President Joe Biden’s receiving praise from an unlikely source — the son-in-law of former President Donald Trump.
Jared Kushner, who served as a senior adviser to Trump, noted in The Wall Street Journal op-ed published on Sunday that Biden is “rightly” making China a foreign policy priority.
However, he cautioned the new president against not trying to build on what he says is the progress Trump made in the Middle East. Kushner claimed Trump “eliminated the ISIS caliphate” and noted that his administration helped broker deals between Arab nations and Israel to normalize relations.
“The Biden administration, however, has one asset that the Trump administration never had — a relationship with Iran,” Kushner said.
He continued, “While many were troubled by the Biden team’s opening offer to work with Europe and rejoin the Iran deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, I saw it as a smart diplomatic move.”
Kushner claimed that by signaling an openness to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal, the administration “called Iran’s bluff.”
“It revealed to the Europeans that the JCPOA is dead and only a new framework can bring stability for the future. When Iran asked for a reward merely for initiating negotiations, President Biden did the right thing and refused,” he added.
“Mr. Trump has said that Iran has never won a war but never lost a negotiation. This negotiation is high-stakes, and, thanks to his policies, America holds a strong hand. Iran is feigning strength, but its economic situation is dire, and it has no ability to sustain conflict or survive indefinitely under current sanctions.”
Finally, Kushner said, “America should be patient and insist that any deal include real nuclear inspections and an end to Iran’s funding of foreign militias.”
Under the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities and to ship 97% of its nuclear fuel out of the country. In exchange, countries would lift sanctions.
Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 and slapped Iranian companies with new sanctions. After the U.S. withdrew from the agreement, Iran began violating some terms of the accord.
In February 2021, Iran announced that it would block United Nations officials from conducting inspections of the country’s nuclear activities if “others do not fulfill their obligations” to the nuclear deal.
Additionally, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the country’s “final and irreversible” position is that the U.S. must lift sanctions before it returns to compliance with the deal.
Biden has said he wants to restart the deal, but administration officials maintain that before the U.S. agrees to reenter the pact and lift sanctions, Iran must return to compliance with the deal.
