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Home » On the Biden administration’s foreign policy

On the Biden administration’s foreign policy

The New Neo Posted on by

I often refer not to Biden himself but to the Biden administration when I discuss policies of the executive branch since Biden’s inauguration three long years ago. That’s because it’s never been clear how much Biden has been in charge. Some think he’s not in charge at all.

I certainly don’t think he’s fully in charge; his cognitive decline is obvious, and he sometimes even refers to what “they” tell him to do – although that latter phenomenon is usually in the context of instructions for how long to speak or how to exit a stage. In general, however, regarding policy, I think Biden is still at least somewhat involved and that he’s a stubborn guy who fancies himself some sort of expert.

Biden has always had terrible foreign policy instincts even when he was in full possession of whatever might have been his original faculties. He still has terrible foreign policy instincts, although ever since he was Obama’s vice president they’ve also been informed by Obama’s pernicious ones. That means we have a mix of Biden’s own incompetence and poor judgment, plus Obama’s more coherent but Iran-loving and other destructive decisions that appear designed to weaken America on the world stage. It’s a toxic brew.

Today I read this article by Caroline Glick (hat tip “sdferr”), in which she writes:

The rising expressions of rage [coming from Israelis] at the Biden administration from ordinary citizens are a testament to the shock and anger Israelis feel at what they perceive as a betrayal of Israel’s most basic interests by Biden and his top advisers.

Three and a half months ago, when Biden came to Israel, most Israelis couldn’t imagine his warm embrace would transform into a torrent of hostile actions.

At the height of Biden’s emotional visit, he gave a speech to the people of Israel: “I come to Israel with a single message. You are not alone. You are not alone. As long as the United States stands—and we will stand forever—we will not let you ever be alone.”

For the overwhelming majority of Israelis, Biden’s declaration sounded like a bankable guarantee. But for the few with more sensitive ears, it sounded like a threat—that he and his administration would never leave Israel alone to fight the war to victory.

As the weeks and months passed, it turned out that the latter had it right.

It boggles my mind that anyone would have thought Biden would be a reliable Israel supporter. I suppose it might be because most ordinary citizens in Israel – and many in this country as well – haven’t really paid much attention to Biden. But anyone who did pay attention would have known he (or those controlling him or semi-controlling him) would follow far more in Obama’s footsteps (or worse) than they would follow any Israel-supporting rhetoric Biden’s speechwriters might initially pen.

The Biden administration’s policy is a denial of reality – the reality of Iran as an implacable enemy not just of Israel but of the US, as well as the collapse of any reason to believe in a 2-state solution. The policy also denies the reality of how a war must be waged if it is to be won, and even the necessity of winning in order to change the situation. How involved Biden himself is in this fiasco is unknown, but it’s not even all that important. And unless a change occurs in November of 2024, it will continue unabated.

Let me add that the problems are hardly limited to the administration’s Israeli policy, or even its foreign policy.

Comments

On the Biden administration’s foreign policy — 38 Comments

  1. This is really an extraordinary time in America. In a bad way.

    It is truly amazing. And things just keep getting worse.

    The nation is a runaway train, heading toward a cliff, going faster and faster.

  2. The Obama/Biden decisions and policies are intended to bring to an end America’s national sovereignty and Israel’s very existence.

  4. Been a while since we’ve had a real knock-down-drag-out argument around here, so let’s see if I can get one started. I could issue a bunch of qualifications, justifications, etc. for what I’m about to say, but instead I’ll just make a bold statement and let everyone rip it apart – if they can.

    Joe Biden has been a more reliable supporter of Israel than any other Democrat who could realistically occupy the White House at present.

  5. Mike Plaiss:

    That’s such a low bar it’s practically resting on the ground. So I’ll not try to limbo under it. You’re probably correct, but unfortunately it’s irrelevant to my point in this post.

  6. Tony Badran: https://twitter.com/AcrossTheBay/status/1754915410841829538?t=dnFu5XP-7cff0axK9RvdOA&s=19

    This is Team Obama-Biden’s plan in Lebanon, that it’s trying to ram down Israel’s throat. The Hezbollah sock puppet Lebanese “foreign minister” explains three key points:

    1- “We reject pulling Hezbollah back behind the Litani River. That would lead to war.”
    2- “We will not accept anything less than a comprehensive resolution to all border issues with Israel.”
    3- “The LAF does not have the capacity (men and materiel) to deploy on the southern border. Lebanon asks concerned countries to help recruit 7,000 additional soldiers, and we expect France to call for an international meeting to support the LAF, like the donor meeting held in Italy in 2007.”

    That is, the US will invest even more heavily in subsidizing the LAF, which will open the door to recruitment, adding some 7k Hezbollah members and sympathizers to its ranks–paid for by US taxpayer dollars. The status quo in the south remains the same in violation of UNSCR 1701. Only Team Obama-Biden will press Israel to halt overflights in Lebanon, placing Hezbollah under US protection. Then Team Obama-Biden will pressure Israel to hand over border points from Rosh Hanikra to the Golan Heights, where the admin has already rescinded US recognition of Israeli sovereignty (and lied to Congress about it–a small thing the new ambo to Lebanon now has 3 years to meditate on, as she reflects on her predecessor’s post-Lebanon career path).

    Team Obama-Biden’s policy in Lebanon is simply this: providing protection and money to an Iranian “special province.”

  7. Democrat and realistically in the same thought. Novel. You may misremember how the Brandon junta was installed. They could have picked any other cloth headed pol or flunky and fortified the process to the same end, no Orange Man. But Brandon has his own special blend of adverse characteristics and to quote BHO, “f*cks up everything he touches.”

  8. Adam Credo; https://freebeacon.com/national-security/state-department-employee-who-accused-biden-of-genocide-still-shapes-israel-policy/

    A State Department employee who accused President Joe Biden of “genocide” and worked to undermine the administration’s support for Israel remains in her post more than three months after her social media activity drew widespread outrage, according to sources familiar with the matter.

    Sylvia Yacoub, a career foreign service officer in the State Department’s Near Eastern Affairs Bureau, is still shaping policy inside the administration as Secretary of State Antony Blinken increases pressure on Israel to end its war against the Hamas terrorists who slaughtered more than 1,200 in an Oct. 7 terror spree.

    Yacoub drew outrage inside and outside of Foggy Bottom in November, a month after Hamas launched its war against Israel, when she publicly accused Biden on social media of being “complicit” in the Jewish state’s “genocide” inside the Gaza Strip. She also criticized U.S. military assistance to Israel, and accused the Biden administration of fomenting Islamophobia with its pro-Israel positions, the Washington Free Beacon first reported.

  9. There are Democrats who would be more friendly to Israel. I suspect they would find it difficult to make it past the activists that appear to control the Democratic Party, though.

  10. junior:

    They might feel more kindly disposed towards Israel. But I doubt their policies would actually be different in terms of the 2-state solution or the conduct of the war in Gaza, for the simple reason that it would offend their base too much.

  11. Biden is a special kind of useful idiot, having lost most of whatever brainpower he used to have. But Democrats in general seem very prone to swallowing propaganda whole. “Islamophobia” is an invented term having little core meaning. But Democrats, and their Republican and Independent allies, need to face the threat posed by radical Islamism to western civilization. And yes, to answer a question on another thread, there is a difference between Muslims who fast at Ramadan and consider themselves Muslim but do not aspire to kill others, and the radicals who are fanatic followers of the strict seventh-century religion. We are ALL at risk to the radicals, and that includes cultural-but-not-terribly-religious Muslims, as Egypt has discovered.

    Israel is fighting the battle that we will all have to fight if we don’t face reality.

  12. Good line about the low bar. Allow me a defense of the relevance, and I’ll let you have the last word if you wish. Properly diagnosing a problem is important. In your post, on multiple occasions, you refer to “the Biden administration.” But in this instance, the Biden administration is, in fact, the best realist world-line. Arguably, we should all be somewhat grateful. It could be much much worse. I’ve said it here before, and I’ll say it again, Biden actually isn’t the problem. The problem is…Democrats.

  13. well he’s always been a soviet tool, now one of China, yes who picked him out of a hat, hillary would have given us the same results its the same retread team with some new players like yacoub and mcfadden, from the compant who had to fly the palestinian tricolor because reasons,

    Malley who dropped out of the picture, curiously enough, his analogue at the NSC, who came from UNWRA, Bihar, another gal at DHS who came from the Authority, a loaner from the Qataris at the Pentagon,

    there are counterparts in the British foreign office like Sir Richard Dalton, among others and I imagine at the Legos Palace that is MI-6, maybe it was always this pad, or the swamp rot at Foggy Bottom has reached terminal status,

  14. Never, ever, trust the demonkrats to be a reliable ally; you never know when or if they will abandon an ally.

    And I still do not understand the affection that demonkrats – Obama in particular- have for Iran.
    I don’t think for a moment that any demonkrat, Obama included, really believes that Iran can be bought for cash + by being nice to them.
    What exactly do Biden/Obama hope will be achieved by playing nice with Iran??

  15. it is the furthermost antiwestern islamist regime, although qatar pops up again in second place among Salafi islamists, at one point, according to inside the kingdom, ghost written by Jamal Khashoggi, although Robert Lacey, had the byline, the Saudis though they had been treated disrespectfully by W in part because of their countrymen in Guantanamo, which was a holding pen for the worst of their opponents, and they though Obama was amenable to their point of view, in Obama’s view, despite the influences of Prince Talal, the regime was insufficiently authentic in it’s affirmations, back when he was at Columbia he was certainly aware of Said’s reputation, and was more in sympathy withe Khalidi whose pedigree I’ve described

    there was a strong Arabist sentiment represented by the Middle East’s institutes Charles Freeman, as well as Edward Walker the late Joe Wilson was a minor player as with Ray Close who founded the VIPS outfit, none of those ultra WASPs had a nice word about Israel

    in the Administration proper John Brennan had strong Shia affinities, he didn’t try to find a good side to Hezbollah by accident, his drone strikes pointedly did not target North Africa or the Levant in the years when Militias were rising in the region, in fact
    they supported the Salafi rebels against Assad because reasons

  17. JohnTyler: “What exactly do Biden/Obama hope will be achieved by playing nice with Iran??”

    It will undermine the two countries they despise the most – the US and Israel.

  19. If true, Glick’s article linked above is quite damning. I feel terrible about the duplicity of it all. But if for no other reason, I guess I have to admire the policy picture painted therein for its extraordinary consistency.

    At the same time, I guess that’s part of why I reserve a certain amount of doubt for the moment about the picture Ms. Glick is painting in that piece, for consistency on that level has been historically somewhat difficult for our government to achieve, I feel.

  20. ‘…Brandon has his own special blend of adverse characteristics and to quote BHO, “f*cks up everything he touches.” ‘

    Yes, the famous quote….

    But it’s a MISDIRECTION.
    It’s a misdirection because, in fact, Joe Biden has been performing “admirably” (with a “[lotta] help from his friends”).
    Yes, ADMIRABLY—if the GOAL is the SYSTEMATIC TAKE-DOWN and DESTRUCTION of the country and its institutions.

    Which it is.
    For “Biden”.
    As it was for Obama before him.
    As it is…for Obama NOW.
    (Which is why the Trump interregnum was such a HUGE problem for them all. Which is WHY TRUMP HAD TO BE—MUST BE—UTTERLY DESTROYED.)

    SO why a misdirection?
    Because Obama HAD to know that Indecent Joe was going to win in November 2020, and so deployed his impeccably perverted sense of humor to proffer some hope to the MEGA-DEPRAVED MAGA DEPLORABLES, with whom “Biden”—and PELOSI—were going to deal after the election.

    But back to Indecent Joe. Really now, does he ACTUALLY “[f*ck] up everything he touches”.

    Heh, INDEED, he does…
    But BY DESIGN….

    File under: Designed by “Biden” especially for you!!

  21. Rufus, he hates all three but he is in a position to do serious damage to the US and Israel. Apparently Britain is already doing a great job undermining itself and does not need Obama’s, uh, “help”.

  28. David Harsanyi, The Federalist: https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/07/why-biden-is-threatening-to-veto-aid-to-israel/

    In the years before Barack Obama, a vote to help a longtime ally against a proxy terror army that — not incidentally — murdered 30-plus American citizens would have been a no-brainer. Today, a Democrat who takes an unrepentantly pro-Israel position puts himself in a precarious position. Biden is free to play games with Israeli aid because there will be no political repercussions. Most Democrats don’t really care anymore. And those who do are in the pro-Hamas wing — whether openly or functionally.

  29. the late Joe Wilson was a minor player as

    Yeah, apparently he died in 2019 of “organ failure” at age 69 after having been divorced a couple – depending how you count it out – of years from Plame.

    An image from Heavy showing the power couple at premiers of the movie made about them in May and in October of 2010 show an overweight and bloated looking Wilson, even then. Not quite the impression the famous Vanity Fair image left people with.

    The probably hundred hours I spent doing a deep dive – including those CIA releases of the recommendation memos – into the origins of his trip, is time I will never recover.

    But what it did reveal to me was how corrupt and deceptive some of the press was in covering up the plotting which had preceded the original ” leaking” of the trip and then Wilson’s subsequent NYT article.

    What a vipers nest of gossips, manipulators, and politically partisan agenda pushers in and out and all around Washington. Soulless vermin seeking power and dealing in malice.

    Almost every point of the press narrative was false or misleading; from Wilson’s trip at the supposed ” behest” of Cheney, to Plame’s supposed non involvement in Wilson’s undertaking, to the hidden pre-leak restaurant planning meetings meetings, to the long time mission of Richard Armitage’s responsibility re Plame’s supposed “outing”. His name is still lacking in many recaps.

    If one was clueless as to the existence of a behind the scenes ideological alignment and shared agenda between the press and the permanent bureaucracy before that event, one could not remain so after.

  30. Lee Smith, Tablet Mag, “Qatar’s Explosive Cash-for-Hostages Portfolio”: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/qatar-cash-hostages-portfolio

    Israelis are hardly the only ones being held hostage by Iran and its proxies. So are American forces in the Middle East. Last month, Kata’ib Hezbollah launched a drone that killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan. But President Biden didn’t want to retaliate against Iran for fear of collapsing the pro-Iran policy established by his former boss Barack Obama, so U.S. intelligence officials leaked an assessment to the press that Iran doesn’t control the proxy groups it trains, funds, and arms to kill Americans and U.S. allies in the Middle East.

    That got Biden off the hook‚ but it’s hard to pose as a global superpower while allowing the servicemen and women you put in harm’s way to be killed with impunity. Biden considered his options, then announced his intentions to hit targets in Iraq and Syria, which gave the Iranians a week to scatter high-value assets and personnel, after which he bombed meaningless targets in those countries. One U.S. official made sure to tell the Iranians through U.S. media that “there are no indications that members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed as part of the operations.” The U.S. president thereby signaled to the Iranians that they are free to continue directing their Arab assets to kill Americans.

    Iran’s proxies and cutouts are successful in this sickening game that puts the lives of hostages and servicemen alike at risk only to the extent that officials in the Biden administration are willing to deny and disguise the regime’s active role in targeting Americans. By contrast, when Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 U.S.-Iran agreement that legalized the terror state’s nuclear weapons program, he signaled that unlike his predecessor he didn’t see Tehran as a regional partner to replace Israel and Saudi Arabia. Accordingly, when Iranian proxies killed an American contractor and laid siege to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in December 2019, Trump cut off the head of Iran’s paramilitary snake by killing Soleimani. The January 2020 drone strike that got the Iranian terror chief also tagged then-leader of Kata’ib Hezbollah, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, thereby underscoring the fact that Iran is directly responsible for the actions of its proxies.

    In comparison, Biden’s Iran policy is a hall of mirrors designed to hide facts likely to disturb the American electorate while allowing the White House to deepen its relationship with Iran. For Americans, the most repugnant feature of what the Biden team sees as a program of regional integration under the Iranian banner is this: U.S. forces are based in Iraq and Syria to protect Iranian interests in those countries. Under the guise of counterterrorism missions, American troops are detailed to target any Sunni Arab population that the Iranians and their allies designate as ISIS, and thereby risk their lives to secure Iran’s position in countries the Islamic Republic has helped destroy.

  31. oh yes, the wilson narrative was threadbare as a dinner napkin, now what happened to the yellow cake, one may never know, for Joe never visited the mines in the North of the Country, where the machinery drags it out, his consultancy was with the Al Amoudis a very sketchy group of Ethiopian Yemeni
    businessmen, who employ top flight lawfare to protect themselves,

    https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1256475/posts

    in the milions of lines of newsprint, you find some real information

  34. Biden referred to meeting with French President “Francois Mitterand” the other day when he was in France. Unfortuantley for Joe Plugs Biden, Mitterand died in 1996. Both Biden and Trump are in deep cognitive decline – both obviously slur their speech.

  35. recall how Trump tried to reign in qatar, back in 2017, because of their long standing ties to practically every major player on the block,

  36. qatar certainly backed the syrian islamists, gave sanctuary to the Taliban, who we are now funding, we have been restocking the leadership cadres of AQAP and Islamic State probably Boko Haram

  37. recall how Trump tried to reign in qatar,

    Aaagggghhhhh….!

    I thought we discussed this already. 🙂

  38. Both Biden and Trump are in deep cognitive decline – both obviously slur their speech.
    ==
    There is no evidence of that in re Trump.

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