On January 13, three experts debated how the Biden admin will change U.S. policy on Iran. The event was moderated by Steve Inskeep, host of NPR's Morning Edition. The speakers were:

As president, Joe Biden has pledged to continue sanctions on Iranian state institutions and high-level officials for human rights abuses. He condemned the execution of Navid Afkari, a 27-year-old wrestler, in September 2020.

On January 12, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo charged that al Qaeda has set up a “new operational headquarters” in Iran, although he provided little tangible evidence. He alleged that Tehran offered the Sunni jihadi movement logistical support, including identification cards and passports, to facilitate terrorist attacks against the West. In exchange, Iran stipulated that "operatives inside abide by the regime’s rules governing al Qaeda’s stay inside the country," Pompeo said in a speech at the National Press Club.

In his final full week in office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo outlined all that the Trump administration has done in its maximum pressure campaign against Iran. In a series of tweets, he highlighted the following accomplishments:

On January 9, 2021, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded accountability from Iran for the accidental downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 one year prior. He accused Iran of shielding the Revolutionary Guards from culpability. “Iran’s own investigation revealed that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot down the plane with two surface-to-air missiles,” he said. “Yet, a year later, members of the IRGC have yet to be held accountable for taking the lives of 176 innocent civilian passengers and crew onboard.” 

Of all the pressing issues in the volatile Middle East—wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya, unstable Iraq, imploding Lebanon, and the 10,000 ISIS fighters and other al-Qaida franchises still on the loose—the most pressing for President-elect Joe Biden will be Iran’s controversial nuclear program. He has repeatedly promised to rejoin the nuclear deal, brokered by the world’s six major powers in 2015, which Donald Trump pulled out of in 2018.

On January 4, Iran resumed enriching uranium to 20 percent at an underground nuclear facility, a major breach of the 2015 nuclear deal. The landmark agreement, negotiated between Iran and six major world powers, stipulated that Tehran could only enrich uranium to 3.67 percent. It also banned uranium enrichment at Fordo – a facility built deep inside a mountain to protect it from a military strike – until 2031.

In 2020, Iran began shipping fuel to Venezuela, its closest ally in Latin America. Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves. But years of government mismanagement and U.S. sanctions on its oil industry have left its refineries in disrepair. Caracas faced gas shortages and widespread blackouts as a result.

In November 2020, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif traveled to Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia. The three countries shared Iran's anti-Americanism and sought deeper bilateral relations with Tehran. On November 5, Zarif met with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and other government officials in Caracas. "[This] visit ratifies the unshakeable spirit of the strategic relations of cooperation and solidarity between Iran and Venezuela," Maduro tweeted after the meeting.

For Iran, 2020 was a particularly tumultuous year. It faced unprecedented economic challenges from tightening U.S. sanctions, a major political transition after a parliamentary election, and a health crisis that killed tens of thousands. It also marked the last full year of President Hassan Rouhani’s presidency, with hardliners jockeying to succeed him by exploiting the failure in his diplomacy with the United States. The headlines of 2020 included: