Joe Biden Loves Israel — and His Nuclear Deal with Iran Abandons It

P resident Biden (age 80) is perhaps the last Democrat to make it to the top in the generation that sort of loved Israel. Bill Clinton (age 76) was in this group; you could argue the same about Nancy Pelosi (83) and Steny Hoyer (84). They were raised in the 1940s and 1950s; they lived through the wars of 1956, 1967, and 1973; they watched Yasser Arafat lead terrorist attacks and say no to every offer of peace.

Biden’s line during the 2021 clashes between Israel and Hamas was typical: “There is no shift in my commitment . . . to the security of Israel, period.” Receiving the Israeli Presidential Medal of Honor in 2022, he said “as long as we’re the United States, you will never, ever be alone” and “I can say without hesitation that being known as a friend of Israel and receiving this award today is among the greatest honors of my career. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”

I think he did.

And that’s what makes the abandonment of Israel (and other allies) in Biden’s pending new deal with Iran so striking.

The new arrangement (an informal one — so the administration can argue that congressional approval is not needed), as described in the press, is this: Iran says it will stop trying to kill American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, will release the American hostages it holds, and will limit uranium enrichment to 60 percent. In exchange, the United States will unfreeze between $15 billion and $20 billion, and will continue to allow Iran to export oil despite U.S. sanctions that forbid it. It’s worth remembering that when Trump left office in January 2021, Iran’s accessible reserves were down to about $4 billion. Today, they are ten or 20 times that — the proceeds mostly of oil sales that the Biden administration allowed by failing to enforce U.S. sanctions.

It is fair to say that the United States is paying Iran to stop taking American hostages and trying to kill Americans, an amazing response by a superpower to violent and unlawful actions by a vulnerable middle power. As to the 60 percent enrichment level, that will put Iran well on the road to enriching uranium to weapons grade — and the enrichment to 60 percent has no other possible purpose.

Here is what General Jacob Nagel, Israel’s former national-security adviser, wrote about this arrangement:

The understandings allow Iran to continue enriching its uranium to 60% purity without increasing the accumulated amount. The meaning is a de facto approval for Iran’s enrichment to that level.

The agreement will legitimize all previous Iranian violations and allow Iran to retain the assets obtained through the ongoing violation of all agreements and treaties it has signed while injecting billions of dollars to revitalize the economy. It will also enable Quds Force’s continued support of terrorism in the Middle East and around the world. . . .

Iran will also secretly continue to develop weaponization capabilities, which is what really separates it from having nuclear capacity, while its true status continues to be largely hidden.

The deal seems aimed at protecting the United States in part and the Biden administration in part. If Iran keeps its promises for a while, American soldiers in Syria and Iraq, and American visitors to Iran, will temporarily be safer. Of course, the Trump administration got several hostages out of Iran without paying a cent. And the United States froze the Iranian nuclear program in 2003 when it attacked Iraq — and Iran bowed before superior military force. It is fair to ask whether Americans, and the United States, are really safer when our response to hostage taking, murderous attacks on American service members, and nuclear blackmail is to pay more money.

Above all, under this apparent agreement, President Biden will be safer — from having to confront, before the 2024 U.S. election, an Iran steadily moving toward nuclear weapons. He has bought time for himself.

But in doing so, he has abandoned Israel and all other American friends in the region who are vulnerable to Iran. The deal contains no limits whatsoever on Iran’s continuing missile program. It contains no limits on conventional arms sales to and by Iran. It contains no limits on Iran’s supplies of arms and cash to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) — and in fact, PIJ’s leaders were visiting Tehran on June 16. And of course, the deal infuses the ayatollah’s regime with cash only months after it brutally repressed an uprising by the Iranian people.

It’s very clear that Iran has under way a strategy of encircling Israel by establishing and arming proxy groups in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria. This deal contains no constraints on this Iranian strategy — and provides Iran with billions of dollars with which to implement it.

From the Israeli perspective, this deal shows an American government anxious to exit the Middle East and willing to see the threats to American friends and allies there increased. Iran will have more cash to give the terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank who are attacking Israel every day, and to Hezbollah so that its immense arsenal can grow further. The deal proposes no restraint on Iran’s actions against Israel or anyone else except the small detachments of Americans in the region and the small number of Americans foolish enough to enter Iran.

The agreement also makes it harder for Israel to strike at Iran’s growing nuclear program, because the administration will now argue that with enrichment capped at 60 percent, there’s no imminent danger. Iran, meanwhile, can improve its enrichment capabilities, upgrade its centrifuges, and continue secret work on a warhead.

All of this reflects the Biden administration’s — and over many years, America’s — unwillingness to confront Iran over behavior that has for decades included killing Americans. One can think of other possible responses to the taking of hostages, ranging all the way back to “millions for defense but not one cent for tribute” in 1797. This time, it looks like up to $20 billion for tribute. One can think of a different response to the efforts to kill American soldiers, such as threatening or striking Iran for such conduct until it ceases. And one can believe that a sufficient military deterrent would stop Iran from producing a nuclear weapon — if the Iranian regime believed the United States actually meant what several consecutive presidents (including Joe Biden) have said about preventing Iran from having one.

President Biden, who in his way is a strong supporter of Israel, wishes once again to go down the path blazed in the JCPOA in 2015 — and opposed by Israelis of the Left and the Right in a great show of unity. That path pays Iran billions to slow down its nuclear program for a few years while allowing it to wreak havoc in the entire Middle East. It was a poor bargain in 2015 and is an even poorer one in 2023.