’s truce as Iran significantly increased its weapons shipments. The group also carried out a series of attacks. . . . On March 23, the Houthis conducted a military drill close to the Saudi border to remind the Saudis of “the cost of no agreement and further concessions.”

The Houthis are still part and parcel of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance.” With the Houthis gaining international political recognition, . . . Iran will have a greater chance to expand its influence in Yemen with the blessing of Western powers. The international community is eager for a “success story” in Yemen, even if that means a sham political settlement that will likely see the civil war continue. A deal with the Houthis is Saudi Arabia’s desperate plea to wash its hands of Yemen, but in the long term it could very well position Iran to threaten regional and international security. More importantly, it might set Yemen on a course of protracted conflict that will create vast ungoverned spaces.

Meanwhile, tensions in Yemen between Saudi Arabia and its ostensible ally, the United Arab Emirates, are rising, while the Houthis are developing the capability to launch missiles at Israel or to block a crucial Middle Eastern maritime chokepoint in the Red Sea.