By Richard Hanania
Last week, the Biden administration bombed Iranian-backed militias in Syria. This follows an announcement last month that NATO defense ministers had agreed to increase the number of military personnel in Iraq from 500 to 4,000 troops. These are bad signs of an escalation in Syria and Iraq by the Biden administration, a policy that could not only bog American forces down in another quagmire — as demonstrated by regular rocket attacks on U.S. installations — but also hinder attempts at restarting diplomacy with Iran, a major priority of the new administration.
On Iran, the chasm between the Obama and Trump administrations was greater than perhaps any other foreign policy issue. President Trump withdrew from Obama’s crowning diplomatic achievement of his second term, the Iran nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and pursued a “maximum pressure” campaign that seemed to many to be a thinly disguised attempt at regime change.
President Biden has shown a willingness to get Washington back into the original nuclear agreement. However, it would be disastrous if he did so only to see a future administration undo his accomplishments in a similar way. To make sure that the approaching détente with Iran sticks, President Biden needs not only to resist any troop increase spearheaded by NATO, but, on the contrary, to undertake a full withdrawal from Iraq and Syria.
This piece was originally published in Responsible Statecraft on March 5, 2021. Read more HERE.