Jared Kushner, former US President Donald Trump's senior adviser, broke a long silence on Sunday by calling on the administration of President Joe Biden to "be patient [with Iran] and insist that any deal include real nuclear inspections and an end to Iran's funding of foreign militias."
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In a piece appearing in The Wall Street Journal, Kushner said the Abraham Accords changed the geopolitical paradigm in the region and exposed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "as nothing more than a real-estate dispute … that need not hold up Israel's relations with the broader Arab world."
"One of the reasons the Arab-Israeli conflict persisted for so long was the myth that it could be solved only after Israel and the Palestinians resolved their differences. That was never true," he wrote.
Kushner hailed the benefits of the normalization treaties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco and Kosovo, saying it "would be a mistake not to build on the progress in the Middle East."
The focal point of his article, however, was Iran, more specifically the new administration's nuclear negotiations with the Islamic republic.
The Biden administration, he said, "has one asset that the Trump administration never had –a relationship with Iran."
He added: "While many were troubled by the Biden team's opening offer to work with Europe and rejoin the Iran deal … I saw it as a smart diplomatic move. The Biden administration called Iran's bluff. It revealed to the Europeans that the [nuclear deal] is dead and only a new framework can bring stability for the future. When Iran asked for a reward merely for initiating negotiations, President Biden did the right thing and refused."
Due to Trump's strong stance on Iran, Kushner continued, "America holds a strong hand."
The former envoy, who is also Trump's son-in-law, explained that neutralizing the Iranian threat would allow other countries in the Middle East to cut their military budgets to facilitate economic prosperity and new possibilities for all the peoples of the region.
"If the threat from Iran decreases, so can the region's military budgets. Imagine how many lives could be improved if that money, an outsized share of gross domestic product, were invested in infrastructure, education, small business and impoverished communities," Kushner wrote.
"If it is smart, the Biden administration will seize this historic opportunity to unleash the Middle East's potential, keep America safe, and help the region turn the page on a generation of conflict and instability," he concluded.
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