How Biden Is to Blame for Israel and the U.S.’s 12-Day War Against Iran

President Joe Biden meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on July in Washington Photo Andrew Harnik Getty Images Almost exactly years ago as the U S was the cusp of sealing a historic agreement to curb Iran s nuclear initiative Barack Obama offered a warning to those who were working to tank the accord Let s not mince words The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy and selected form of war maybe not the next morning maybe not three months from now but soon Obama struck the deal in but less than three years later during President Donald Trump s first term the U S unilaterally violated the agreement After a short time the deal was dead Then came the war Obama had predicted This month Israel unleashed barrages of missiles bombs and drone attacks against Iranian military installations nuclear facilities and residential neighborhoods Iran undertook retaliatory strikes at Israel It would be easy to lay the blame this war almost entirely on Trump and Netanyahu The U S after an apparent feint at diplomacy then entered the fray making a massive bombing run against Iranian nuclear facilities and raising the specter of an all-out regional conflict or worse a world war Thankfully U S involvement was limited and after days of exchanges Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire Related Netanyahu and Trump Are Trying to Have It All It would be easy to lay the blame this war almost entirely on Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu For decades Netanyahu has sought to ensnarl the U S in a direct war with Iran and in Trump he seemed to have uncovered one just as Trump acquiesced to Netanyahu s catastrophic demand that the U S tear up Obama s Iran deal While this is indeed true it risks letting off the hook the people who could have restored Obama s nuclear deal with Iran and helped avoid this new nightmare scenario Specific blame for the war for the dead civilians and for the instability wrought on the lives of people in the Middle East belongs to President Joe Biden Biden who served as Obama s own vice president squandered the chance to correct program and avert the predicament unfolding the present day Blown Opportunity When Biden came into office in he had a laundry list of Trump excesses that he pledged to undo in his effort to restore normalcy He made good on a few of those promises ending policies like the trip ban and returning to the Paris atmosphere accord with the stroke of a pen on day one of his presidency Biden s commitment to return to the Iran nuclear deal his advisers noted would be more complicated The new president and his group suggested that a precondition for a U S return would be for Iran to address moves it had taken to expand its nuclear work in retaliation for the U S violating the accord rather than the U S merely restoring its own compliance with the obligations it had violated This prompted weeks of back and forth and took time off the negotiations clock that neither party could afford The delay didn t only affect prospects for a deal itself but had a wider effect on regional politics Several observers thought the new administration understood the need to move swiftly to restore the deal before rapidly approaching Iranian presidential elections that summer The elections could return hard-liners who had vigorously opposed the nuclear deal back into power Understanding as much Biden was sure to seize the initiative and wouldn t fall for the advice of those arguing the president should use Trump s leverage to force a better deal Surely Biden wouldn t bide his time and allow opponents of the deal to tie his hands Rather than urgently restore U S commitments under the agreement however Biden ordered that his advisers keep the Middle East off his desk as he focused on his domestic agenda Advisers like Brett McGurk who has been advocating for and celebrating America s entry into Israel s war on Iran on CNN over the past two weeks dutifully complied Negotiations started but they were circular undermined by congressional hawks and Israeli sabotage including a Israeli attack on Iran s Natanz nuclear facility just as negotiations were in the end getting underway Ultimately Biden s gang missed the window for a deal Ultimately Biden s association missed the window for a deal before a harsh critic of the original nuclear agreement was sworn in as Iran s president Iran s nuclear initiative advanced by leaps and strides with Iran becoming capable of producing enough enriched material for a nuclear weapon in a matter of weeks By the end of Biden s term his advisers were not debating a diplomatic remedy to the nuclear issue but rather were debating their own military strikes on Iran to set back its operation Related Proud Papa How Joe Biden Became the Father of the Iranian Nuclear Bomb The nuclear dilemma imminently resolvable under Biden was instead made worse throughout his term in office and then handed to Trump who acted wisely at first in engaging in nuclear negotiations with Iran but eventually caved to Netanyahu Now hundreds of innocent people have been killed destruction has been wrought in Israel and Iran and we are much worse off in terms of Iran s capabilities and intentions than we were years ago One Way to Limit Iran Time will tell if Trump will embrace the diplomacy-first leadership he briefly demonstrated earlier this year or if he will hew closer to Biden s feckless deference to Netanyahu The latter subject brings tremendous risks like dragging the U S into an endless campaign of sending in more and more bombers to mow the lawn in Iran because the diplomatic options like Obama s deal have been left in tatters At the time of his nuclear deal Obama was attacked by hawks for kicking the can down the road because it merely set back Iran s nuclear capabilities by years Related Who s the Real Bully of the Middle East Flash forward to at present and those same figures are cheering for Trump s military strikes on Iran as selected decisive accomplishment even though most of estimates say Israel and America s -day campaign only set Iran s nuclear project back by as little as a month And unlike Obama s deal that imposed permanent restrictions and intrusive inspections over every element of Iran s enrichment operation Trump administration functionaries including Vice President JD Vance acknowledge that the bombing did not eliminate Iran s nuclear activity but did drive Iran to move its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to a secret location The lessons here are clear Obama was borne out The only demonstrable way to concretely limit Iran s nuclear effort is through diplomacy To fail at striking a deal is to danger war possibly another disastrous American war in the Middle East We should hold everyone to account whose limited imaginations whose inability to take needed measures in the face of pro-Israel pressure prevented a nuclear deal If we are to learn the lessons of this -day war that list must include Joe 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