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Friends,

You know things are returning to normal when we're back to manufactured controversies about non-issues concerning the U.S.-Israel relationship. Even though President Biden spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu after Biden was elected, and even though administration officials have been talking to their Israeli counterparts since Biden took office, enquiring minds were deeply concerned that Biden hadn't called Bibi, as if they were a couple of middle schoolers who'd had a falling out. 

Well, they spoke on Wednesday, and the conversation was very warm and friendly. But how many times did Bibi let the phone ring before picking up? Who said goodbye first? And most important, it's been four days since they last spoke--why the sudden silence? Is the relationship on the rocks? Grow up, folks, and if you've forgotten how to discuss this like grown-ups, read Michael Koplow's analysis.

President Biden is addressing Iran's nuclear program. On Friday, Biden reiterated that "we’re prepared to reengage in negotiations with the P5+1 on Iran’s nuclear program. We must also address Iran’s destabilizing activities across the Middle East, and we’re going to work in close cooperation with our European and other partners as we proceed."

Biden's position is that Iran must return to full compliance with the deal before the U.S. unwinds sanctions imposed by Trump. Sanctions will not stop Iran. Sanctions will hurt Iran's economy, but as sanctions tightened prior to the JCPOA in 2015, Iran's ramped up its progress. Military action will convince Iran that it needs nuclear arms.

The Iran Deal achieved its goal of taking the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran off the table, but Trump walked away. Then his "maximum pressure" strategy failed, his efforts at the UN to continue the arms embargo against Iran failed, and his efforts at the UN to snapback sanctions against Iran failed. Indeed, the administration is providing written notification to the Security Council that the United States no longer assesses the snapback of Iran-related UN Security Council resolutions has occurred.

As State Department spokesperson Ned Price explained on Friday, "no other members of the Security Council agree that previously terminated provisions of prior resolutions, in fact, snapped back in December, despite the position of the previous administration. When we were out of step with the other members of the Security Council, that deadlock weakened our ability to address Iran’s destabilizing activities. And reversing our snapback position, we calculated, would strengthen our ability to engage with the Security Council and with our closest allies and partners around the world on Iran."

Trump accomplished nothing, and now Iran is closer to nuclear weapons than when Trump left the deal. That's why, Kelsey Davenport explains, the administration must act quickly to restore the deal.

Before Iran received sanctions relief under the deal, Iran removed two-thirds of its centrifuges, including the disconnection of every single nuclear enrichment centrifuge at the Fordow facility. Iran reduced its vast stockpile of up to five percent enriched uranium from over 12,000 kilograms, enough for numerous nuclear bombs, down to under 300 kilograms, far less than the amount needed for even one nuclear bomb — a reduction of 98 percent. Iran also removed the core of the Arak reactor and filled it with cement. Iran was forced to redesign that facility to ensure it cannot be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium. All of Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons were blocked, and to ensure that remained the case, we had 24/7 access to all known sites, including the right to inspect any site within 24 days under the most intrusive inspections regime any country has ever agreed to. Many important restrictions imposed on Iran by the Iran Deal lasted beyond 15 years and some, including a ban on nuclear weapons, were permanent.

In return, we gave Iran access to its own money. It was not a payment from the U.S., and the amount of sanctions relief came to about $50 billion (the $1.7 billion additional payment we sometimes hear about was to settle unrelated litigation with Iran, and that payment saved U.S. taxpayers money).

The purpose of the Iran Deal was not to stop all of Iran’s nefarious activities, but to remove the potentially existential threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, thus making Iran’s other activities easier to counter. Iran continues to fund bad actors in the region, but to the extent Trump’s new sanctions decreased Iran’s funding of its proxies, those groups obtained alternative funding.

Only someone as unskilled at deal making as Donald Trump would think that giving Iran access to its own money in return for Iran blocking all of its paths to a nuclear weapon was a bad deal. Critics faulted the deal for sunset clauses and for not managing all of Iran's nefarious activities, as if we were dictating terms of unconditional surrender rather than negotiating with another sovereign nation. Iran is not going to beat its swords into plowshares and its spears into pruning hooks. They won't even donate proceeds from sanctions relief to Make-A-Wish. But we can restrain their nuclear program with smart diplomacy.

Trump's "maximum pressure" strategy resulted in maximum failure. As Biden re-negotiates, we'll hear the same arguments used against the original deal, as if the last four years never happened, but history proves that we should rejoin the Iran Deal. We should resist specious arguments for derailing efforts to rejoin the deal, which would leave war as the only alternative to a nuclear-armed Iran.

A recent letter signed by 150 Democrats emphasized that reentering the JCPOA would not prevent us from addressing Iran's other destabilizing activities; rather, an unrestrained Iranian nuclear program would exacerbate these other threats posed by Iran and inspire a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

Book Review: The Conflict Over the Conflict. College students, parents, anyone concerned about the Israel/Palestine campus debate, and anyone wondering about the IHRA definition of antisemitism owe it to themselves to read The Conflict Over the Conflict, by Kenneth S. Stern (New Jewish Press, 2020). Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, the lead drafter of the IHRA’s “Working Definition of Antisemitism,” and was the American Jewish Committee’s expert on antisemitism for 25 years. Read my review here.

Last week's newsletter.

ICYMI. How Biden can find common ground on immigration.

Tweet of the Week. This Hamentashen commercial.

Twitter Thread of the Week. The Founders on Twitter.

Video Clip of the Week. Tommy Smothers impersonates Johnny Carson (apropos of nothing--I found it while looking for something else. But it's spot-on, and be sure to watch the short interview with Carson afterwards to the end).

Upcoming Events. Alexi Giannoulias is running for Illinois Secretary of State. His listening tour is coming to our Zoom screen on Wednesday, March 3 at 3:00 CT. The event is free, but RSVP is required.

Join Dana Gordon and me for a special event in support of Sen. Tammy Duckworth's (D-IL) 2022 reelection campaign. Tammy is not only a friend of the Jewish and pro-Israel communities, but she is a special friend of ours, and we hope you will attend on Thursday, March 11, at 3:30pm CT. Contributions are encouraged but not required. However, you must RSVP to get the Zoom link.

Join us for a conversation with Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) on Monday, March 15 at 6:00pm CT hosted by Politics with Dana and Steve and Democratic Jewish Outreach of Pennsylvania. The event is free, but RSVP is required.

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