In spite of strong opposition from the Congress, the Biden administration has been holding secret talks in Oman to reward the ruling mullahs of Iran with a nuclear deal that will pave the way for Iran legally to obtain as many nuclear weapons as it likes, empower the ruling mullahs with billions of dollars, lift sanctions, allow it to rejoin the global financial system and enhance the theocratic regime's legitimacy on the global stage.
The Biden administration also reportedly wants to pump $17 billion dollars into the Iranian regime's treasury. These benefits will not only enable the mullahs' to finalize their nuclear weapons program, but also to send more arms to Russia to attack Ukraine, as well as to further enable the regime's ruthless expansion throughout the Middle East -- in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and the terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip -- and throughout Latin America.
"It is looking ever more likely that the US is stepping up talks to kick-start nuclear talks with Iran despite denials from senior diplomats," Iran International reported.
"Brett McGurk, President Biden's senior Middle East adviser, took a low-profile trip to Oman earlier this month for talks on possible diplomatic outreach to Iran, it seems this is more than 'talks'. Neither the US nor Oman made the visit public, suggesting only something as serious as Iran could have called for such secrecy."
The Biden administration is evidently planning to reward -- or bribe to slow down -- a regime that has been killing Americans and taking hostages for more than four decades. Iran's regime, while the Biden administration was offering it sanctions relief, released a video showing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps blowing up the U.S. Capitol.
Iran recently killed an American contractor with a drone strike, and injured six other US personnel deployed in Syria, and provides weapons and troops to Russia. Even the European Union acknowledged that Iran's regime was "provid[ing] military support for Russia's unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine."
"These cowardly drone strikes are an act of desperation," British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly also noted in a statement. "By enabling these strikes, these individuals and a manufacturer have caused the people of Ukraine untold suffering."
Based on Iran's abysmal track record of complying with its own agreements (here, here, here and here), any deal in which Iran might promise to stop enriching uranium is just a sick joke.
The US, intriguingly, seems hell-bent on supporting a regime that its own Department of State has called the "top state sponsor of terrorism."
In Latin America, for instance, the Iranian regime has been ratcheting up not only its presence there, but also and terror cells throughout Latin America, while using that continent as a sanctuary. During the Biden administration, the regime has also attempted to assassinate US officials, such as the former US National Security Advisor John Bolton and former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on American soil.
The Biden Administration, however, apparently still wants to enable Iran to have a nuclear deal permitting the Iranian regime legitimately to have unlimited nuclear weapons, and continues to see "diplomacy" as the path to appeasing it.
"I continue to believe, Biden said on July 14, "that diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome."
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, "We continue to believe that ultimately diplomacy is the most effective way to deal with this, but that's not where the focus is."
Someone recently replied, "Neville Chamberlain believed that diplomacy was the best way, too."
Dozens of former top U.S. diplomats, May 8, formally called on President Biden to cease all appeasement of Iran:
"Today, we write to urge you and your team to stop all diplomatic overtures toward the Islamic Republic of Iran and instead reimpose the 'maximum pressure' campaign – the only effective policy to protect the American people, the Iranian people, and others in the region and around the world from the Islamic Republic's threats. The United States should never preemptively set the negotiating table with concessions, not least with an adversary with four decades of rhetoric and actions targeting the United States and the American people. The approach of preemptively offering sanctions relief and that trust in the regime is entirely misplaced and reckless given the regime's record of lying about its nuclear program."
The Biden administration, by keeping the American people and the Congress in the dark regarding these ongoing secret negotiations with Iran, appear to understand that is doing something malign. The countries disastrously affected by any "deal" with the Islamist regime of Iran are "only" the US, the Gulf States, Israel, Latin America and Europe. The Biden administration nevertheless appears determined to give the ruling mullahs of Iran the ultimate $17 billion gift: the deadly nuclear deal -- so that Iran will promise not to use their nuclear weapons on this administration's watch.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
w.a. carr