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In a January 2014 New Yorker interview Obama revealed his goal of creating “a new balance” in the Middle East between Tehran and the Gulf states, and in his Politico article on the Iran nuclear deal, Admiral Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that a nuclear deal would “more fairly” rebalance American influence by re-examining relations with Sunni nations to achieve détente with Iran.
In an April 2016 interview in The Atlantic, Obama called on Saudi Arabia to “share the neighborhood” with Iran, asserting that supporting its Gulf allies against Tehran would not be in the U.S. interest. Shortly thereafter Obama’s former Middle East adviser Philip Gordon hinted that Israel and the Gulf states would have to “get along” with a more powerful and aggressive Iran.
Obama’s special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, in a December 2019 essay for Foreign Affairs revealed that Obama’s goal had been a new balance of power in the Middle East and claimed that Trump had doubled down on support for Israel, withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal and decisively supporting an anti-Iranian axis in the region.
In his May 2020 Foreign Affairs essay (“America’s Opportunity in the Middle East“) Jake Sullivan, Biden’s current National Security Adviser — whose secret meetings with Iranian officials during the Obama administration paved the way for the 2015 nuclear deal — attacked Israeli and Saudi demands to restrict Iran’s nuclear program. In June 2020, in an interview, Sullivan asserted that Washington should “move away from traditional allies,” adding that Israel and Iran would be “morally equivalent.”
Toby Harden, in his Sunday Times article, (“Obama All Out for Iran Deal“), explained that the then-president was obsessed with making the Iran nuclear deal the cornerstone of his legacy as a “giant” of international diplomacy. But at the Middle East Media Research Institute, Yigal Carmon and Alberto Miguel Fernandez warned in their essay (“Obama’s Strategy of Equilibrium“) that Obama’s “balancing act” instead of bringing peace to the region could intensify conflicts with “adverse implications” for Washington and its interests in the Sunni Muslim world, noting that after the nuclear deal Tehran continued to actively sponsor terrorism.
Lee Smith, in his October 2015 essay, (“Reading Obama’s Mind“) pointed out that to reach the 2015 agreement Obama decided to grant Tehran its nuclear weapons program a few years down the road and weaken Israel and Saudi Arabia to reach a new geopolitical balance where there would be no victor, but Washington could withdraw its troops. Tony Badran, in his November 2019 article, (“Malley in Wonderland“), explained how Malley, Biden and Obama himself implied that Washington should weaken Saudi Arabia and strengthen Iran to reach a new “balance.”
In their May 2021 essay, (“The Realignment”), Badran himself and Michael Doran concluded that the Biden administration resumed along with the “realignment,” the stealth and pretense of Obama’s Middle East policy. According to the analysts, the JCPOA is not a deterrent for Tehran’s nuclear weaponization, but rather a false containment while, by 2031, guaranteeing Tehran a nuclear weapons program with international protection and assistance.
The Realignment doctrine, as Badran and Doran rightly point out, wrongly assumes that Iran would be a “rational actor” and, clumsily ignores Tehran’s ideology, setting out four potentially suicidal objectives:
- Allowing Tehran an unrestricted nuclear weapons program by 2031.
- Ending sanctions on the Iranian economy and financial system.
- Establishing an arrangement for Iran and its tentacles in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.
- Imposing such a policy on America’s closest allies in the Middle East.
Pretending that an economically and militarily strengthened and nuclear-armed Tehran will “magically” guarantee “peace” in the Middle East.
Guillermo Rodríguez is a professor of Political Economy in the extension area of the Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences at Universidad Monteávila, in Caracas. A researcher at the Juan de Mariana Center and author of several books // Guillermo es profesor de Economía Política en el área de extensión de la Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Administrativas de la Universidad Monteávila, en Caracas, investigador en el Centro Juan de Mariana y autor de varios libros