They also complain that Biden is maintaining the sanctions that Trump imposed on Tehran when it came out of the nuclear deal, although Iran was in compliance at the time. Mr. Kushner referred to this with approval as a “strong hand” that Mr. Biden inherited.
“The Biden government bought Trump’s analysis that these sanctions give the United States an advantage, even though the sanctions have not given Trump any influence over Iran,” said Joseph Cirincione, a longtime arms control expert who consulted with close Obama administration officials on the nuclear issue deal.
Further complicating the prospects for nuclear negotiations is Biden’s air strike on February 25 against Iran-backed militia fighters in Syria, in retaliation for militia rocket attacks on US forces in neighboring Iraq. Although the attack was limited, it hindered nascent nuclear diplomacy and is at risk of escalation, Cirincione said.
The strike also infuriated liberals determined to end what they call America’s “endless” or “eternal” wars – their military and counterterrorism campaigns across the Middle East and parts of Africa that began after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, said the strike “puts our country on the path to continuing the Eternal War instead of ending it,” and he questioned its legal justification. (The White House says it supports Congressional action to repeal and replace Bush-era laws that provide presidents with broad authority to use force.)
To compound the frustration, there is a feeling among liberals that Biden’s national security team is filled with centrist workers who supported previous U.S. military interventions, including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and the president’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.
Critics of Biden’s early Middle East policy focused on Brett McGurk, the coordinator of the National Security Council for the region. Mr. McGurk joined the government as an adviser to President George W. Bush’s White House, but remained during the presidencies of Obama and Trump. He has strong relationships with leaders in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – oil-rich countries labeled as repressive by human rights activists and which liberals consider to have an undesirable influence on US policy.
McGurk helped shape Biden’s decision, condemned by the left, not to directly punish Prince Mohammed, even after the White House released an intelligence report that concluded that he, the de facto Saudi leader, approved the operation that led to the assassination. de Khashoggi in 2018. Many liberals said that the moral imperative to stop Prince Mohammed from future visits to the United States, at the very least, should overcome the familiar realpolitik of preserving relations with the Saudi kingdom.