TEHRAN – Facing growing criticism from Iran hawks over its policy toward Tehran, the Biden administration appears to be trying to justify its inability to make political decisions on Iran.

After a long period of deafening silence on its Iran policy, the Biden administration moved Tuesday to apparently assuage concerns on Capitol Hill over the protracted non-diplomacy with Iran. Politico reported Monday that senior Biden officials were scheduled to secretly brief all senators on Iran on Tuesday for the first time over Biden’s presidency.  

The classified briefing session will be held with the participation of a number of senior Biden officials, including outgoing Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, one of the architects of the defunct 2015 Iran nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). According to Politico, Sherman was to brief senators on the tattered deal. 

Politico also quoted a Democrat aide as saying that “there’s been progress on nuclear talks,” a claim that conspicuously runs counter to repeated claims by Biden officials over the last months that the JCPOA is not on their agenda. 

Since September 2022, they have been keen to reiterate that the Biden administration was not focused on the JCPOA, but rather on unrest in Iran.

In the meantime, U.S. officials have been exchanging messages with Iran, according to Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian. “We continue to receive messages from Americans and give messages to Americans through intermediaries,” Amir Abdollahian said in an interview with IRNA published on May 14. 

While the exchange of messages continues, the Biden administration’s inability to make political decisions on Iran remains the biggest obstacle to reaching a deal to revive the JCPOA. More than a year ago, when talks in Vienna over restoring the nuclear deal reached a critical point, Iran announced that it was ready to make the necessary political decisions to conclude the talks. Since then, Iran has been reiterating this position, which fell on deaf ears in Washington. 

Two years into his presidency, Biden seems to be more focused on his re-election campaign than getting into thorny foreign policy issues such as Iran, something that worried even U.S allies in Europe, who recently urged the White House to be proactive on Iran, according to a Wall Street Journal report. 

Biden’s inaction seems to have not only worried Washington’s European allies but also engendered a sort of bipartisan unease in Washington. And inaction is a euphemism for Biden’s Iran policy, which is characterized by too much dithering and inconstancy. Biden’s unjustified fears of ever-grumbling Iran hawks in Washington have so far prevented his administration from concluding the Vienna talks. And these very fears are now putting his administration in a position where his officials are grilled in sessions that are more like debriefing than briefing.

Biden’s ambivalence toward Iran has brought him political troubles, which will only get worse going into highly charged elections in 2024. The only plausible way out is for Biden to make up his mind and conclude the Vienna talks.