How can Biden embrace Iran while condemning Russia?

As America prepares to reenter a nuclear agreement with Iran, pundits for and against the original deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) are weighing in. But what has escaped many journalists’ attention, some of whom appear to act as cheerleaders for a new nuclear agreement, is a glaring contradiction: President Biden has rightly expressed outrage at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine, but he wants to legitimize and enable Iran’s terrorism by offering sanctions relief as an economic lifeline. 

While the West is consumed by the horrific war crimes committed by Putin, journalists have been mostly silent on Biden’s desire to legitimize one of the world’s most prolific human rights abusers and exporters of terrorism. And they’re quiet about how much money Russia might receive if a new deal is completed with Iran. 

During the Syrian civil war, the Obama administration chose inaction even in the face of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians during the genocide that Iran actively supported. At the time, the Washington Institute’s counterterrorism expert, Matthew Levitt, pointed out: “Tehran is actively supporting the Assad government’s targeting of the civilian population and around the world, where Iranian agents and proxy groups like Hezbollah are targeting diplomats and civilians alike for assassination.”

Why do we play realpolitik with the Supreme Leader of Iran and take offense at Putin’s war crimes? Putin has nuclear weapons that have allowed him to threaten the West. But that is precisely what the Biden administration may do with Iran — put weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — if it removes the IRGC’s designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

The U.S. has designated Iran as a State Sponsor of Terrorism since 1984 and spells out Iran’s terrorism-related activity in the State Department’s 2020 Country Report on Iran. This activity includes activity in Europe: “In past years, the Iranian government continued supporting terrorist plots or associated activities targeting Iranian dissidents in Europe.”  

Biden’s fixation on empowering Iran to be a regional hegemon, at the expense of America’s most important regional allies, makes the president’s moralizing on Ukraine feel disingenuous.

As Orde Kittrie, writing in National Interest, says: “Lifting sanctions on Iranian human rights abusers and terrorism sponsors would send a dangerous message of impunity to Vladimir Putin and his henchmen at a time when they are committing war crimes in Ukraine. Such a decision is contrary to America’s values, would wrongly abandon the Islamic Republic’s many victims — and would also weaken deterrence against future abuses in Iran.”  

A leaked IRGC document — published in February by a hacker group and said to be minutes from a 2021 meeting — shows the effectiveness of the sanctions regime against Iran, if true. The document says officials feared Iranian society was in a “state of explosion” and that social discontent “has risen by 300 percent in a year”; inflation was out of control; the public had lost faith in President Ebrahim Raisi; and there were hundreds of protests against the regime.

America’s place is not on the side of the hardline Islamists leading Iran, who repeatedly say they want to eliminate Israel. Iran’s stated desire to overthrow our Gulf allies, whom we need for our security, is perhaps underappreciated by the Biden administration.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been unwilling to increase fossil fuel shipments to replace Russia’s sanctioned oil and gas. But it is short-sighted of Biden to turn to Iran, a dangerous adversary, for oil.

Again, if Biden is outraged by Putin’s human rights abuses and war crimes, why is he willing to accommodate the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism? Are we saying that we have a double standard — that we expect more decent behavior from Russia than we do from Iran?

Dr. Eric R. Mandel is the director of MEPIN, the Middle East Political Information Network. He regularly briefs members of Congress and their foreign policy aides. He is the senior security editor for the Jerusalem Report/ Jerusalem Post. Follow him on Twitter @MepinOrg.