Two months have passed since President Joe Biden took office on January 21, 2021. After experiencing the Trump administration's destruction of European-American relations, the Biden administration and European powers hope to cooperate again to deal with what they consider to be their strategic rivals, China and Russia. To weaken its opponents, the United States will not easily accept that some key regional countries develop close relations with China or Russia.

Iran is one of such regional countries. therefore, although there are strong voices against Iran in the United States, Washington has regarded Iran as a pawn against other world powers, so the United States is likely to ease its attitude towards Iran. After all, the United States’ Iran policy serves its great power competition strategy.

On the other hand, competition among West Asian countries is not conducive to US-Iranian relations. U.S. allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia still hate Iran and have been pushing Washington to exert greater pressure on Iran. For example, just a few days ago, in mid-March, the United States and Israel held a high-level meeting to coordinate their Iran policy. The United States cannot completely ignore the demands of these allies, which will partially restrict the United States from easing its attitude towards Iran.

From the two perspectives of great power competition and regional competition in West Asia, the United States' attitude towards Iran is contradictory. That's why we often see that the U.S. policy towards Iran is not consistent. This is of course not conducive to the healthy development of US-Iranian relations.