Joe Biden must show Mideast allies he won’t abandon them to Iran’s cold mercies

America’s election results were barely in before Iran started telling Arab states to bend the knee, claiming Joe Biden won’t stand up to the murderous regime as President Trump has. It’ll work, too, unless Biden signals real resolve.

President Hassan Rouhani cheered Trump’s defeat as the end of an “intrusive factor” in the Middle East. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif then warned via Twitter: “A sincere message to our neighbors: Trump’s gone in 70 days. But we’ll remain here forever. Betting on outsiders to provide security is never a good gamble.” He urged neighbors to start talking to Iran “to resolve differences.”

Mideast nations will soon be unable to “buy security,” lectured Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh, but “Iran is always ready” to provide it.

It’s a protection racket: Appease us now or suffer later, because we’ll soon become the regional hegemon — just as US policy assumed in the Obama-Biden administration.

The regime is also bullying Biden, who has vowed to restore the Obama nuclear deal — warning that Washington must pay for the pain inflicted by Trump’s sanctions as the price of re-entry.

US allies plainly want Biden to stand up. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, for example, just urged the world to take “a decisive stance” against Iran’s continuing efforts “to obtain weapons of mass destruction,” stressing “the dangers of Iran’s regional project, its interference in other countries, its fostering of terrorism, its fanning the flames of sectarianism.”

Those who live closest to the Islamic Republic see the dangers. Biden should heed their warnings.

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