Biden’s air strikes send a clear message amid Iran deal talks

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The United States launched air strikes in parts of Iraq and Syria overnight, targeting Iranian-backed militias there in response to what the Biden administration called drone attacks against American personnel in Iraq.

The strikes targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one in Iraq, though it was not immediately clear if anyone had been killed or injured. The strikes are the second round that President Joe Biden has ordered against Iran-backed militias since he began his term.

The strikes came against the backdrop of ongoing negotiations in Vienna, Austria between Iran and six world powers, including the United States, to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Obama administration-era deal lifted economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program .

Returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — which the Trump administration abandoned in 2018 — is a major foreign policy priority for the Biden White House. Could the new strikes derail talks, or send the message that good-faith attempts at diplomacy won’t prevent military action where the administration deems necessary?

No “absolute mandate” for Iran

For Sanam Vakil, Iran expert and vice president of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, she is the latter.

“The strikes send a clear message that regional issues with Iran will not be ignored at the expense of the Vienna JCPOA negotiations,” an agent told CNBC Monday. This is also intended to reassure US regional partners that a US return to the deal will not lead to a carte blanche for Iran.

Presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi points after casting his vote during the presidential election at a polling station in Tehran, Iran, June 18, 2021.

Majid Asgharipour | Wana News Agency | Reuters

However, the current negotiations – where the US and Iran do not speak directly, but through mediators – are expected to survive the latest military strikes. Anisa Tabrizi, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, noted that Biden ordered air strikes against Iranian-backed militia targets in Syria in February and talks are still ongoing.

But Iran earlier this month elected its new president, Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-line with an anti-Western stance. While outgoing President Hassan Rouhani backed outreach to his Western counterparts and even spoke by phone with former President Barack Obama – the first such contact between the two countries’ leaders in more than three decades – Raisi flatly dismissed any prospect of meeting Biden.

With this in mind, Tabrizi sees no lull in Iranian-backed militia attacks in the region.

“In fact, there is a possibility that it will intensify,” she said.

‘The only countries that make bombs’

Despite Key’s record as a hawk, he has expressed support for joining the 2015 nuclear deal. Analysts say re-entering the deal and lifting Trump-era crippling sanctions are necessary to prevent Iran’s devastated economy from collapsing.

“I doubt the strikes will have any impact on the JCPOA talks,” Ali Vaez, Crisis Group’s Iran project director, told CNBC on Monday. “It appears that the two sides have succeeded in separating their differences between those that can be settled diplomatically and those for which they seek a military solution.”

“Both Iran and the United States have proven that they can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

However, with so many variables in the game, there is still a real risk that conversations may fail. There is a dispute between Iran and the United States on the issue of sanctions. Tehran has massively boosted uranium enrichment and storage in violation of the deal since the United States began imposing sanctions on the country, and says it will reverse course once sanctions are lifted.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is refusing to roll back the sanctions until Iran reverses violations of the nuclear deal. Earlier in June, the head of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency said that “only bomb-making countries” are enriching uranium at the level of Iran. And on Sunday, Iran’s parliament speaker said Iran would “never hand over” insider photos of its nuclear facilities to the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been part of an agreement with the monitoring group, since the agreement expired.

Fayez warned of the recent US missile launch at the time, “indicating that if the diplomatic track in Vienna collapses, tensions in the region will go from bad to worse.”

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