HE SHOULD ALSO TRAVEL THERE...:

The best he can do in the short term is encourage Iran's access to multilateral credit--specifically, from the International Monetary Fund. Opposition from the Trump administration prevented Tehran from getting the roughly $1.5 billion in special drawing rights (SDR) to which it is entitled as a member-nation, and a $5 billion line of credit to fight the pandemic. By signaling its encouragement, Biden would give the government of President Hassan Rouhani a chance to save the Iranian economy from the immediate danger of hyperinflation.

In turn, it would give Rouhani an opportunity to demonstrate, to the U.S. and the world, that it can use external finance for government spending that serves its people, rather than line the pockets of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its extractive businesses and foreign activities.

The government will then have until the presidential election next June to demonstrate competence and a growth agenda to voters. This might just give any reformists who aspire to succeed Rouhani a chance to compete with the militarized economic model of the hard-liners in presidential politics. For a reformist agenda to have any chance of gaining traction at the ballot booth, the government must also start to rein in corruption and limit financial lifelines to the IRGC, and to privilege ordinary Iranian citizens instead.

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