Biden juggles nuclear talks, Iran crackdown
WASHINGTON » President Joe Biden has hit back at Iran over the government's brutal crackdown on antigovernment protests. He's praised the “brave women of Iran” for demanding basic rights and signaled that he'll announce more sanctions against those responsible for violence against protesters in coming days.
The outpouring of anger — largely led by young women and directed at the government's male leadership — has created a seminal moment for the country, spurring some of the largest and boldest protests against the country's Islamic leadership seen in years.
And while the Biden administration says it is dedicated to standing by the women of Iran, the president faces a tough question: Can he credibly side with the protest movement while also trying to salvage the languishing 2015 Iran nuclear deal that would pump billions into Tehran's treasury?
“The risk of a nuclear Iran is terrifying on all levels,” Marjan Keypour Greenblatt, director of a network of activists that promotes human rights in Iran and a nonresident scholar with the Middle East Institute's Iran Program, wrote in an analysis this week. “However, President Biden simply cannot offer the prospect of sanctions relief and de facto legitimize a regime that is ruthlessly gunning down its own citizens in the street.”
The weeks-old protests were triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in Iranian security custody. Morality police had detained Amini last month for not properly covering her hair with the Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab, which is mandatory for Iranian women. Amini collapsed at a police station and died three days later.
Her death and the subsequent unrest have come at a complicated moment as the administration tries to bring Iran back into compliance with the nuclear deal that was brokered by the Barack Obama administration and scrapped by Donald Trump's administration.
The deal already was teetering toward collapse despite Biden's efforts to revive it. But the administration has not given up all hope for a turnaround via indirect talks with the Iranian leadership. The pact, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, would provide Tehran with billions in sanctions relief in exchange for the country agreeing to roll back its nuclear program to the limits set by the 2015 deal. The deal includes caps on enrichment and how much material it can stockpile and limits the operation of advanced centrifuges needed to enrich.
Chances for a return to the deal have come tantalizingly close since the beginning of this year, but have been derailed by Iranian demands that the U.S. maintains are outside the scope of the original agreement.