دDr. Majid Rafizadeh: Biden Administration Must At Least Help Any Country Trying to Confront Iran’s Mullahs/Eli Lake: What Biden Can Learn from Trump’s Iran Policy . ماجد رفي زاده/معهد جيتستون: يجب على إدارة بايدن على الأقل مساعدة أي دولة تحاول مواجهة ملالي إيران/إيلي ليك/بلومبرج: ما يمكن أن يتعلمه بايدن من سياسة ترامب تجاه إيران

د . ماجد رفي زاده / معهد جيتستون : يجب على إدارة بايدن على الأقل مساعدة أي دولة تحاول مواجهة ملالي إيران

إيلي ليك/بلومبرج: ما يمكن أن يتعلمه بايدن من سياسة ترامب تجاه إيران

Biden Administration Must At Least Help Any Country Trying to Confront Iran’s Mullahs
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/January 01/2022

What Biden Can Learn from Trump’s Iran Policy
Eli Lake/Bloomberg/January 01/2022
Next week the Iranian regime will commemorate the two-year anniversary of the death of General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by a US drone strike on Jan. 3, 2020. President Joe Biden should also mark the occasion — by noting that the US is prepared to go beyond economic sanctions in its efforts to deter Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Soleimani — who built Iran’s Quds Force into a kind of NATO for terrorists, connecting militias in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen into a strategic alliance — was Iran’s most important military leader. In response to his killing, Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles at the Al Asad airbase in Iraq, causing serious brain injuries for more than 100 US troops. Iranian forces also mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian International Airlines flight.
Soleimani’s assassination is a grievance Iran’s leaders will nurse for the foreseeable future. They see his killing as further justification for Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program, as well as its broader policy of bullying weaker Middle Eastern countries. Iran’s leaders see themselves as victims under constant threat.
The reality is different. The assassination of Soleimani was a response to a series of escalations that began after 2018, when former President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. In 2019, Iran launched missiles and drones at Saudi oil fields, attacked ships in the Gulf and stepped up militia attacks against US positions in Iraq. The final straw came at the end of that year, when a coordinated mob nearly overran the US embassy in Baghdad.
After the Soleimani strike, Iran’s militias continued probing attacks on US positions in Iraq, while Iran’s scientists continued to install more advanced centrifuges in its nuclear facilities. But Iran stopped menacing commercial ships, and US embassies did not face more mobs. And while some of this can be explained by the Covid pandemic, Trump’s show of force was also a factor.
Then Biden took office, and Iran’s escalations became more brazen. Even though Biden offered to lift the economic sanctions imposed by Trump if Iran returned to the enrichment limits of the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran is now enriching uranium to 40% purity, very close to the level needed for a weapon. In October, Iranian proxies launched a drone attack on a US base on the Syrian-Iraqi border. In November, an Iranian drone laden with explosives attempted to assassinate Iraq’s prime minister. All the while, Iran has continued to arm its alliance of regional militias with more military technology.
Faced with these escalations, the Biden administration has tried to walk a tightrope on Iran. On the one hand, it has continued to hold out hope for diplomacy even though Iran’s diplomats in Vienna will no longer meet with the US envoy. The US has also relaxed enforcement of some sanctions, leading to an increase in Iranian oil exports, but has not unilaterally lifted them. And early in his administration, Biden ordered a missile strike on Iranian-backed militia bases in response to an attack.
Most troubling, however, is that the US has let it be known that it does not approve of Israeli intelligence operations against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Some administration officials doubt the efficacy of Israel’s sabotage and assassinations inside Iran, according to the New York Times, fearing that they provide an incentive for Iran to build back its nuclear program better.
This is the wrong message. Not only does it risk alienating America’s most important ally against Iran, as former Israeli ambassador to the US Ron Dermer noted at a web conference this month. It also risks more provocations from Iran: If the regime’s leaders believe they face only economic consequences for their predations, then they will continue to test America’s resolve.
That’s why Biden, like the Iranian regime, should also mark the anniversary of Soleimani’s death. He should make clear that the US is willing to use force against a regime that remains undeterred by sanctions alone.

Biden Administration Must At Least Help Any Country Trying to Confront Iran’s Mullahs
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/January 01/2022
While the mullahs are using religion to justify their mission of taking over the region, they are more likely attempting to take control of all the oil in the region; they appear to be advancing their hegemonic ambitions to this end.
Iran has for decades been encircling the Middle East — in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq — by building a squeeze maneuver known as the “Shia Crescent; ” it has been trying to unseat the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through Iran’s Houthi proxies in Yemen, and it long ago attached itself to South America’s most oil-rich country, Venezuela.
Please now imagine how much more destabilizing the Iranian regime would be if it had nuclear weapons, how much easier it would be for the regime to fulfill its constitutional mission of “extending the sovereignty of God’s law throughout the world.”
Biden’s legacy now looks as if will add up to surrendering Afghanistan to the Taliban; allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons; permitting China to take over Taiwan; enabling Russia to blackmail Europe with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline; failing to deter Russia from seizing Ukraine; harming the poorest Americans by forcing them pay more for everything by shutting off American oil and instead enriching Russia by buying it there at inflated prices; effectively cutting pay to the military and threatening to punish people who work by raising their taxes, all while paying millions of other people not to work; and to top it off, crippling the US military by diverting it from its core mission: winning wars.
If… any real response to Iran’s threats will have to wait until 2024, will that be too late to stop at least one of these imminent catastrophes?
The Iranian regime has made it clear that its mission is to take over the region and create a single community under its version of Islamic leadership. Iran has for decades been encircling the Middle East — in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen — by building a squeeze maneuver known as the “Shia Crescent.” Imagine how much more destabilizing the Iranian regime would be if it had nuclear weapons. (Image source: iStock)
The Iranian regime has made it clear that its mission is to take over the region and create a single community under its version of Islamic leadership. The Islamic Republic’s constitution states:
“The Constitution provides the necessary basis for ensuring the continuation of the Revolution at home and abroad. In particular, in the development of international relations, the Constitution will strive with other Islamic and popular movements to prepare the way for the formation of a single world community (in accordance with the Qur’anic verse: This, your community, is a single community, and I am your Lord, so worship Me).”
For the ruling mullahs of Iran, their mission is a form of Jihad that must be accomplished through military force. The mullahs’ constitution adds:
“Accordingly, the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps [IRGC] are to be organized in conformity with this goal, and they will be responsible not only for guarding and preserving the frontiers of the country, but also for fulfilling the ideological mission of jihad in God’s way; that is, extending the sovereignty of God’s law throughout the world (in accordance with the Qur’anic verse [8:60]: Prepare against them whatever force you are able to muster, and strings of horses, striking fear into the enemy of God and your enemy, and others besides them “. [Emphasis added]
While the mullahs are using religion to justify their mission of taking over the region, they are more likely attempting to take control of all the oil in the region; they appear to be advancing their hegemonic ambitions to this end.
Iran has for decades been encircling the Middle East — in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq — by building a squeeze maneuver known as the “Shia Crescent;” it has been trying to unseat the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through Iran’s Houthi proxies in Yemen, and it long ago attached itself to South America’s most oil-rich country, Venezuela.
Please now imagine how much more destabilizing the Iranian regime would be if it had nuclear weapons, how much easier it would be for the regime to fulfill its constitutional mission of “extending the sovereignty of God’s law throughout the world.” The mission would start with getting “the Little Satan,” Israel, out of the way, then taking control of the Gulf states, with an eye to eventually encircling the “Great Satan,” the United States. In addition, the nuclear weapons will be sold to or fall into the hands of the world’s assorted bad actors and terrorist groups.
If the Biden administration does not want to stop the Iranian regime, there are apparently countries in the region that are prepared to prevent the ruling mullahs of Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons to achieve this goal. The Biden administration should at least step in and help those countries.
“We must not see Iran only as Israel’s problem and exempt the rest of the world,” said Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz. When asked whether the Iranian regime should be confronted militarily, he said, “Yes, yes,” and added, “and Israel has to do its part.”
“We see that Iran is advancing toward the level of enrichment that would allow it, when it wished, to become a threshold state — and we are making every effort to prevent that,” he said.
Israel has ordered advanced US-made planes, KC-46 Pegasus aerial refueling tankers, that are critical to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. By using refueling planes, Israeli fighter-bomber jets on long-range missions do not need to make a stop for refueling. As the Times of Israel wrote:
“The [New York Times] report noted that the tankers would be a significant upgrade for Israel and that without them, Jerusalem would need to rely on its aging fleet of refueling planes for a strike on Iran, or make a pit stop in Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, neither of which would want to be linked to an attack on rival Iran.”
Although the sale of eight new KC-46 planes to Israel was approved by the State Department in March 2020 during the former US administration, the Biden administration is refusing to deliver.
Meanwhile, former Secretary of State John Kerry, has reportedly divulged to Iran “HUNDREDS of Israel’s covert attacks.” Although Kerry has denied that he leaked any secrets to Iran, his denials reportedly “do not add up,” and the Biden administration has been refusing to address the issue.
Biden’s legacy now looks as if will add up to surrendering Afghanistan to the Taliban; allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons; permitting China to take over Taiwan; enabling Russia to blackmail Europe with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline; failing to deter Russia from seizing Ukraine; harming the poorest Americans by forcing them pay more for everything by shutting off American oil and instead enriching Russia by buying it there at inflated prices; effectively cutting pay to the military and threatening to punish people who work by raising their taxes, all while paying millions of other people not to work; and to top it off, crippling the US military by diverting it from its core mission: winning wars.
If, as now published, any real response to Iran’s threats will have to wait until 2024, will that be too late to stop at least one of these imminent catastrophes?
*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
© 2022 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.