U.S. Envoy David Friedman: A Biden Win Is Bad for Israel, Arab allies

U.S. Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, on Sunday warned a Joe Biden victory would have serious consequences for Israel and the Gulf states, especially with regards to Iran.

Iran was the “most consequential issue of the election,” Friedman told the United Arab Emirates-based media outlet Al Ain News.

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“If Biden wins we will see a policy shift that, in my personal opinion, will be wrong and will be bad for the region, including for Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait,” Friedman said.

He called the 2015 Obama-led JCPOA nuclear accord the “worst deal ever.”

“As you know, Joe Biden was part of the Obama administration that negotiated and implemented the Iran deal, something that President Trump — and I share his view — thinks was the worst international deal the U.S. has ever entered into,” Friedman said.

“It created a path for Iran to get a nuclear weapon,” he said.

The U.S. and Israel have warned against the deal’s “sunset clause,” which will lift Iran’s nuclear limitations within a decade and allow it to procure the bomb.

Friedman hailed the Trump administration’s crippling economic sanctions on Iran, aimed at pressuring the regime into halting its uranium enrichment and ballistic missile program, but warned that Biden may reverse all the progress made.

“We are in a very good place with the sanctions on Iran and we think if we continue down this path Iran will have no choice but to end its malign activity. We worked really hard to get Iran to a much better place. I would hate to think a new administration would undermine that but regrettably if Biden wins I guess they might.”