Iran's New President

The Islamic Republic of Iran elected a new "president" Friday. I put the word in quotes because the "president" has no real power in Iran. The real power in Tehran is, as his title implies, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

That said, Iran's "president-elect" is Ebrahim Raisi, a hard judge and prosecutor who is under official sanction by the United States for his role in the execution of five thousand Iranian dissidents. 

Raisi is widely considered a Khamenei loyalist and likely successor to the 82 year-old supreme leader.  He's refusing to meet with Joe Biden. He's refusing to negotiate over Iran's ballistic missile program and Iran's support for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett responded to Raisi's election by warning world leaders to "wake up." Bennett said:

"Raisi's election . . . is a signal to world powers that they need to wake up. . . They must understand who they're doing business with and what kind of regime they are choosing to strengthen. A regime of executioners cannot have weapons of mass destruction."

Bennett is absolutely right. But some in Washington seem to have learned the wrong lesson. According to the New York Times, the Biden Administration views "the next six weeks before Mr. Raisi is inaugurated [as] a unique window to strike a final deal with Iran's leadership." 

Here's the bottom line: Any deal with Iran is a bad deal with a regime that cannot be trusted. But as we all know, mistakes are made when things get rushed, and a rushed deal with Iran is guaranteed to be even worse.

By the way, Israel isn't the only country deeply worried about another Biden nuclear deal empowering Iran. Arab states are demanding a say in the talks. They're also insisting that any deal on sanctions relief must deal with Iran's missile program and "destabilizing behavior."