Iran still on US enemy list under Biden: Analyst

A political commentator says the United States still counts Iran as an enemy under the administration of new President Joe Biden, who is unlikely to radically shift the country’s Iran policy despite a pledge to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal that his hawkish predecessor abandoned.

“Unfortunately, Iran is still on the US enemies’ list under the Biden government. Thus, while direct military intervention is unlikely, the US-Saudi-Israel alliance is still in place,” Beau Grosscup, professor emeritus of political science at California State University, said in an interview with Press TV.

The trio, he added, continue “looking to overthrow the Islamic Republic via other means [than military action] in favor of a return to the monarchy.”

Biden has criticized ex-president Donald Trump for pulling the US out of the Iran deal in 2018 and reinstating the sanctions lifted by the accord, pledging to return to compliance, despite opposition from Washington’s close Middle Eastern allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

However, weeks into Biden’s presidency, signs are emerging that the new White House team are not seeking to make any fundamental changes to America’s Iran policy, and that the Iran deal is not a top priority.

Turning a blind eye to the fact that it was Washington which first turned back on its obligations under the nuclear deal, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, on his first full day as the top US diplomat in late January, that Washington would only return to the agreement once Tehran resumes the commitments it has suspended in retaliation for the US’s withdrawal.

Blinken also spoke of a long road until verification of Tehran’s compliance and called for the inclusion of irrelevant issues in the nuclear pact, including Iran’s national defense program and its regional activity.

In turn, the regimes in Israel and Saudi Arabia —  which failed in the first place to prevent the signing of the Iran deal, despite intense lobbying — have been trying to dissuade the Biden administration from rejoining the multinational agreement.

The US enmity with the Islamic Republic dates back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which overthrew the Washington-backed Pahlavi dynasty in Iran and paved the way for the nation to achieve independence from Western dominion.

Shortly after the Revolution, the US — along with a number of its Western and regional allies — began a fruitless campaign, which continues to this day, to bring down the Islamic establishment in Iran through imposing crippling sanctions on the Iranian nation and backing the ex-Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein in a bloody eight-war on its neighbor in the 1980s.

That campaign has not only failed to achieve its goal but it has also backfired, helping the Iranian nation to grow stronger and achieve self-sufficiency in many sectors, especially its defense industry.

‘Iran foiled enemy attempts to isolate it’

Elsewhere in the interview, Grosscup said Iran has made “a few powerful” enemies in the past 42 years since the Revolution, but the country has also been able to avoid falling into a Western trap of becoming isolated thanks to a combination of strengthening its defense capabilities and engaging in diplomacy with other states.

Grosscup added that Iran’s “ability defend itself against those enemies and negotiate treaties that serve a community of interests is Iran’s biggest success as well as being able to fight off the label of a ‘pariah state’ that its enemies try hard to tag it with,” he added.

The political scientist said Iran had successfully foiled attempts by its enemies to isolate the country as an “aggressor state,” praising the Islamic Republic as “a valuable and valued member of the community of nations.”

He further described the economic challenges facing Iran as a “big test” for the country, saying Tehran should work to get the economy, which has been hit hard by US sanctions, “back on track” when the new coronavirus pandemic is brought under control.