Even as President Biden struggles to revive the disastrous 2015 Iran deal, the Islamic Republic still strikes in the West — including in New York.
Last week, a suspect with an assault rifle was arrested in Brooklyn after spending days first casing and then trying to gain entry to the home of Masih Alinejad, a prominent critic of the Iranian regime.
Tehran’s hand is clear: Alinejad was the target of a foiled kidnapping plot last year by alleged Iranian agents.
Meanwhile, on his recent, floundering Middle East trip, Biden clung to his delusional hopes that words will stop the mullahs as they race toward nuclear capability: “I continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome.”
The talks around the deal are stalled: Though Washington’s made massive concessions (like a sanctions carve-out that would let Russia and Iran continue working together on energy projects), it’s still not enough for Tehran.
Indeed, Iran repeated a boast over the weekend that “it has the technical means to produce an atomic bomb”; last week it vowed to keep the International Atomic Energy Agency’s cameras turned off at key nuke program facilities until the 2015 deal is restored.
So Tehran’s true position is crystal clear: It’s going nuclear, and just roping the Bidenites along with talks that’ll go nowhere. Something the Biden administration should have recognized from the start, even as it ignores outrages like plots to kidnap and kill on US soil.
Senior Biden national security official Brett McGurk now admits publicly that a near-term return to the deal is “highly unlikely,” which leaves some slight hope that the White House actually has a serious Plan B.
But this comes only after concession upon humiliating concession, while Washington turns a blind eye to Iranian black ops in this country.
Biden’s efforts on the deal have made America into a global laughingstock — and massively endangered the exiles who seek safety here.