President-elect Biden already working to rejoin Iran Nuclear Deal: report
Fox News Senior Strategic Analyst General Jack Keane argues the U.S. has ‘got to be tougher’ when negotiating a new nuclear deal with Iran.
When Joe Biden becomes president of the United States at noon Wednesday he will need bipartisan cooperation to launch his national security policies and get members of his national security team confirmed by the Senate. So far, he hasn’t received it.
But despite the bitterly divisive 2020 election campaign and its aftermath – culminating in the horrific Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead and many law enforcement officers injured – Republicans and Democrats need to work together to protect our national security. There is no other option.
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists didn’t single out Democrats or Republicans to murder when they succeeded in killing nearly 3,000 people in our country. Our troops who are killed and wounded in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries are targeted because they are Americans, not because of their political affiliation.
And foreign adversaries plotting future attacks on our country just want to kill as many of us as possible, no matter which political party we support.
Unfortunately, Biden will be the first president in decades not to have any Cabinet-level national security posts confirmed by the Senate on Inauguration Day. This breaks a long tradition of the Senate putting aside partisan rivalries to confirm a new president’s top national security officials by the time he takes office.
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Even when George W. Bush became the 43rd president after the 2000 election following a Florida recount that ended with a Supreme Court ruling to settle the election, his nominees to head the State Department (Colin Powell) and Defense Department (Donald Rumsfeld) were confirmed on Jan. 20, 2001.
There is plenty of blame to go around for the delays in getting Biden’s national security Cabinet nominees confirmed.
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Biden was slow to make some of these nominations. Although the president-elect nominated Antony Blinken as secretary of state Nov. 23, Blinken did not submit his paperwork and financial disclosures until Dec. 31. And Blinken has failed to meet with most members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
There have been similar delays for other Biden national security nominees. While some of these delays are clearly the fault of the Biden transition team and the nominees, Senate Democrats have blamed the delays on foot-dragging by Republican Senate committee chairman.
Senate Republicans must press nominees for top Biden national security posts hard for answers on their national security views and priorities. But Republicans must also cooperate with their Democratic counterparts and the Biden team to get these nominees confirmed so they can start on Inauguration Day or just a few days afterward.
The Senate traditionally gives new presidents considerable leeway to name their national security teams. Although Biden’s nominees are mostly unremarkable former Obama administration officials (except for William Burns, Biden’s outstanding nominee to be CIA director), none of them appear to have serious issues that should prevent their rapid confirmation.
So far, Biden and his advisers have not demonstrated that they understand how serious the threats listed above are to our country.
The simple truth is that Biden needs his top national security officials in place ASAP. This is vital for our country, not just for Biden or for Democrats.
America faces a dangerous world, with challenges to our security involving China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Islamist terrorists, cyberwarfare, border security, weapons of mass destruction (including biological weapons) and threats to our economic security.
We need a robust foreign and defense policy under soon-to-be President Biden to address these and other threats.
So far, Biden and his advisers have not demonstrated that they understand how serious the threats listed above are to our country. This is both dangerous and frightening.
The Biden team seems to believe that the most important national security threat facing our nation is climate change. It plans to assign dozens of staff to support Biden’s climate czar John Kerry, who served as President Obama’s secretary of state.
The climate czar – with the official title of "special presidential envoy on climate change" – will be part of the National Security Council and answer directly to the new president.
Biden officials will need to explain whether they actually believe climate change is a more serious threat than the nuclear-armed nations of Russia, China, North Korea and nuclear wannabe and terrorist-sponsor Iran. Will the Biden administration favor making security and economic concessions to these nations to win climate agreements?
If terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and others announce they are working to fight climate change in addition to fighting the U.S., Israel, and our other allies, will Kerry advocate disastrous concessions to them, as he did when he signed off on the badly flawed Iran nuclear deal?
It is clear that Biden and his aides do not understand how much more dangerous Iran has become since he left office as vice president, due to the Islamic Republic’s belligerent behavior and missile attacks.
In a grave miscalculation, Biden said in December that "if Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations."
Rejoining the nuclear deal would reward Iran’s continued hostile actions – including its support for terrorist groups, vows to wipe Israel off the map, and consistent cheating on the nuclear deal.
Rejoining the Iran nuclear deal – which fails in its basic goal of stopping Iran from eventually developing nuclear weapons – would require the United States to drop President Trump’s strong economic sanctions on Iran. This would provide Iran’s virulently anti-Americans mullahs with billions of dollars to spend on terrorism, missiles, nuclear weapons and meddling in regional crises. Inevitably, this will lead to trouble.
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Despite the above concerns, however, Republicans in the Senate have a responsibility to allow our incoming president to fill important national security posts – not just Cabinet secretaries, but high-ranking appointees in their departments.
Once the Biden team is in place, Republicans and Democrats with a realistic view of our national security challenges can work to open Biden’s eyes to some of the serious dangers we face and do their best to prevent his focus on climate change from overshadowing the other threats our nation faces from abroad.
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