Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris walks to board the Second Air Force as she departs for New York, Oct. 7, 2024, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.
Evelyn HochsteinReuter
Vice President Kamala Harris said in a new interview on CBS that she considers Iran to be America’s “greatest enemy.”60 minutes overtimeThe Democratic presidential candidate’s choice of Iran over Russia or China highlights how the Middle East wars have changed U.S. foreign policy priorities.
In an interview with “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker, Harris was asked which country she thought was “our greatest enemy.”
“I think the obvious one in mind is Iran,” Harris replied. “American blood flows in Iran. This attack on Israel, 200 ballistic missiles.”
“One of my top priorities is what we have to do to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to become a nuclear power,” she added.
Whittaker also asked, “If Iran were building nuclear weapons, would you take military action?”
“I’m not going to talk about hypotheticals at this point,” the vice president said.
It is no surprise that Iran is among the United States’ main adversaries. For more than 40 years, the Islamic Republic has been locked in an asymmetric Cold War by proxy of the United States.
But it’s notable that for Harris, concerns about Iran seem to have eclipsed concerns about China, Russia, and North Korea, even if only temporarily.
Already entrenched, hostilities between Iran and the United States have worsened over the past year as military conflict between Israel and Iran escalated what was previously a local operation into a regional Middle East war.
Last month, Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in response to Israel’s attack on Lebanon that killed hundreds of people, including longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The US and Israeli forces intercepted the missile.
Global financial markets fell on concerns that Israel would respond with attacks on Iranian oil facilities, but President Joe Biden discouraged this action in a press conference on Friday.
In 2018, former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, which promised sanctions relief for Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program. Iran is still formally part of the deal, but has not abided by it since U.S. sanctions were reinstated under the Trump administration.
The Biden administration encouraged talks to revive the deal in 2022, but talks collapsed after the White House slammed Iran for accusing it of providing lethal weapons and training to Russian forces invading Ukraine. .
In September, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arakchi said on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York that Iran was ready to resume multilateral nuclear negotiations.
The White House has reportedly indicated that the United States is not ready to resume nuclear negotiations with Iran.
