Latest provocative moves by Tehran, and some less-than-coherent actions by the outgoing U.S. leader, are already complicating Biden’s Iran policy.
Joe Biden has an problem. And, it’s getting more complicated by the day. Thanks to provocative moves by Iran and less-than-coherent actions by the outgoing Trump administration, the president-elect is facing an increasingly uncertain situation when it comes to Iran, a decades-long American nemesis that has been a target of blame for much of the Middle East’s instability. In the past week alone, President Donald Trump’s team has dispatched B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf in response to alleged Iranian attack planning and reversed an order to bring home the USS Nimitz, the only U.S. aircraft carrier in the region. On Monday, Iran not only announced it had resumed advanced uranium enrichment in violation of the 2015 nuclear deal but also seized a South Korean-flagged oil tanker and its crew. This combustible combination coming just two weeks before the president-elect’s inauguration threatens to derail or at least delay Biden’s hopes to return the U.S. to the nuclear accord that Trump withdrew from in 2018. Below is a look at the latest developments: Concerns have run high for some weeks about Iran stoking tensions, particularly around the January 3 one-year anniversary of the U.S.. U.S. officials have been on heightened alert for possible retaliation from Iran, including from allied militia in Iraq that have previously launched rockets at U.S. facilities in the country. On Monday Iran said it had ramped up its enrichment of uranium to 20% purity – not high enough to make a nuclear weapon, but a significant step closer to that level. “It is a move in a concerning direction, particularly because a state that can enrich to 20%, which technically qualifies as high-enriched uranium, can go all the way to what is called weapons-grade uranium, which is usually 90-plus percent,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told CBSN on Tuesday. He said the enrichment upgrade meant that Iran has “done the lion’s share of the work to get closer to a weapon.” Meanwhile, Iran seized a South Korean chemical tanker this week, claiming it was posing a danger to the environment. Taleblu said there was a clear precedent of Iran seizing vessels ahead of diplomatic meetings with foreign officials “to try to extort states for money.
