Ramin Mazaheri
Press TV, Chicago Two months after Joe Biden’s inauguration, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told US website Politico that Biden has so far “miserably failed during the past two months”- and just as badly as his predecessor Donald Trump- on the “test” of honoring the JCPOA pact on Iran’s nuclear energy program.  No formal announcement has been made regarding Iran policy, but it appears that Biden has continued with Trump’s unilateral and illegal demand to tear up an international treaty which took 12 years to negotiate in order to re-start diplomacy.  Tehran has long-insisted that America’s return to compliance is the only possible way forward, and thus Iran-US relations remain just as stalled under Biden as they were under Trump.  The Biden administration reportedly just informed Beijing that it will continue to enforce Trump-era sanctions, which aimed to cut Iranian oil exports to zero and thus devastate the Iranian economy.  As a Senator, Biden was among the first to lobby Bill Clinton to bomb Yugoslavia, he voted in favor of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and is considered to be on the hawkish side of the Democratic Party when it comes to foreign policy.  Biden campaigned on a promise to return to the JCPOA  Just as with their other deadly international blockades on countries like Cuba, Biden could immediately restore diplomatic normalcy with an executive order to return to the internationally-recognized JCPOA and to end sanctions.

Many in the diplomatic community and elsewhere will continue to hope for just such a move from the new US president.