Matthias Küntzel is a German political scientist with a focus on the Middle East. His books with Telos Press include Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11 and Germany and Iran: From the Aryan Axis to the Nuclear Threshold, both of which are available in our store for 20% off the list price. His English-language website is matthiaskuentzel.net.

The days are over when Europeans only had to point to Donald Trump to legitimate their appeasement politics toward Tehran. But what will the new American administration and its European allies do to prevent Iran from getting the bomb?

Of course there is the nuclear deal with Iran. For months its proponents have been hoping for Joe Biden’s electoral victory. He would revoke Trump’s leaving the deal and loosen the sanctions on Iran; in return Iran would revise its violations of the agreements, and everything would be good again.

And now? Biden is still holding onto his controversial promise to return to the deal. He has filled the most important positions in the State Department with people who played leading roles in the negotiation of the deal under Barack Obama, including some who—like the new Iran envoy Robert Malley—proved to be particularly accommodating toward Iranian demands. And Biden has not at all insisted that the regime change its missiles program or aggression policies in response to a lifting of the American sanctions. He has only asked for one concession: that Iran return to the terms of the deal before lifting the sanctions that Trump imposed.

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