WashingtonAs Israel prepares to respond to Iran’s ballistic missile attack last week, Biden administration officials are more concerned than ever that the United States could be drawn into an all-out war between the two countries.
It is one of the most explosive moments for Iran and the United States since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979.
This has opened a debate about whether the crisis would have been less explosive if US policy toward Iran had not shifted from cautious collaboration to angry confrontation several years ago.
That change occurred in May 2018, when President Donald J. Trump abruptly withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, which was obtained by the Obama administration three years earlier in order to contain that country’s nuclear program.
Trump labeled it “the worst deal in history.”
Although critics of his action say that withdrawal emboldened Iranian hardliners and caused Iran to accelerate its nuclear program.
Iran’s advance has alarmed some Israeli officials, who argue that its military should use the current moment to limit the program by attacking that country’s nuclear facilities.
U.S. officials estimate that within weeks Iran could possess homemade nuclear material to make a nuclear bomb, although they believe building a usable device could take six or more months.
“I think it is obvious that the decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal, which Iran was complying with, removed the barriers to Iran’s nuclear program and removed any incentive Iran had to move in any direction other than a more confrontational hard line.” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, deputy national security adviser in the Obama administration, who played a major role in promoting the deal.
Rhodes said it was obvious that Hamas is primarily responsible for the current crisis in the Middle East because it launched attacks on October 7 against Israel.
Although he added that the trajectory of relations between the United States and Iran after the failed nuclear deal means that “Iran has no opening to maintain diplomacy with the United States. “That leaves no alternative but conflict.”
He noted that the United States tried to revive the agreement without success and criticized the Biden administration for not pushing harder sooner.
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