The Biden administration’s dream of cutting a nuclear deal with Iran was already on life support. This month’s deadly Hamas terrorist assault on Israel may have been the death blow.

President Biden is facing intense bipartisan pressure to take a tougher stance toward the regime in Tehran, which is Hamas’ primary financial backer and has expressed strong support for the brutal Oct. 7 assault that killed more than 1,400 Israelis.

The attack has already led to some tangible changes in the administration’s approach, most notably the decision to temporarily re-freeze $6 billion in Iranian oil assets that were set to be freed up in exchange for Iran’s release last month of five American hostages.

But some key officials inside the administration and on the American political left have long argued that Iran’s support for terrorism and its malign activities across the Middle East is exactly why an agreement that keeps Tehran from acquiring a nuclear bomb is needed.

The administration spent nearly two years trying to revive the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, of JCPOA, which lifted some economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program.

Former President Trump pulled the U.S. out of that pact in 2019. The administration’s efforts to resurrect it ultimately fell apart last year and now appear all but dead.

The optics of the U.S. pursuing a new round of diplomacy with Iran at a time of full-scale war between Israel and Hamas appear challenging at best.

But some analysts warn that the dream of rapprochement with Iran will live on in the Democratic Party, regardless of Iran’s rhetorical and financial support for Hamas terrorism.

“If the Biden administration were to base policy on reality, then it would be easy to recognize the error of trying to moderate a genocidal group like Hamas or its sponsors. But ego matters more than truth to too many Biden officials who have built their careers on engagement with Iran,” said Michael Rubin, a former Defense Department official and now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

The Iran talks ‘religion’

“They do not have the integrity or sense of responsibility to admit error,” he said in an interview. “Talking to Tehran has become a religion.”

Critics believe that even now, as Iran publicly celebrates the deaths of Israeli civilians at the hands of Hamas, the administration is sending the wrong signal with its policy toward Iran.

They point to Jacob J. Lew, the president’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel, as proof.

Mr. Lew served as Treasury secretary during the Obama administration when the JCPOA was struck. Republicans this week took direct aim at Mr. Lew for his role in that deal, which subsequently funneled significant amounts of money to Iran that may have helped the Islamic republic fund Hamas and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militia.

“Not only will you need to support Israel as it responds to these attacks, but also as it contends with the enduring, and indeed existential, Iranian threat, which I think is an underlying and foundational issue here,” Sen. James Risch, Idaho Republican, told Mr. Lew during a confirmation hearing this week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“I have reservations about your ability to do that,” said Mr. Risch, who is the committee’s ranking Republican.

Mr. Lew fired back that he personally has been economically sanctioned by the Iranian regime — proof, he argued, that he’s no friend of Tehran.

He also told lawmakers that his “reputation as someone who stands with Israel is beyond question.”

“I want to be clear: Iran is a threat to regional stability and to Israel’s existence,” he said. “If confirmed, I will uphold President Biden’s commitment to deny Iran a nuclear weapon and warning to the region that anyone who’s thinking of taking advantage of the current crisis — don’t.”

Terror links

Iran supports both Hamas and Hezbollah to the tune of about $100 million each year. U.S. officials say nothing yet suggests operational Iranian involvement in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, but they acknowledge that it’s unlikely such a well-funded and well-coordinated attack would’ve been possible with Tehran’s longstanding support.

“There’s a long relationship between Iran and Hamas. In fact, Hamas wouldn’t be Hamas without the support that it’s gotten over many years from Iran,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ABC News earlier this month, a day after the Hamas assault against Israel.

In the days since the attack, the administration has taken a number of significant steps on Iran, in addition to re-freezing the $6 billion in assets set to be released. The Treasury Department this week unveiled new sanctions on Hamas members, including its financial network that includes a Qatar-based financial company with close ties to Tehran.

Mr. Blinken also announced on Wednesday new sanctions against Iran’s missile and drone programs, aimed at curbing Iran’s ability to build and export weaponry to other nations, including Russia, which is using Iranian drones in its war in Ukraine.

“The United States has worked to disrupt Iran’s missile program … We will continue to do so, using every tool at our disposal, so long as Iran poses a threat to security and stability in the Middle East region and around the world,” Mr. Blinken said in a statement.

The administration’s moves come after a bipartisan group of more than 100 House lawmakers sent a letter to Mr. Biden this week urging him to take a tougher tack toward Iran, including the implementation of harsher economic sanctions.

The letter was sent Tuesday, a day before Mr. Blinken announced the latest sanctions on Iranian weapons programs.

“Iran must be held fully accountable for its continued role in funding Hamas and Islamic terror,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter to the president. “We urge the administration to take all necessary steps to cut off Iranian funding sources.”

The 63 Democrats and 50 Republicans wrote that the “necessary steps” must include “maximum enforcement” of U.S. sanctions, and ending Iran’s oil trade with China.

Against that backdrop, it seems difficult to imagine the administration mounting a renewed diplomatic push to strike a deal with Tehran.

Even before the Hamas attack, the administration’s hope for a new agreement appeared to have hit a dead end.

Negotiations effectively ended last year amid Iran’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, its harsh crackdown on domestic protests at home, and its backing of Shiite militias that routinely target U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.

Diplomacy was further derailed when Robert Malley, the administration’s chief Iran envoy, had his security clearance suspended earlier this year under still-mysterious circumstances.

The longtime Democratic diplomat was a key architect of the JCPOA and had been the point man in the effort to revive it.

Congressional Republicans say they’re still in the dark about the details surrounding the suspension of Mr. Malley’s security clearance.

— Ramsey Touchberry, Mallory Wilson and Jeff Mordock contributed to this report.

• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.