In the interest of full disclosure, and to at least limit friendly fire, please beware that I voted for Joe Biden. In fact, when he picked Kamala Harris as his running mate, I duly gloated in “I Picked Biden-Harris 2020 in January 2019. Now It’s Official!” August 12, 2020.
In other words, I not only picked Biden to win the presidency, when nobody was giving him a snowball’s chance in Hell, but even picked Harris to make history as vice president over 18 months before he did.
My bona fides thusly established, many hailed Biden’s foreign policy team with relief and reassurance in equal measure. This, because they were certain it would not only reverse Trump’s misguided foreign policies, but also revivify America’s vaunted reputation on the world stage.
Top on the agenda was, to use an admittedly fraught term, resetting America’s relationship with foes like North Korea and Russia, while rekindling its relationship with friends like the EU and Canada.
To be fair, Biden got off to a good start. Never mind that it only amounted to signing a flurry of Executive Orders. But he appeared to be vindicating great expectations, most notably with orders to:
- Rejoin the World Health Organization
- Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement
- Reverse the so-called Muslim Ban
- Preserve Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
- Halt construction and funding for Trump’s border wall
- Reunite children separated from their families at the US-Mexico border
As it happened, though, that flurry of Biden signings was detracting from his Trumpian dealings like this:
North Korea has not responded to behind-the-scenes diplomatic outreach since mid-last month by United States President Joe Biden’s administration, a senior Biden administration official told Reuters on Saturday.
The disclosure of the so-far unsuccessful outreach, which has not been previously reported, raises questions about how Mr Biden will address mounting tensions with Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes. …
‘To date, we have not received any response from Pyongyang,’ the official said.
(The Strait Times, March 15, 2021)
Evidently US presidents will never learn. Trump debased the presidency by boasting about his love letters with North Korea’s boy leader Kim Jong-un. They were all he thought he needed to fly across the globe to consummate a nuclear deal. But Kim turned out to be a little shrew – too uptight to screw. This left Trump to fly back to America after their frigid summit in Vietnam to take an even colder shower, while Kim stayed behind chainsmoking cigarettes and going on sightseeing tours.
Frankly, ever since Lil’ Kim’s daddy was jerking US presidents around, I’ve been arguing that the only way to deal with North Korea is to call its bluff: Let it test fire missiles until kingdom come, but warn that if any of them land on friendly territory, it will be lights out for that Hermit Kingdom. This is the only message the United States should be sending a belligerent North Korea.
In other words, Biden should’ve been ignoring Kim. At the same time, he should’ve been making a big show of bolstering South Korea’s defenses and war-gaming for all contingencies. All else is tail-wagging-the-dog folly.
But Biden and his A-Team blundered. They waited until Kim made a big show of not just snubbing but ridiculing their diplomatic outreach. Only then did it dawn on them to begin doing what they should have been doing in the first place.
Because his team finally announced last week that, while the US remains committed to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Biden will not waste any more time reaching out to Kim. Instead he will wait for Kim to show clear intent to take practical and verifiable steps towards that goal. Your move Kim … if you dare.
Then there’s Russia. No doubt you’ve heard Biden talking tough about making Russia pay for interfering in the US presidential election – not just in 2016 but in 2020 too. Biden is also toughening the sanctions his former boss, Barack Obama, imposed on Russia for annexing Crimea.
The sanctions will be among what President Biden’s aides say are ‘seen and unseen’ steps in response to the hacking, known as SolarWinds; to the C.I.A.’s assessment that Russia offered to pay bounties to militants in Afghanistan to kill American troops; and to Russia’s years long effort to interfere in United States elections, according to American officials and others who have been briefed on the actions.
(The New York Times, April 14, 2021)
Significantly, though, Biden is upstaging Obama by vowing to help Ukraine fend off further Russian aggression with more than hot rhetoric and warm blankets.
The US secretary of state has told Russia to cease all ‘reckless and aggressive actions’ towards Ukraine.
Speaking alongside President Volodymyr Zelensky, he said the US was looking to strengthen security co-operation and assistance between the two countries.
The visit comes just weeks after Russia deployed thousands of soldiers close to the Ukrainian border.
‘We are aware that Russia has withdrawn some forces from the border… but we also see that significant forces remain there [and] significant equipment remains there,’ Mr Blinken said.
(BBC, May 7, 2021)
Except, the congenital bully that he is, Putin began withdrawing the troops he spent weeks amassing on the border as soon as Biden began talking tough about the US helping Ukraine stand up to Russia.
But long term, I hope – at long last – this means doing what I began urging the US to do the minute Putin began deploying those forces. Which is for the US and its NATO allies to funnel enough tanks, anti-tank missiles, and every other type of military hardware to enable Ukraine to man this border with all the troops and armaments necessary to call Russia’s bluff.
My exasperation at their failure to do so has been such that I’m on record repeatedly exclaiming ,
What the hell are they waiting for?! Crimea was Putin’s Sudetenland. Will Ukraine be his Poland?
The point is that I was heartened to see Biden was showing so much spine in his dealings with Putin. Because it stood in commendable contrast not just with the suspiciously spineless Trump, but even with the conspicuously cautious Obama.
But then came this:
President Joe Biden has announced he will be speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, given the hackers responsible were a Russia-based ransomware group. ‘I’m going to be meeting with President Putin,’ Mr Biden said. ‘So far there’s no evidence from our intelligence people that Russia is involved. Although, there is evidence the actor’s ransomware is in Russia.’
This attack forced the company to completely shut down its pipeline, causing concern about the potential impact on gasoline prices and supply for southern states.
(The Independent, May 11, 2021)
Biden didn’t embarrass himself and the country the way Trump did in Helsinki, but he came despairingly close. Because there he was at the White House – talking tough about punishing these hackers, but then talking solicitously about meeting with Putin. Which clearly makes about as much sense as talking tough about punishing drug traffickers, but then talking solicitously about meeting with their drug lord.
As rogue nations go, North Korea has nothing on Russia. Biden should treat its leader, “Vlad the poisoner”, accordingly. As it happens, though, this hack of the Colonial Pipeline vindicates what I summed up just last year in “Rogue Nations like North Korea Don’t Need Trump Incapacitated to Attack US,” October 7, 2020. Sure enough, Trump is no longer president; yet here we are.
In any event, Biden should not dignify Putin with a bilateral summit for the same obvious reasons he should not dignify other murdering rogues like Kim of North Korea and MbS of Saudi Arabia with one. Xi of China, however, is another story.
But before continuing, I feel obliged to note the fearful symmetry the insurrection of January 6 has to Russia’s ongoing war-gaming targeting Ukraine and China’s targeting Taiwan. Most experts seem to think the cyberattacks Russia and China are continually launching to destabilize and discredit American democracy is just pursuant to the clash of ideologies by other means. But I suspect it is equally the case that both countries are trying to sow such discord that January 6 turns out to be a dress rehearsal for the second civil war, which the hero of the first one warned about.
Because here, according to the State Historical Society of Iowa, is what former President Ulysses S. Grant said at the Annual Reunion of the Army of the Tennessee in Des Moines, Iowa on Sept. 29, 1875:
If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.
It has clearly taken a bit longer, but that dire warning is proving every bit as prescient as the more famous one former President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered from the White House on January 17, 1961, about the threat the military industrial complex posed to democracy. And so enter Joe Biden, Liz Cheney and common-sense patriots on the one side, and Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Green and Q-Anon ignoramuses on the other. God help America.
The point is that Russia and China are doing all they can to foment outbreak of this second civil war. Because, that would clearly have America so divided against and preoccupied with itself, it would hardly be in the position to object to, let alone help fend off, full-scale invasions of Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively … simultaneously (hahaha). But I digress …
Decades of myopic and misguided trade have seen US presidents behaving like evangelical preachers; you know, the ones who show up on Sunday mornings to condemn sins they committed on Saturday nights. Only this explains Biden accusing China of genocide against the Uighurs, but then boasting about the hours he spent discussing other issues of mutual interest with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Case in point is the move afoot to boycott the 2022 Beijing Olympics to punish China for this genocide. Biden has imposed targeted sanctions, and influential Senator Mitt Romney has proposed further diplomatic boycotts. But these hardly seem sufficient to honor America’s pledge that “never again” will it stand by while any state perpetrates genocide.
Not to mention that, even more than Russia, China has just cause to believe that it can act with impunity. US companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft have seen to that. And, since the obvious sometimes needs stating, the athletes suffer most from Olympic boycotts.
This is why I maintain that the only way the US and other Western countries can regain the moral high ground in their dealings with China is to force the IOC to relocate the Olympics. Let the chips fall where they may.
Because let’s face it, China is as dependent on manufacturing cheap stuff to sell in Western countries as Western countries are on buying cheap stuff that are manufactured in China.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this co-dependency makes the economic relationship between Western countries and China even more existential than the military relationship they had with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. Which is why, just like the old one, this relationship is based even more on the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).
Apropos of mad, only that explains the unforced error Biden’s A-Team made with its attempt to continue Trump’s policy of limiting the refugee cap to 15,000.
Biden sought to calm the uprising within his party during brief remarks to reporters Saturday after playing golf in Delaware. The firestorm followed Friday’s news that Biden would sign an emergency determination keeping the current cap on refugees entering the United States at 15,000 this fiscal year, a level set by the Trump administration that is far below historical norms and the 62,500 the Biden administration had proposed earlier this year.
(CNN, April 18, 2021)
It did not help that, attired for golfing, Biden even looked every bit as clueless about the perennial plight of refugees as Trump always did. Never mind the uncanny fact that this just happened to be Biden’s very first golf outing of his presidency. This, unlike Trump who seemed to spend more time on the golf course than in the Oval Office.
In any event, after two weeks under friendly bludgeoning for this all-too-foreseeable error, Team Biden made a correction in early May to honor his promise and distinguish his administration from Trump’s. It announced that he will raise the cap not only from 15,000 to 62,500 this year, but to 125,000 next year, presumably to compensate for this year’s blunder.
Except that, as Biden himself might say, here’s the deal folks: After four years of denouncing Trump for his heartless and xenophobic immigration policies, why announce that you’re going to keep his plainly racist cap of 15,000 on (legal) refugees every year in place? This, especially when the whole world can see twice as many illegal immigrants crossing America’s southern border every week. I mean, how boneheaded is that!
Conspicuously absent from Biden’ foreign policy agenda has been anything to do with the Middle East. And one can hardly blame him. After all, as I write this, Israelis and Palestinians are waging yet another battle in their forever war, which makes the one Biden is trying to end in Afghanistan look like a fender bender between quarrelsome neighbors.
In fact, everything about this raging conflagration is eerily similar to others I bemoaned in commentaries like
- “To Israel, 1 Dead Jew Is Worth 100 Living Palestinians…?” July 17, 2008;
- “Neverending Story: Territorial (Holy) War Between Israelis and Palestinians (in Gaza),” January 3, 2009; and
- “Groundhog-Day Flare up Between Israelis and Palestinians,” July 15, 2014.
The only question is: What price … stalemate? Alas, this invariably means a casualty ratio between Israelis and Palestinians of 1:100-500. Of course, the damage ratio is not even comparable. I mean, at this point, Israel is just turning more of the rubble far too many Palestinians call home into more rubble.
Nonetheless, listening to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s clear he intends to frame this latest battle as Israel’s finest hour, come what may. No doubt he thinks doing so will save not just his career but his freedom too. After all, this battle has the twin collateral benefits of:
- Preventing opposition leader Yair Lapid from forming a new government to finally oust Netanyahu after 12 years in power. Because jingoism will oblige all opposition politicians, including Lapid, to rally around Netanyahu; and
- Preventing prosecutors from continuing their corruption trial against him, which seems bound to end with him behind bars. Ironically, this prompted me to quip in “Chutzpah! Netanyahu Playing Arab Card to win Israel’s ‘Jewish’ Election,” March 19, 2021:
[Here’s to] ousting Netanyahu from office so that, like Trump, he too can spend more time in court – fighting losing battles to escape his long-awaited fate … in prison. Birds of a feather, may they flock together in this respect for the rest of their lives.
But the following speaks volumes about Biden’s contempt for Netanyahu:
It took nearly a month, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s number on President Biden’s dance card finally came up. After calling more than a dozen other world leaders since taking office, Biden on Wednesday telephoned his Israeli counterpart. …
By making the notoriously arrogant Israeli leader cool his heels while waiting for a call, Biden was signaling a significant refocusing of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East to become more evenhanded in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
(The Los Angeles Times, February 17, 2021)
Arguably, this was because Netanyahu spent much of his premiership demonizing Palestinians in ways that make the way Trump demonized Mexicans seem benign. But no doubt it’s also because the brazen ways Netanyahu interfered to help Trump in the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections make the ways Putin interfered seem mild.
Whatever the case, Netanyahu would clearly like nothing more now than to make this a true forever war. But the reality remains that it’s either the two-state solution he notoriously despises or this whack-a-mole war. Unfortunately, again like Trump, Netanyahu has shown time and again that he has no scruples about presiding over these conflagrations like an arsonist marshaling efforts to fight the fire that he himself ignited.
Meanwhile, you’d be hard-pressed to see any US engagement beyond tippy-toe efforts to renegotiate the nuclear deal with Iran and lip service pursuant to America’s role as regional peace broker of peace that never breaks out. Otherwise, Biden seems intent on leaving regional actors to their own devices, and rightly so.
Apropos of which, no foreign country has become more inhospitable than Afghanistan. No doubt this is why Biden made such a big show of announcing his plan to end America’s “forever war” there on its 20th anniversary this 9/11. But I was stupefied by the way so many commentators hailed his announcement.
Maureen Dowd, the celebrated op-ed columnist for The New York Times led the chorus with a piece titled,
- “Biden Ditches the Generals, Finally,” April 17, 2021
But my blog is replete with commentaries decrying the folly of this war that date back to 2005. More to the point, the title to most of them make Dowd’s look belated at best – at this partial list of 5 clearly shows:
- “Please Spare Us the al-Qaeda Obits!” December 5, 2005
- “Meanwhile Over in Afghanistan: Snatching Defeat from Hands of Victory,” September 18, 2006
- “‘Without [or Even With] More Forces, Failure in Afghanistan Is Likely’,” September 23, 2009
- “Obama Saluting War Dead Will Be Defining Image of His Presidency,” October 30, 2009
- “Afghanistan: How Many More US Soldiers Must Die for a Mistake?” September 19, 2012
This is why I found nothing in Biden’s announcement to hail. Not to mention that it took at least 15 years and 4 US presidents for him to finally heed the lessons of Westmoreland’s Vietnam and ditch the generals. By contrast, it took JFK only 13 days to ditch the generals in 1962 to properly handle and end the Cuban Missile Crisis. And this was long before generals caused successive US presidents to send American soldiers to graveyards of empires in Vietnam and Afghanistan.
But don’t get me started on the manifest folly of Americans continually wasting blood and treasure trying to build Jeffersonian democracies in foreign countries when we still don’t even have one here in America.
Anyway, I’ll close with this ominous bit of symmetry: Lines are forming a mile long for gasoline and inflation is threatening to render stimulus checks worthless. So all we need now is for Islamists to seize an American embassy somewhere and capture hostages. Because Trump would immediately show up on Fox News to lead a chorus of Republicans in declaring Biden’s presidency already a failure – just like Jimmy Carter‘s.
And does anyone doubt that, despite Biden’s commendable efforts to have his Build Back Better agenda emulate LBJ’s “Great Society”, if not FDR‘s “New Deal”, this fateful symmetry would resonate.
Oy Vey!
Related commentaries:
I picked Biden… rogue nations… Chutzpah!… boycott Olympics… Russian hackers…
China Uighurs… Groundhog-day flare up… Neverending story… 1 dead Israeli… Afghanistan…