During the last four years since the Biden-Harris administration assumed office, the world has been marked by escalating global crises. One of the most significant has been the war against Israel, in which, a year ago, on October 7, 2023, Hamas, a proxy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, launched a brutal attack on Israel. The assault consisted of massacres, rapes, torture, beheadings, burnings-alive, kidnapping and other crimes against humanity.
Possibly emboldened by the perceived weakness of the US, since its surrender to the Taliban in Afghanistan in August 2021, and its constant appeasement of China, Iran, for the first time, took direct military action on April 13, 2024 by launching hundreds of attack drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles at Israel.
Iran's relentless escalation did not stop there. Its other proxies, including Hezbollah and the Houthis, also stepped up their hostilities, not only against Israel but also against the United States. Since last October, they have attacked US troops in the region more than 160 times and effectively blocked most commercial shipping in the Red Sea. These moves have massively destabilized the region -- all with virtually no adverse consequences for Iran.
The permissive environment created for Iran by the Biden administration's foreign policy of not just granting it impunity, but actually funding it through sanctions waivers and direct payments, appears to have financed the Iranian regime into acting with increasing aggression.
Iran's regime, apparently seeing the lack of a strong international response to its belligerence -- until Israel took charge last week -- has also been accelerating its nuclear weapons program. In spite of this flamboyant threat to global security, the regime can see that there have also been no significant consequences for its nuclear weapons ambitions. The region might soon see a nuclear-armed Iran, which can only spark an arms race that will further destabilize the Middle East.
Russia, another key player, invaded Ukraine with little resistance from the US and its allies, resulting in a brutal war that has devastated Ukraine. Iran's military support for Russia, including the supply of advanced weaponry such as attack drones and missiles, has played a crucial role in helping Russia sustain its war on Ukraine.
The new "axis of evil"-- the alliance between Russia, China and Iran -- has clearly grown stronger under the Biden-Harris administration and has been seeking new frontiers throughout Africa. Most recently, Iran has been trying to establish a major foothold in Sudan's largest coastal city, Port Sudan, from which it could conveniently fire at Israel and continue to block virtually all shipping in the Red Sea.
US Senator Lindsey Graham recently called the Biden administration a "disaster on the world stage" and expressed grave concerns about the current state of international affairs:
"I've never been more worried about a nuclear breakout by Iran than I am right now. I've never been more worried about another 9/11 against America than I am right now. The withdrawal from Afghanistan put every jihadist on steroids. We have a broken border. There are more terrorists in our country than any time I can remember associated with terrorism. So 9/11 – We're just living on borrowed time here at home... The entire world is on fire and Harris's fingerprints are all over this."
There is no question that the lethal Iranian regime, which the Biden administration had been bribing with lifting sanctions; dangerous, precedent-setting payments for hostages, and a refusal to hold endless malignant activity to account, has repaid America by attacking US troops in the region and is still, though its proxy, the Houthis, firing on US warships in the Red Sea. Worse, US funding has only helped Iran's regime to finance these wars, just as its hobbling of US oil exploration and production contributed to the trebling of the price of oil -- from roughly $42 a barrel in 2020, past $120 in 2022 – that helped Russia to finance its invasion of Ukraine. The US administration, has, in fact, been funding both sides of two wars: Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and Iran and its proxies' attacks on Israel.
This week, just as Israel, in of one of the most breathtaking campaigns in military history, sent the terror-master regime of Iran on the defensive, the US administration is calling -- now -- for a ceasefire. "I'm comfortable with them [the Israelis] stopping," President Joe Biden told reporters in on September 30. "We should have a ceasefire now."
The Biden administration's shaping of US foreign policy had led the world into a state of unprecedented instability. There are conflicts raging in the Middle East and Eastern Europe; China is threatening the Philippines, Japan and Taiwan, and we all are facing the looming threat of Iranian nuclear weapons. The trajectory of the Biden administration's foreign policy is not hard to see.
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
Sandra Smith