- President Joe Biden takes office as the United States faces a series of serious domestic crises.
- Biden’s foreign policy need not be left behind, however, and there are a number of steps he can take to advance US interests quickly and with little resistance, writes Geoff LaMear, a Defense Priorities researcher.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
President Joe Biden is taking office at a time when the country is plagued by a series of domestic problems, from the launch of the coronavirus vaccine to civil unrest. But Biden’s foreign policy does not need to take a back seat to these internal challenges.
In the Middle East in particular, the Biden government can promote US interests in a short time with minimal political challenges.
The most critical is to undo the final actions of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by listing the Houthis, a Yemeni rebel group fighting Saudi Arabia, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The problem with this designation is that it combines rhetoric and reality. The United States may view the Houthis as evil actors, while recognizing that this designation does not promote US interests or regional stability.
In addition, maintaining the designation would prevent humanitarian organizations from operating in areas governed by the Houthis. This would lead to the death of “hundreds of thousands, if not millions of innocent people in Yemen,” according to the World Food Program.
The Biden government can literally save millions of lives if it withdraws the Houthis as an FTO in the early days of the government.
Houthi militants in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, 14 December 2015.
REUTERS / Khaled Abdullah
At the same time, the United States needs to reassess its support for Saudi Arabia.
The United States is selling thousands of precision bombs to the Saudi government, which will only encourage Saudis to prolong the conflict in Yemen, instead of negotiating. These precision bombs allowed the Saudi government to commit war crimes against non-combatants.
This weapon system, the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb, was designed to allow more sortie attacks. The sale of this weapon system directly translates into an increase in the number of attacks and, consequently, in civilian casualties.
Based on the 30-day schedule from the Trump administration’s approval of this sale, the Biden government has little time to stop the sale. In doing so, the Biden government could restore America’s moral leadership, while encouraging a negotiated end to the war.
Biden should not just look to end US support for an ongoing war. He must end the policies that are likely to lead the United States into a new one, namely “Maximum Pressure” sanctions on Iran.
Although there are more than 1,000 existing sanctions against Iran, the authority to use these sanctions derives from a handful of executive orders signed by President Trump: Executive Order 13846, Executive Order 13871 and Executive Order 13902. Biden could quickly annul those executive orders and gut the legal basis for most of these sanctions with a minimum of external contribution.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, 17 January 2020.
Official Khamenei website / brochure via REUTERS
Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has offered a return to compliance with the 2015 Iran agreement in exchange for easing sanctions. This arrangement is sensible and beneficial to the United States.
However, a cacophony of voices cries out to complicate the deal by conditioning it to Iran’s ballistic missile program or allowing Arab states or Israel to participate in the negotiations. Both are false leads that would make any business less likely.
General Kenneth McKenzie described ballistic missiles as the “crown jewel” of Iran’s military, the only striking aspect of an old-fashioned and poorly funded army. Iran is not suicidal, and abandoning its only impediment is not a reality-based expectation. The United States needs to manage expectations, and that means pursuing limited security objectives through negotiation.
It also means reducing our regional military presence. The United States has stepped up a “deterrent” stance in the last days of the Trump administration, which arouses fears in Iran. The United States has deployed B-52 bombers, hired an aircraft carrier in the region and deployed an additional nuclear submarine. This does two things, neither of which is good.
First, fears in Iran increase that a US attack is imminent. Second, it gives Iran several high-value targets that it could attack preemptively or in retaliation for. Iran carried out an exercise just this month simulating a missile attack on a hostile ship, clearly signaling its capabilities to the United States.
A U.S. Air Force B-52 is refueled by a KC-135 tank in the area of responsibility of the U.S. Central Command, December 30, 2020.
US Air Force photo by senior aviator Roslyn Ward / US Central Command
As commander-in-chief, Biden can ease tensions by withdrawing these additional forces from the region.
Such a move would not undermine deterrence, because the United States still outperforms Iran in all areas, even without that increased presence.
The military stance serves as a sign of American intentions, and the withdrawal of these assets would reinforce the pivot of the Biden government for a foreign policy that prioritizes diplomacy, facilitating negotiations.
These changes are urgent and actionable. The Biden government has full authority to act on the mistakes made by Americans in Yemen, as well as to face Iran diplomatically and withdraw forces.
These measures do not require votes in Congress and would save taxpayers’ money while defending the interests of the United States. Where Trump failed, Biden can still succeed.
Geoff LaMear is a Defense Priority Fellow.