Russia-Ukraine Conflict: Iran Nuclear Talks Distracted U.S.

As Vladimir Putin’s tanks rolled into eastern Ukraine, the Biden administration was once again caught flat-footed. Its first year in office has been filled with unpleasant surprises, from the collapse of the government of Afghanistan to skyrocketing inflation to the stubborn refusal of Yemen’s Houthis to stop behaving like terrorists — even though they were removed from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs). But Putin’s plans for Ukraine were hardly a secret — the Russian strongman has given speeches about his view that Ukraine is part of Russia, written papers on the topic, and has been systematically assembling men and materiel on Ukraine’s borders for months. So how could the administration be so surprised when the invasion actually happened that they spent the first 24 hours debating the technical meaning of the word “invasion”?

The answer to this question may be found some 800 miles west of Ukraine, in the Austrian capital of Vienna, where the negotiations for a new nuclear deal with Iran are taking place. Reviving the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) abandoned by President Trump in 2018 has been a top priority for the Biden administration, which hastened back to the negotiating table in March of their first year in office.

About the Author

Victoria Coates

Victoria Coates is vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy.

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As Vladimir Putin’s tanks rolled into eastern Ukraine, the Biden administration was once again caught flat-footed. Its first year in office has been filled with unpleasant surprises, from the collapse of the government of Afghanistan to skyrocketing inflation to the stubborn refusal of Yemen’s Houthis to stop behaving like terrorists — even though they were removed from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs). But Putin’s plans for Ukraine were hardly a secret — the Russian strongman has given speeches about his view that Ukraine is part of Russia, written papers on the topic, and has been systematically assembling men and materiel on Ukraine’s borders for months. So how could the administration be so surprised when the invasion actually happened that they spent the first 24 hours debating the technical meaning of the word “invasion”?

The answer to this question may be found some 800 miles west of Ukraine, in the Austrian capital of Vienna, where the negotiations for a new nuclear deal with Iran are taking place. Reviving the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) abandoned by President Trump in 2018 has been a top priority for the Biden administration, which hastened back to the negotiating table in March of their first year in office.