Biden Should Offer the Vaccine to Iran
The president can help protect the world from Covid and further America’s strategic goals in the region.
Getting the Sputnik vaccine in Tehran in February.
Photographer: Ali Mohammadi/Bloomberg
President Joe Biden’s plan to provide 500 million doses of the Covid vaccine to countries suffering from a deadly pandemic is welcome news for many reasons. The most obvious is that it’s in everyone’s interest to inoculate as many people as possible in order to diminish the chances that the virus and its mutations will spread.
It also happens to be true that donating vaccines is good public diplomacy. As National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said: “We are not seeking to extract concessions, we’re not extorting, we’re not imposing conditions the way that other countries who are providing doses are doing.” That was a veiled jab at China and Russia, which have for months been providing the Sputnik and Sinopharm vaccine to many of America’s traditional allies in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe.