Biden’s Pinky-Promise Diplomacy 

I n the latest shameful concession by the Biden administration, U.S. envoy for Iran Robert Malley offered to delist the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization in exchange for a public commitment to not contribute to regional escalation. Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terror and uses the IRGC to train, equip, and enable its proxies and partners. According to the State Department (Malley’s employer) in 2020, the IRGC supported terrorism globally:

Globally, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force remained the primary Iranian actors involved in supporting terrorist recruitment, financing, and plots across Europe, Africa, and Asia, and both Americas.

And yet, Malley is willing to accept a pinky promise that the IRGC will be on its very best behavior. Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told National Review that “a public commitment to de-escalation has absolutely no legal meaning whatsoever.” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, shared a similar view: “An agreement predicated on the promise of the IRGC, the engine of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs as well as the long arm of Tehran’s terror apparatus, changing its behavior for the better after being sanctions free and flush with cash would not be worth the paper it’s written on.”

Taleblu noted that even if Iran made a pledge to good behavior, they’d disguise their funding of terrorism as support for “liberation or freedom or national-defense-seeking movements.” “We’ve seen this movie before from Tehran in the illicit finance space,” said Taleblu. Indeed, in 2018, the Iranian parliament passed a bill that excluded “struggles against colonial dominance and foreign occupation” from its definition of terrorism. This was a play to legitimize continued support of Hezbollah and Hamas as Tehran sought delisting from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) list of states involved in money-laundering and the sponsorship of terrorism.

Malley’s baseless request not only lacks credibility but will amount to a self-inflicted wound to U.S. foreign policy, according to Rubin. “Rather than build confidence that the White House wants to do the right thing, this leak shreds it,” he said.

This concession is yet another sign of weakness underscoring Biden’s desperation to fulfill his political promise to reinstate the JCPOA, even if it means utter capitulation to a terrorist organization. To make matters worse, Biden’s iteration of the JCPOA would be significantly weaker than Obama’s already flimsy agreement.

Malley’s proposal is merely a political tactic to cover the Biden administration’s behind; they know full well that the IRGC will continue to sponsor terrorism. In fact, under the terms of the new deal, Iran could be flooded with up to $130.5 billion dollars in sanctions relief that will immediately flow to its destabilizing proxies, including the likes of Hezbollah and Hamas.

This kind of pinky-promise diplomacy is not new to the Biden administration; they’ve been excusing shameful negotiations with murderous regimes by insisting they will produce “public commitments” and “concrete steps” to better behavior. In Venezuela, for instance, Biden is pursuing some kind of commitment from the murderous Maduro administration over American energy independence. This week, national-security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the Biden administration will only provide sanctions relief “tied to concrete steps that Maduro and the people around him take.” The Biden administration has been courting Venezuela’s socialist dictator (whom the U.S. does not even recognize as Venezuela’s legitimate leader) for oil amid a global shortage.

But in the case of the IRGC, Malley isn’t even asking for concrete steps; he’d be happy with a “public commitment.” Iran, fully aware of the Biden administration’s desperation to victoriously claim a return to the Iran deal, won’t even give Malley the pinky promise. Axios reported that two American sources and one Israeli source confirmed that, instead of a public commitment, Iran “suggested giving the U.S. a private side letter.”

Israel, meanwhile, is starting to voice disbelief at the Biden administration. Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid issued a joint statement, saying they have a “hard time believing that the United States will remove [the IRGC] from the definition of a terrorist organization” and “believe that the United States will not abandon its closest allies in exchange for empty promises from terrorists.”

I lament to inform our Israeli allies that “empty promises” are, indeed, quite enough for the Biden administration.