Biden became disillusioned with foreign affairs during the ‘honeymoon month’

US President Joe Biden’s handling of the Iran and Saudi Arabia issues in his first month in office has shown that initial plans and commitments during the election campaign cannot always survive when the candidate takes office.

When running for the White House, Biden promised to quickly return the US to the Iran nuclear agreement.

In his July 2019 campaign speech, Biden spoke clearly about what he wanted to achieve with Iran if elected president.

`If Tehran returns to compliance with the agreement, I will reengage and work with allies to strengthen and extend it, and effectively push back against Iran’s other destabilizing actions,` Biden said at the Capitol.

Once in the White House, Biden’s team continued to maintain that for the US to rejoin the deal, Iran must comply with the treaty’s limits on nuclear development.

But the US government still opened the door to negotiations when it accepted the proposal to hold negotiations with Tehran, in which the European Union (EU) acted as a mediator.

After many days of considering the EU’s proposal to negotiate with the US, Iran rejected the plan on February 28.

Fontenrose said that this is definitely not the scenario Biden’s team has in mind.

Although most experts believe that Washington and Tehran will eventually return to the nuclear agreement, what the new US administration has learned is that the best plans still require readjustment.

`The clear strategy that Biden put forward during the election campaign could not come true in the first month of his term. We lost the opportunity to have a new lever like the Biden team had expected,` Kaleigh Thomas, expert

Not only did Iran refuse to negotiate, it also let proxy forces launch rockets at Americans in the Middle East.

The White House hopes this airstrike will help prevent future attacks by pro-Iranian militias, but still open the door to negotiations with Tehran.

President Joe Biden during a meeting at the White House on February 3.

Another foreign policy issue that makes Biden `disillusioned` is how to deal with Saudi Arabia.

During the Democratic debate in November 2019, when asked if he would punish Saudi Arabia’s senior leadership for Khashoggi’s murder, Biden clearly answered `yes`.

But when deciding to publish the US intelligence report on February 26, which stated that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the plan to kill Khashoggi, Biden did not impose any direct sanctions on Crown Prince Mohammed.

The US President and his team seem to be satisfied with what has been done to `calibrate` the US-Saudi Arabia relationship.

President Biden spoke to US soldiers at a vaccination center in Houston, Texas on February 26.

However, others believe that the reason Biden’s team did not punish Thailand for testing Mohammed bin Salman is to maintain the alliance between the two countries.

If the Biden administration targets Crown Prince Mohammed, who will become king of Saudi Arabia, the US could single-handedly sabotage the above plans.

`We believe there are more effective ways to ensure this does not happen again, while leaving room for the United States and Saudi Arabia to cooperate in areas of mutual agreement,` said House Press Secretary.

However, editor Ward commented that by not keeping his word on these two important foreign policy issues, Biden has attracted criticism in his first month in office, a period considered the `honeymoon month` for presidents.

`They are trying to find harmony between competing interests,` said Seth Binder, an official with the Middle East Democracy Project.

Biden is not the only person in a situation of `inconsistency` between campaign commitments and reality when in power.

“When you come in and everything is new, you need to mess around a little bit and readjust,” said Kirsten Fontenrose, who oversaw Gulf affairs on the National Security Council under Trump.