First an outright return to the Iran nuclear deal, and then only hypothetical negotiations on the other threats posed by Tehran: Joe Biden seems to ignore calls to use
Donald Trump's "
maximum pressure
" to wrestle immediate concessions to Iran.
Read also: Renaud Girard: "Iran will not fall into the Israeli trap"
During the presidential campaign of November 3, the Democrat had asserted that if the Iranian authorities returned to "
a strict respect
" of the limits imposed on their nuclear program by the international text of 2015, the United States would in turn come back to it. 'agreement, as a "
starting point
" for "
follow-up
"
negotiations
.
Elected president, he persisted and signed.
“
It will be difficult, but yes,
” he told a
New York Times
columnist
who asked if that was still his position.
"
The best way to achieve some stability in the region
" is to deal with "
the nuclear program
"From Tehran, he said in this interview published Wednesday, warning against an atomic bomb race in the Middle East.
Donald Trump slammed the door in 2018 on the deal the United States, China, Russia, Germany, France and the United Kingdom had reached with Iran to prevent him from acquiring the nuclear weapon, deeming it insufficient to stem the “
destabilizing
”
behavior
of the Islamic Republic.
In the process, the Republican president restored and then tightened the American sanctions lifted in 2015, to the chagrin of Washington's European allies who are trying to save the agreement.
In response, Tehran began to free itself from certain restrictions on its nuclear activities.
Only after Washington and Tehran return to the core of the deal, "
in consultation with our allies and partners, will we enter into negotiations and follow-up agreements to toughen and extend the nuclear restrictions imposed on Iran and to address the
Iranian
missile
program, explained Joe Biden.
These new talks, in which the future president wants to involve Iran's regional rivals such as Saudi Arabia, would also include Iranian activities in the Middle East.
"
Prioritization of priorities
"
Joe Biden's strategy therefore involves lifting Donald Trump's draconian sanctions in exchange for a simple return to the 2015 text - negotiated when he was himself Barack Obama's vice-president.
The Trump administration, which has promised to increase sanctions to the end, has yet urged the next government to make "
good use
" of its "
maximum pressure
" campaign
.
And the former American ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley estimated that the future president would make a "
serious mistake
" by "
rushing into the arms of the ayatollahs
".
Read also: Iran expects "significant changes" from Biden
New York Times
columnist
Thomas Friedman, whom Joe Biden spoke to, himself warned the president-elect against the temptation of simply stepping back into a changed Middle East.
"
Israel and the Arab Gulf allies will not want the United States to give up its favorable balance of power
" only to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions without using it "
to wrest from Iran the commitment to cease its exports of these
precision
missiles
which represent for them a more imminent threat, he wrote last week.
The assassination on November 27 near Tehran of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, blamed by Iran on the Hebrew state, is a reminder that the path the Democrat wants to take is strewn with pitfalls.
"
Biden must be careful not to squander the favorable balance of power created by the maximum pressure campaign
," says Alex Vatanka, of the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington.
According to him, however, "
no one in Iran thinks Biden is a weakling
": "
all expect him to make the most of the situation
", at least to ward off the nuclear threat he considers a priority. , he told AFP.
The 2015 agreement "
is wounded, bruised, but it is still there
", and reviving it "
does not mean sacrificing other subjects, it is just a hierarchy of priorities
", affirms for his part Naysan Rafati, of the conflict prevention organization International Crisis Group.
“
The president-elect and his team seem to have come to the conclusion that strengthening the foundations of this agreement first is a better way to tackle the other issues than putting everything on the table at the same time at the risk of not solving anything.
"
