# Antony Blinken Antony "Tony" Blinken was U.S. Secretary of State from January 2021 to January 2025, the top diplomat of the Biden administration. A career foreign-policy hand, he previously served as Deputy Secretary of State (2015–2017) and Deputy National Security Advisor (2013–2015), and left office when [[Marco Rubio]] succeeded him at the start of the second Trump administration. ## Relevance to the KB Blinken functions in the knowledge base as an establishment foreign-policy counterweight to the [[Donald Trump]] administration's approach to Iran. He had long defended diplomacy-over-bombing and the verified-constraint logic of the [[JCPOA]] that Trump abandoned in 2018. Following the release of the [[Trump-Iran MOU 2026]], Blinken delivered a pointed critique, arguing the war had failed on Trump's own terms: "The Iranian regime is intact and its military wing more empowered, while the Iranian people are more impoverished, repressed and desperate." He noted the deal's only apparent "achievement" — reopening the Strait of Hormuz — restored a status quo that existed before the war, and warned against expecting "a return to normal any time soon." ## See Also - [[Iran War 2026]] - [[Trump-Iran MOU 2026]] - [[JCPOA]] - [[Marco Rubio]]