Blinken Hailed the Biden Admin’s ‘Clear-Eyed’ Approach to Iran in Op-Ed Ahead of Missile Attack

Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended the Biden administration’s policy toward Iran as a major success in an essay published today, just before the Islamist regime’s missile attack against Israel, hailing the White House’s handling of foreign policy more generally.

“The Biden administration’s strategy has put the United States in a much stronger geopolitical position today than it was four years ago,” wrote Blinken, in an essay for the November issue of Foreign Affairs magazine.

Blinken’s piece makes the case that the White House’s foreign-policy decisions, and domestic investments in infrastructure and high-tech industries, put America in a stronger position to face challenges brought by revisionist powers — namely Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China.

Blinken stated in the essay that the administration was “clear-eyed” on its approaches to Iran and North Korea and that it “increased diplomatic pressure and strengthened the U.S. military’s force posture to deter and constrain Tehran and Pyongyang.” He called the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement “unilateral and misguided,” adding that it “freed Tehran’s nuclear program from its confinement, undermining the security of the United States and its partners.”

Of the Biden team’s outreach to Tehran, Blinken wrote: “We demonstrated to Iran that there was a path back to a mutual return to compliance — if Iran was willing to take it — while maintaining a robust sanctions regime and our commitment that Iran will never be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon.”

His characterization of the administration’s foreign policy as a success ahead of the missile attack today recalls an essay that national-security adviser Jake Sullivan wrote for Foreign Affairs last October, calling the region “quieter than it has been for decades.”

Soon after Blinken’s essay was published online today, Iran fired approximately 180 ballistic missiles at Israel — a move that conservative foreign-policy experts say was enabled by Obama-Biden-era decisions to pursue diplomatic agreements with Iran over its nuclear program and failures to address its development of ballistic missiles. Many, though not all, of the missiles were intercepted. While there were few casualties, a Palestinian man was killed by falling debris in the West Bank. Also, one of the missiles landed on the grounds of a school in central Israel, the New York Times reported.

After the attack today, Blinken and other top administration officials said that it was successfully “defeated” by Israel, with the support of the U.S. and other partners.