How Biden can update the Obama doctrine

While he rightly argued that the Iran nuclear deal was itself worthwhile, Obama believed it could lead the regime to embrace “a different path.” It never came close to doing so, even before Trump’s pressure campaign.

For Biden’s Obama veterans, the logical response to these failures would be a more realistic, hard-nosed appreciation of the challenges posed by U.S. adversaries — including China and Russia, as well as smaller fries such as Iran and Cuba. They must be dealt with where accords on arms or climate are in U.S. interests, but illusions about their regimes’ potential for positive evolution through U.S. suasion should be abandoned.

Blinken and Sullivan appear to get this. The focus of the Biden administration’s “engagement,” they have said, should be other democracies, which need to be bolstered and rallied to strategies that allow them to outcompete and outlast the dictators. Given the damage Trump has done to U.S. democracy, the new team will start in a hole. But it’s the right way to update Obamaism for a new era.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/how-joe-biden-should-update-obama-strategies-for-this-new-era/2021/01/17/ff1a6d52-5679-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html

How Biden can update the Obama doctrine