TEHRAN – While Iran has made up its mind and is ready to engage in meaningful diplomacy, the Biden administration is now grappling with mounting pressures from Iran hawks who oppose any kind of diplomacy with Iran. 

The recent wave of unrest has had many ramifications of which the Biden administration’s dithering over talks in Vienna over reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal – officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – is the most glaring.
 
Since the beginning, the Biden administration has sought to take into account the views of Iran hawks in devising its Iran policy. In a sense, they have sought to appease Iran hawks. To the White House's chagrin, that has backfired. Despite the Biden administration's solid promise of resetting U.S. Iran policy, he failed to bring about a meaningful change to what his predecessor put in place.

Now, opponents of Iran policy in Washington and elsewhere in the world demand further concessions from the White House on Iran, without taking any responsibility for what comes next. 

As things stand, the Biden administration has fallen into this trap, declaring that it is no longer focused on reviving the JCPOA. Instead, Biden officials say remain focused on how to support what they call protests in Iran. 

“Why haven’t we figured this out sooner?” a U.S. official said of the efforts to smuggle Starlink terminals into Iran in remarks to CNN. “We’re putting so much effort into the JCPOA [nuclear deal]. It’s an ongoing national security interest to get rid of this regime. Here’s how: empower those democrats on the ground in Iran and the number one way to do it is to find ways to support tech like that in the country, and we haven’t, we’ve failed.”

Another senior Biden official told CNN that right now, the JCPOA is “not on the agenda.” National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby has echoed that, telling reporters that “we are way far apart with the Iranians in terms of a return to the deal.”

But that seems to be not enough for Iran hawks, who now settle for nothing less than an outright regime change policy on Iran. When U.S. envoy for Iran Rob Malley transgressed diplomatic norms by voicing support for Iran unrest, hawks in Washington shamed him into abandoning diplomatic finesse and taking a tougher line on Iran. 

This comes at a time when Iran is sticking to diplomacy even though the Biden administration continues to send out contradictory signals. In his meeting with directors of news agencies participating in the general assembly of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA), Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian referred to this contradiction. 

“Amir Abdollahian also condemned foreign interference in stoking and supporting some riots and even terrorist measures inside Iran and described them as against the diplomatic approach championed by such countries and their officially-sent messages,” Amir Abdollahian said, according to a statement by the Iranian foreign ministry.

The foreign minister reiterated that the Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to reach a good, strong and lasting agreement.

“Amir Abdollahian also advised the American side to end its contradictory remarks and behavior and avoid hypocritically denying what is going on in the messages being exchanged and indirect negotiations,” the statement said.