New administrations in Washington have a tendency to blame foreign-policy failures more on their predecessors than on America’s adversaries. This was evident in President-elect Joe Biden’s repeated campaign criticism of President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, and Biden’s pledges to rejoin the agreement “if Iran returns to strict compliance.” Weeks before the election, Biden wrote that “by any objective measure, Trump's ‘maximum pressure’ has been a boon to the regime in Iran and a bust for America's interests.”
