Former US envoy predicts Biden will reenter Iran nuclear deal

In an interview with Army Radio, former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer predicts that President-elect Joe Biden will reenter the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, though not without consulting Israel.

Says Kurtzer on Biden: “He’s been a very longtime supporter of Israel and of Israel’s security and wellbeing. He has a very long relationship with the prime minister and with most senior officials. He genuinely likes Israel and I think we’re going to see an administration that tries to build on a strong relationship to make it even deeper and better.

“Of course there are always some issues on which we will disagree. I think [the] Iran nuclear program may be one of those. But I would anticipate that President-elect Biden will try to talk very seriously about this with the prime minister rather than doing anything unilaterally. I think we’ll get into very deep strategic dialogue on some of the issues where we disagree.

“I certainly would like to find a way to again stop the Iranian program, which that deal [the 2015 nuclear deal] actually accomplished. During the three years when it was in effect, the Iranian program was stopped dead in its tracks, and then it restarted after the Trump administration pulled out of the deal,” he says.

“So my guess is that the Biden administration will want to find a way to go back in. I think they’ll talk to Israel about it before they do anything. But there will be a very significant interest in resuming that kind of an arrangement that stops the Iranian program and stops the enrichment of uranium.”