Why does Biden want to get back into a bad deal with Iran

 The Hill:

Which is more important to President Biden, rejoining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or strengthening the Abraham Accords between Israel and its Arab neighbors? There should be little doubt that Biden has shown he prioritizes the Iran nuclear agreement. But does that mean the death knell for the two-year-old Abraham Accords if the Iranians finally say yes to the American offer after the U.S. midterm elections?

Despite the protests for regime change running rampant through the Islamic Republic, the Biden administration has signaled to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that it desires a return to the JCPOA — no matter what Iran’s “morality police” may do to their citizens. Although it is not a binary choice, a Biden foreign policy triumph with a return to the nuclear agreement would profoundly affect the sustainability of the groundbreaking Abraham Accords.

The impetus for the Accords in 2020 was mainly the threat of an expansionist Iran. However, America’s return to the nuclear deal without considering Iran’s aggressive behavior, or its breaches of the JCPOA since 2015, undermines the Abraham Accord signatories’ trust in America and the sustainability of that agreement.

One way to understand the relationship between the JCPOA and the Abraham Accords is through the prism of American politics. The Biden administration sees a return to the JCPOA as indispensable for Middle East stability. Yet, the bipartisan U.S. Senate Abraham Caucus co-chair, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), called the Accords — not the JCPOA — the “most significant peace agreement of the 21st century.”

Except for the Iranians and Palestinians, most people welcomed the Abraham Accords as a substantial development. However, many in Congress, including members of the president’s party, see an Iran nuclear deal as the ultimate force for securing regional stability.

According to Ben Weinthal, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “there are question marks over whether the Biden administration’s overtures to Tehran are now encouraging the demise of the accords. … Are Sunni Arab nations hedging their bets and engaging in a rapprochement with Tehran, leading to a deterioration of the normalization process?” In fear of a potential (nuclear) deal, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently sent their ambassador back to Iran after a six-year hiatus to appease the ayatollah.

Although technically unrelated, the success or failure of the Iran deal and the Abraham Accords is interconnected. The ascendency of one agreement may mean the withering of the other. The Biden administration has tried to have it both ways. In March 2022, Secretary of State Antony Blinken joined six Arab foreign ministers for a summit in the Negev, providing a public display of support for the Abraham Accords.
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A deal with the genocidal religious bigots in Iran is idiotic and a threat to US allies in the region.  It does nothing to secure Middle East Peace and makes war more likely.  That it is even being considered tells us something about Biden's incompetence.

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