One exception for that, Makovsky said, is the administration’s interest in addressing Iran’s nuclear th
Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said the Biden team is hard at work planning its Iran strategy through detailed interagency meetings.
“While President Biden need not get ahead of this process by telegraphing his approach in a broad foreign policy speech, he is making a mistake in not yet reaching out personally to Israeli and Arab leaders to reassure them that he has their back,” Dubowitz added. “These are the countries in Iranian missile range with deep anxieties about what the whipsawing of US-Iran policy could mean for the security of their people.”
Natan Sachs, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, said the near-total absence of the Middle East from Biden’s speech was notable.
“With the very important exception of Yemen, Biden devoted his first major foreign policy speech as president to other regions and other issues.
“In one sense, this is misleading,” he said. “The question of Iran’s nuclear program and the JCPOA is in fact high on the Biden priority list, but the administration chose, wisely, not to show its cards yet. But in another sense, the absence of any mention of most of the Middle East, including Israel, is telling.”
He went on to say that Biden will likely not be judged as president on foreign policy, but even in foreign policy, other regions and issues – China, the global democratic recession, the transatlantic alliance – top his administration’s agenda.
“For years, we’ve heard of America’s diminishing interest in the region, only to find America still involved and pulled back in,” he noted. “Nonetheless, a pivot away from the Middle East might now actually come to fruition.”
