Former US Officials Warn Biden Administration against Lifting Sanctions on Iran

Former US Special Representative to Venezuela and Iran Eliott Abrams in 2019, AP
Former US Special Representative to Venezuela and Iran Eliott Abrams in 2019, AP
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Former US Officials Warn Biden Administration against Lifting Sanctions on Iran

Former US Special Representative to Venezuela and Iran Eliott Abrams in 2019, AP
Former US Special Representative to Venezuela and Iran Eliott Abrams in 2019, AP

Seeking a “diplomatic victory” by reviving the Iran nuclear deal signals regression, former US officials warned, explaining that the Biden administration rebooting talks with the Tehran regime could ultimately downplay achievements made in the last four years.

Openly voicing their rejection of steps taken by Washington to restart negotiations with Iran in Vienna, Senior diplomats and advisors that served in the Trump administration are urging their country’s new leadership not to lay the powerful tool of sanctions to waste.

More so, they have slammed the new US Envoy to Iran Robert Malley for having criticized the policy adopted by the Trump administration on Iran.

While Malley stamped Trump's maximum pressure campaign as ineffective and a failure, his predecessor reaffirmed that another four years of sanctions would have forced the Iranian regime to comply with a more comprehensive deal that better curbs its support for terrorism and hostile ballistic missiles program.

The maximum pressure campaign, within two years, managed to deprive Iran of around $70 billion that it could have used to back terrorism and its missiles program, former US Special Representative to Venezuela and Iran Eliott Abrams told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Had former US President Donald Trump been reelected and the campaign remained in place, the Iranians would have caved under the pressure of sanctions and come around to negotiating a stricter deal, Abrams noted.

The Biden administration seems utterly committed to returning to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, Abrams cautioned.

“By returning to the agreement, the Biden administration would be giving up all the leverage that could help negotiate additional matters like Iran’s support for terrorism and ballistic missiles program,” he explained.

As for the approach adopted by key European countries on the deal with Tehran, Abrams listed several factors that have changed since 2015.

“The UK has left the European Union and France has criticized negotiations led by former State Secretary John Kerry in 2015,” said Abrams, recalling that Paris has accused the former top diplomat of being a bad negotiator and compromising too much.

Abrams pointed out that many fear that the Biden administration will fall into the same trap as Kerry.

Former State Department Special Advisor on Iran Gabriel Noronha, for his part, defended the Trump maximum pressure campaign.

Noronha said the sanctions were very successful and forced the regime to slash its defense budget by 28% in 2019 and 25% in 2020.

Under sanctions, the Iranian regime faces bankruptcy and is stripped from its ability to continue threatening peaceful states in the Middle East, the former advisor noted, revealing that Tehran’s spending on proxies in the region had dropped by around $200 billion.

Noronha warned against “trusting Iran’s word,” and urged Biden to wait until their nuclear program is completely dismantled, before easing any sanctions.

He pressed for Washington also including the freeing of hostages and ending support for terrorism in negotiations with the Iranian regime.

Ellie Cohanim, deputy special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism at the State Department, confirmed that the economic sanctions slapped by the Trump administration were able to significantly weaken the Iranian regime.

Sanctions were able to cripple the Iranian economy and plummet the value of its currency, said Cohanim, adding that the Biden administration, because of Trump’s maximum pressure campaign, now has the upper hand in negotiations.

She also urged the Biden administration to acknowledge Iran’s record of sponsoring terrorism.

“The Biden administration must recognize that Iran is the first state sponsor of terrorism in the world, with ambitions of hegemony and imperialism in the Middle East,” said Cohanim.

“Time and time again, Iran proved that it is using resources to fund terrorist proxies,” she added, reaffirming that “there is no good reason to enter a deal that guarantees the Iranian regime a nuclear weapon in due time.”



UN Says 14 Million Children Did Not Receive a Single Vaccine in 2024

A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)
A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)
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UN Says 14 Million Children Did Not Receive a Single Vaccine in 2024

A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)
A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)

More than 14 million children did not receive a single vaccine last year — about the same number as the year before — according to UN health officials. Nine countries accounted for more than half of those unprotected children.

In their annual estimate of global vaccine coverage, released Tuesday, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said about 89% of children under one year old got a first dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine in 2024, the same as in 2023. About 85% completed the three-dose series, up from 84% in 2023.

Officials acknowledged, however, that the collapse of international aid this year will make it more difficult to reduce the number of unprotected children.

In January, US President Trump withdrew the country from the WHO, froze nearly all humanitarian aid and later moved to close the US AID Agency. And last month, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said it was pulling the billions of dollars the US had previously pledged to the vaccines alliance Gavi, saying the group had “ignored the science.”

Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, has previously raised questions the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine, which has proven to be safe and effective after years of study and real-world use. Vaccines prevent 3.5 million to 5 million deaths a year, according to UN estimates.

“Drastic cuts in aid, coupled with misinformation about the safety of vaccines, threaten to unwind decades of progress,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

UN experts said that access to vaccines remained “deeply unequal” and that conflict and humanitarian crises quickly unraveled progress; Sudan had the lowest reported coverage against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

The data showed that nine countries accounted for 52% of all children who missed out on immunizations entirely: Nigeria, India, Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Angola.

WHO and UNICEF said that coverage against measles rose slightly, with 76% of children worldwide receiving both vaccine doses. But experts say measles vaccine rates need to reach 95% to prevent outbreaks of the extremely contagious disease. WHO noted that 60 countries reported big measles outbreaks last year.

The US is now having its worst measles outbreak in more than three decades, while the disease has also surged across Europe, with 125,000 cases in 2024 — twice as many as the previous year, according to WHO.

Last week, British authorities reported a child died of measles in a Liverpool hospital. Health officials said that despite years of efforts to raise awareness, only about 84% of children in the UK are protected.

“It is hugely concerning, but not at all surprising, that we are continuing to see outbreaks of measles,” said Helen Bradford, a professor of children’s health at University College London.

“The only way to stop measles spreading is with vaccination,” she said in a statement. “It is never too late to be vaccinated — even as an adult.”