No obstacle will prevent the Biden administration from getting a nuclear deal with Iran, no matter who it helps or hurts in Iran.
Is Iran's theocratic leadership done "pretending" it has democracy with the rigged election of Raisi? Will this be the turning point for the fall of the theocracy? I find the American pretending more significant:
For the United States, Raisi’s election, viewed through the prism of ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran, heightens the Biden administration’s sense of urgency to conclude a deal before an inevitably more rigid Iranian administration is inaugurated on August 8.
As I've long said, the outline of any nuclear deal with Iran is simple: Iran pretends it doesn't want nukes. And America pretends to believe Iran.
Of course, the author of the initial article is part of the problem. The author complains not that Raisi is a butcher and religious fanatic--but that Republicans will "pounce" on that to oppose Iran's butchering theocracy as it seeks regional dominance and nuclear weapons. The latter is the real problem for Biden. FFS.
Still, that author has some sense of reality:
As long as Iran’s security forces remain united and willing to kill en masse, and Iran’s society remains disunited and unwilling to die en masse, the tipping points will continue to tip in the regime’s favor.
If only that understanding could be generalized to appreciate that deals with such a regime are pointless delusions. Rather than being an incentive to hurry to a deal, Iran's election of an open nutball is bad:
Mr Raisi’s election and his subsequent public hardline stance shows the regime’s implacable intent. It appears to see no reason to make peace with its neighbours, to restrict its hegemonic tendencies, to refrain from obstructing the development of nations that have long been tormented by geopolitical ambitions, all for the purpose of projecting its power. [para] The only difference now is that the false mask of diplomatic niceties of the outgoing Iranian administration has also been cast aside.
This is bad for the Biden administration because it will increase the degree of difficulty for Iran's Democratic fanboys (and fangirls) to bribe Iran to accept a new Iran nuclear deal that doesn't stop Iran from going nuclear.
But the Biden team is up to the task with their trademarked Smart Diplomacy:
The lack of an interim agreement between the U.N. nuclear watchdog and Iran on the monitoring of atomic activities is a serious concern that has been communicated to Tehran, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday.
Claiming the IAEA is the key to a deal subcontracts responsibility for inevitable failure to an amorphous international entity rather than putting it squarely on Biden (and Obama before him).
Behold how well IAEA inspections thwarted Iran when there was an agreement on monitoring.
Have a super sparkly day.
