When long shots are worth taking, in soccer and foreign policy

The return to normal that started on January 20 is now palpable. America is administering more than 3 million COVID-19 shots per day, the economy is revving up, our days are not devoted to dealing with Donald Trump’s latest foolishness. Some things are noticeably better than before. The trial of the policeman who killed George Floyd in Minneapolis has featured testimony for the prosecution from his colleagues, including the police chief. That has rarely happened in the past. A Democratic-controlled Congress has passed a massive economic stimulus bill and is proposing to do more focused on infrastructure and health care. Republicans are fighting back by trying to limit voting state-by-state, most notably in Georgia and Arizona , but they are getting substantial backlash from the business community. Abusing minorities is no longer a winning market strategy.

In foreign affairs there is also a return to normalcy: the Administration is trying to negotiate its way back into the Iran nuclear deal (aka Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actiton or JCPOA) and appears to have decided not to withdraw US troops completely from Afghanistan by May 1, as the Trump Administration had agreed to do. Secretary of State Blinken has reaffirmed American commitment to NATO and the Administration has met with Asian Pacific allies Japan and South Korea as well as India. Biden has been explicitly critical of China’s treatment of its Uyghur population, a Turkic Muslim minority millions of whom have been put into reeducation camps. Trump had signaled no objection and even approval of this outrage. Biden has also signaled renewed support for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, but without reversing Trump’s relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem or for now withdrawing Trump’s recognition of Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights.

There are other areas of continuity between Trump and Biden on foreign policy. Trump’s tariffs on China are still in place, apparently as an incentive for Beijing to agree to beef up its respect for foreign intellectual property. Biden is continuing the Trump practice of more open engagement with Taiwan’s officials. So far, Biden, like Trump, has done nothing to respond to human rights violations by friends like Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

A return to normal does not however guarantee success. The two biggest Biden foreign policy initiatives so far face long odds.

America was clearly better off with the JCPOA than without it. Return to the agreement will require not only complex choreography with Tehran but also with the US Congress, where even some Democrats are hardline. The US will need to provide sanctions relief while Iran will need to return its nuclear program to the status quo ante. Both will be difficult. Parsing which sanctions are “nuclear” and which were levied because of human rights and terrorism is not going to be easy. Nor will it be easy for Iran to give up the more advanced enrichment technology it has acquired. In both countries, domestic resistance will make the process more difficult, as will Iran’s June election.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan depends on an agreement between the Taliban and President Ghani, both of whom are notably consistent in pursuing maximalist goals. For now, the Taliban appear to have the advantage on the battlefield, but Ghani is not giving in to the American suggestion of a power-sharing government with some sort of Taliban participation. How can he? He advocates far more democratic, far less religious, far more inclusive, and far more normal governance than the Taliban do. They have no interest in a pluralist polity with equal rights for women and minorities. If there is no agreement, the Americans can of course still withdraw, but most of the smart money is betting that the consequence will be a Taliban takeover or, worse, a multi-faceted civil war. The experts are pessimistic. View this discussion Monday from the Middle East Institute:

That said, the experts are sometimes wrong. Long shots are worth taking when they are not costly and there is little or no alternative. That score against Spain is a fine example.