When your country has been the most formidable global power for decades, is it really necessary to bend over backward to appease a violent, third-world dictatorship?

Because it has long seemed — so long as Democrats were in charge, anyway — that the U.S. strategy has been to treat Iran and its increasing stockpile of nuclear energy as gently as possible.

Even to the extent of counseling allies France and Britain against censuring Iran for beefing up its nuclear program, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

The U.S. officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency member-state board, set to begin in June, have denied such efforts, but other diplomats speaking to the Journal reported the difference of opinion between the Europeans and Americans on this issue.

This dispute came as Western nations reacted to an alarming IAEA report about Iran’s nuclear program.

According to the Journal, the agency reported Monday that Iran’s stockpile of 60 percent highly enriched uranium had increased from 20.6 kilograms to 142.1 kilograms, which, according to U.S. officials, would be enough to fuel three nuclear bombs.

This obviously sounded like a bad thing — especially since Iran was not supposed to be doing this in the first place.

Why, then, would the Biden administration be opposed to censuring Iran for what seems to be a clear intention to create nuclear weapons?

Well, according to Israel Hayom, part of the reason would be to avoid any more messy situations with Iran before the presidential election in November.

Moreover, seeing as Iran refused to agree to a revival of former President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal, with negotiations between the U.S. and Iran failing in August 2022, the administration apparently fears that a rebuke now would just prompt another retaliation from Iran.

That deal, from which then-President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. in 2018, obliged Iran to scrap 98 percent of its nuclear stockpile while ceasing most of its nuclear operations (and those that still existed were subject to regular U.N. inspections), as explained by the Journal in 2022.

In exchange, Iran received international sanctions relief and by 2031 would be allowed to produce as much enriched uranium as it wanted.

Now, it seems, despite the reimposition of sanctions under Trump, Iran has decided 2031 should be now.

Thus, European officials have argued that failing to rebuke Iran would undermine the IAEA’s position as a nuclear watchdog and thus render any future censures impotent.

Although U.S. diplomats have denied putting pressure on Britain and France, such a weak move on the international stage would perfectly fit the Biden administration’s modus operandi.

Whether it was betraying Israel to avoid offending ignorant student protesters or advancing the illegal scheme of unilaterally forgiving student loans at enormous cost to the taxpayer, President Joe Biden and his campaign have been desperately trying to appease the radical left wing of his party.

But, regardless of the reason, when historically feckless Western European nations want to be tougher on Iran than the United States, you know you’ve gone seriously off-track.

Of course, Democrats have a long history of letting Iran off easy for its nuclear activities, but that the U.S. is reportedly counseling against any censures for Iran’s illegal nuclear activities is just unbelievable.

The fact that the Biden administration favors creating a “comprehensive report” that might have some implications in late 2025 is yet more pathetic weakness from a pathetic administration.

Still, though it was both unbelievable and pathetic, it sadly was not unexpected.

Indeed, such craven weakness is exactly what we’ve come to expect from a president as uniformly awful as Joe Biden.