Russia
and Iran have built an alliance aimed at the US. Iran not only sold
cheap but highly effective drones that Russia has used to destroy
Ukraine’s electric grid but has also reportedly agreed to establish
drone manufacturing facilities in Russia and provide Putin with medium
range ballistic missiles. This is not a natural alliance. Iran and
Russia have a long history of antipathy and compete for the same
customers as energy exporters. Nor do the mullahs share much
ideologically with Putin. How could two such adversaries, who have often
clashed in the past, form what appears to be a solid anti-American
alliance? The answer: American partisan politics drove them together.
Our
increasingly ugly partisan politics have done more than any foreign
adversary to erode American interests. Gone are the days when political
leaders declared “Politics stops at the water’s edge.” Republican
Senator Arthur Vandenberg voiced that sentiment when he proposed and
passed the eponymous Vandenberg Resolution in 1948, opening the door to
the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in
cooperation with a Democratic President Harry Truman. Vandenberg put
patriotism above politics and against his political ambitions. He had
hoped to be the Republican nominee for president against Truman in the
1948 elections. Instead, he helped burnish Truman’s image because it was
good for America. Contrast Vandenberg with the Republican Speaker of
the House, John Boehner, who invited a foreign leader, Israel’s Benjamin
Netanyahu (“Bibi”), to insult the President of the United States,
Barack Obama. Boehner subordinated American foreign policy to those of a
foreign state in pursuit of his political ambitions.
Netanyahu
came to Washington specifically to thwart President Obama’s plan to stop
Iran’s nuclear program, to deny a Democratic President a “victory” that
might help his reelection. That they chose to oppose an agreement that
accomplished a major American foreign policy objective seemed not to
bother them at all. The agreement effectively prevented Iran from
developing nuclear weapons into the foreseeable future and thus defanged
Iran’s ability to threaten its neighborhood, including Israel.
Netanyahu objected because his vision for Israel required the continued
existence of a powerful enemy, an enemy who could provide Netanyahu a
campaign platform as defender of Israel’s very existence. Defanging Iran
would defang his political future. Like other populists (e.g.,
Turkey’s Erdogan) Netanyahu needs foreign enemies for electoral success.
Obama
persevered and finally got his agreement with Iran, the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), that reversed Iran’s progress in
refining uranium to weapon’s grade. To do so, Obama rallied not only
support from our traditional allies but from our current adversaries,
Russia and China, as well. Unfortunately, a year later, Donald Trump
exploited the JCPOA for political advantage. Calling it the ‘worst
agreement ever’ Trump used it against Hillary Clinton, his Democratic
opponent in the 2016 elections and Obama’s first Secretary of State.
Trump, on taking office, abrogated American participation in the JCPOA
and instituted a ‘maximum pressure campaign’ of economic sanctions that
he claimed would force Iran, begging, to sign a ‘better agreement’.
Trump never wanted a better agreement; proving the point Secretary of
State, Mike Pompeo, issued a list of demands so harsh that no Iranian
leader could accept them. Trump is not so simple-minded that he would
have expected the Iranian leadership to self-immolate and surrender
unconditionally to the Americans. To further prove the point that Trump
had no interest in negotiating a better agreement, he made no effort
overtly or in secret to engage the Iranians. Like Netanyahu, Trump
needed a permanent threatening enemy that he could exploit for political
advantage, not a solution.
To be fair, President Biden also
bears significant blame for unwittingly driving Moscow and Tehran
together. Upon assuming office, Biden failed to undo Trump’s
self-serving but wrong- headed decision to walk away from the JCPOA. He
spent almost a year showing no interest in restoring the JCPOA and then
engaged in negotiations whose endgame seemed always in doubt. His
negotiators appeared to have kept moving the goalposts, demanding
further Iranian concessions before rejoining the JCPOA. The talks
appeared to be on life-support when Putin attacked Ukraine last
February. At that point, Biden missed an opportunity. The two sides were
very close but bogged down over what appears to have been minor
differences. Again, perhaps Biden felt that reviving the JCPOA would
have provided the Republicans with campaign fodder and harmed Democratic
chances in the November 2022 midterms.
Think how different the
world would have been had Biden revived the JCPOA within a few months
of entering the White House. Iran has enormous oil and gas reserves. Had
we lifted sanctions, Iran would have quickly put about two million
barrels of oil on the market. This additional supply would not only have
lowered prices but would have made it much more difficult for Russia to
sustain oil exports in the face of American and EU sanctions. Having
gotten back into the market, Iran would also have had to carefully
consider risking a US reimposition of sanctions before supplying Russia
with drones and missiles or building drone factories.
The story
continues to play out. We have made both Russia and Iran dependent on
China as their biggest customer for oil and gas is China. China has
acquired even more leverage over both Putin and the mullahs, whose own
survival is increasingly threatened by internal and external threats.
Rather than dividing our adversaries, American domestic politics are
driving them into China’s orbit.
This same dynamic continues to
play out. Most dangerously, Republicans, having won the House, appear
set to undermine US support for Ukraine in its desperate fight against
Russia seeking to undermine Biden in 2024. One despairs; will we ever
again see another generation of politicians like Vandenberg, who put
country above politics?