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Joe Biden’s Wars

It’s long been known around Washington, as former Defense Secretary Robert Gates once said, that Joe Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four” – now five – “decades.”

So the conflicts raging around the world and forecasts of World War III should have been expected.

But, hey, at least we didn’t elect in 2020 the guy who sent impetuous tweets that upset elites and snowflakes.

As president, Biden has projected American weakness in a Carter-esque fashion, starting with his chaotic and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan, which a State Department report said suffered from “constantly changing policy guidance,” and a top general described as a “strategic failure.”

He’s been no Ronald Reagan. He’s not even been a Donald Trump. So it’s no coincidence that Russia invaded Ukraine a little more than two years after Biden took office. And we all knew it was coming, because three months after Biden stumbled into the Oval Office, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, as Sen. Tom Cotton noted just before the invasion, “sent tens of thousands of soldiers, tanks, and munitions to the Ukrainian border.”

In response, Biden proposed a presidential summit in Geneva, which, says Cotton, elevated “Russia in the eyes of the world” and “allowed the image-obsessed Putin to strut on the international stage and pretend that Russia was once again an equal to the United States.” Apparently, the hotline between Washington and Moscow was soon thereafter cut. Putin recently said he hadn’t spoken to Biden in two years, according to Richard Grenell, acting director of national intelligence for the Trump administration

Meanwhile, innocent Ukrainians and young Russian men who “ain’t got no quarrel with them” Ukrainians are being slaughtered for no reason, and support for continued U.S. aid – now topping $113 billion – to Ukraine has cratered.

But at least we didn’t elect the guy whom the media accused – falsely – of being a Russian stooge.

While that war tore through city and country, Hamas invaded Israel last October, killing, raping, pillaging, and taking Israelis (as well as several American citizens) hostage. Biden’s response has been incoherent, to say the least. After initially saying that the U.S. stands with Israel, he’s done nothing but undermine Israel’s effort to defend itself.

Hamas’ attack was aided and abetted by a newly enriched Iran, a country that had been knocked back on its heels under Trump until Biden fattened the regime with billions of dollars, following the lead of his former boss, Barack Obama.

After Iran launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israel over the weekend, Biden said U.S. support was “ironclad,” only to say the very next day that Israel shouldn’t retaliate. In any event, the U.S. is technically – though not officially – at war with Iran after shooting down its drones and ballistic missiles that were aimed at Israel. The proxy war is now a hot war.

“The strategy of the Biden administration has failed miserably. Biden is sleepwalking the U.S. into another catastrophic war in the Middle East,” Fawaz Gerges, professor of International Relations and Middle Eastern Politics at the London School of Economics told NBC News.

“His overarching goal of preventing the war in Gaza from escalating into neighboring countries has failed. Biden has failed to influence Netanyahu’s decisions either in Gaza or toward Iran.”

And when thinking about terrorism and the Middle East, never forget that Biden, according to Obama, “weighed in against the raid” that killed Osama bin Laden.

But at least we didn’t elect the guy who brokered the Abraham Accords, in which the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco signed a peace pact with Israel.

In another region overheating during the Biden watch, Chinese President Xi Jinping, surely emboldened by events in Israel and Ukraine, is saying he wants to reunite Taiwan with mainland China, which in any language means unless Taipei surrenders, Beijing will use force to put the “family” back together.

Biden has pledged to defend Taiwan if there were a Chinese invasion, but given his wavering support for Israel, his obvious mental impairment, the falloff in military equipment sales to Taiwan under his administration, the delays in deliveries of equipment sold during the Trump years, and his record of appeasement, it appears that Taiwan is on its own against Beijing as long as Biden is in the White House.

But at least we didn’t elect the guy who dared to call COVID-19 the China virus.

 — Written by the I&I Editorial Board

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The Issues and Insights Editorial Board has decades of experience in journalism, commentary and public policy.

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  • I’m personally appalled at the apparent lack of urgency concerning the Biden administration and the hostages, including Americans; being currently held by Hamas. I have heard zero reference to them by Biden. You would think that an operation with special forces (who would volunteer) could be quite successful in rescuing them. Especially considering they are being held in a relatively tiny area of a tiny pseudo country. Inexplicable to me.

    • Two ironclad rules of 21st Century American Politics:

      #1: It’s OK when a Democrat does it, for any value of “it.”

      #2a: Democrats have, as their primary objective, the impoverishment, subjugation, and destruction of the American middle class, because patriarchy and racism and capitalism and because f–k you, that’s why.

      #2b: As a result, Democrats actually care very little about anything going on elsewhere in the world except such that it (a) helps manipulate the domestic narrative and (b) get rich.

      Only through these lenses does anything of the last 10-15 years (and possibly as much as 85 years) make any sense at all.

  • I have to admit: Joe Biden may have been wrong on: Afghanistan, Ukraine, Iran, the border, the economy, the “Justice” Department, etc and etc.
    However, there is one appointment he made that will always merit kudos for his impeccable good judgement: The 2nd date he made with Dr. Jill.
    She embellishes his credibility completely. She even helps him out whenever he begins to dodder (although her accepting his proposal I don’t think is really working out for him).
    As a matter of fact, it could be another in his long list of “ooops”

  • No one is ever accountable for anything. Remember after Iran killed a bunch of US soldiers In January? Ol Joe, Kirby, and Lloyd “Blustercluck” Austin said we would retaliate at “A time and place of our choosing.”. I guess the choice was made to not do a thing.

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