This week, the Biden administration supported a censure against Iran for its lack of cooperation with United Nations nuclear investigators seeking transparency about the country’s nuclear program. In response, Iran removed 27 cameras monitoring from four nuclear sites. In addition, “Iran plans to install more advanced nuclear centrifuges in an underground facility,” as the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board put it. These developments indicate the increased nuclearization of the Iranian regime, which poses grave dangers to America and its allies in the Middle East.
Despite these developments, the Biden administration is still pursuing a revival of the 2015 nuclear agreement — also known as the Iran Deal — made under the Obama administration. That deal was intended to ease economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for the cooperation of the Iranian government in dismantling its nuclear programs. However, Iran’s government has refused to cooperate. Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi said, “In the name of God and the great nation of Iran, we will not back off a single step from our positions.” The escalation from the Iranian regime makes an Iran deal more and more unappealing for the United States and its allies. The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency stated that the nuclear agreement would suffer significantly because the IAEA agency would be unable to assess the development status of Iran’s nuclear program. Yet the Biden administration remains adamant about reaching a deal with Iran, even under these new circumstances. White House national-security adviser Jake Sullivan stated that the developments with the IAEA and the revival of the Iran nuclear agreement were “separate tracks.”
If the Biden administration decides to continue to pursue a nuclear agreement despite these antagonistic actions from Iran, it would be a serious mistake. The 2015 nuclear agreement was flawed because it did not address Iran’s ballistic-missile program or its state-sponsored support for terrorism. As a result, the 2015 Iran deal was criticized for those deficiencies, especially since they threatened American allies in the region such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. An Iran deal today would be catastrophically unacceptable because it would have less surveillance and assurances of denuclearization within Iran and retain the negative aspects of the 2015 Iran deal. The U.S. should seek an agreement that is fair and beneficial for America and its allies, instead of pursuing a deal at any cost. If the most suitable arrangement is not accepted, the U.S. should abandon the Iran Deal and assume a more hostile approach to the nation.