In his speech last night, President Biden is to be commended for his strong support of Israel and Israeli defenses, including the Iron Dome. If he had stayed on the message of Israeli support, it would’ve been a truly powerful speech, but where the speech goes wrong is his coupling of Israel and Ukraine.
He spent as much time on Ukraine as on Israel. Big mistake. Biden tries to create a moral, diplomatic and military equivalence between the Hamas terrorist massacre in Israel on October 7 and the Putin invasion of Ukraine twenty months ago. Big mistake. Here’s a key point from the speech:
JOE BIDEN: “Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common. They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy. Completely annihilate it.”
This is wrong. This is factually wrong. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, brutal as it has been, and as much as I completely oppose it, is fundamentally a matter of Ukrainian statehood and sovereign boundaries. The Hamas terrorist attack on Israel is fundamentally about Israel’s right to exist. Hamas and its sponsor Iran want to drive Israel off the map and into the sea.
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Biden gets this right when he says Hamas’ “stated purpose for existing is the destruction of the State of Israel and the murder of Jewish people.” That is correct, but evil as Vladimir Putin may be, he is not attempting to annihilate Ukraine altogether, or somehow drive them into the Black Sea. Putin wants to conquer Ukraine and govern it — not destroy it. Hamas wants to destroy Israel. This is a very big difference.
This is not the place to critique the $60 billion proposed security funding supplemental for Ukraine, but I do think conservatives in Congress should ask for some kind of exit-ramp, diplomatic strategy before they approve any additional funding and it is odd that after returning from the Israeli war zone and addressing the nation, President Biden is asking for 60% of his funding request to go to Ukraine.
Another omission in Mr. Biden’s speech: having correctly defined Hamas’ goal of destroying Israel, he neglected to endorse Israel’s goal of destroying Hamas. I think he should have, for purposes of both moral and military clarity and, then, in the weakest part of the speech, Biden turns to Iran for only one of the two Iranian mentions of the speech:
JOE BIDEN: “Iran is supporting Russia in Ukraine and supporting Hamas and other terrorist groups in the region and we’ll continue to hold them accountable, I might add.”
“I might add?” “Hold Iran accountable?” There’s no credibility here. One of the key points in understanding the Mid East blow-up is the fact that in the last three years, President Biden has never held Iran accountable for its state-sponsored terrorism, its goal of destroying Israel, and its goal of destroying the United States.
Donald Trump left Iran nearly broke. Joe Biden has let Iran build up huge oil revenues and foreign exchange reserves, largely through massive energy sales to our enemy China. Biden has not implemented the Iranian energy, economic, and commercial sanctions. Nor has he implemented the ballistic missile or nuclear sanctions. In fact, from Day 1, Biden has attempted to cut a new nuclear deal with Iran that would shower them with even more money.
Here’s historian Walter Russell Mead in today’s Wall Street Journal: “Mr. Biden has yet to grapple with the painful truth that America’s core problem in the Middle East is the march of an unappeasable Iran toward regional power regardless of moral or human cost” and Joe Biden repeats the same mistake in last night’s speech, when he says this, take a listen:
JOE BIDEN: “The United States and our partners across the region are working to build a better future for the Middle East, one where the Middle East is more stable, better connected to its neighbors, and through innovative projects like the Indian Middle East, Europe, rail corridor that I announced this year at the summit of the world’s biggest economies.”
The point that Mr. Biden and his administration do not understand is that Iran doesn’t want a more stable, better-connected relationship with its neighbors, whether there’s a new railroad or not. Iran is a rogue terrorist nation, and that’s that. They have no desire to be integrated into some peaceful Middle East.
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The other Arab states do have a desire for peace and prosperity and integration in the Middle East. That was the success of Trump’s Abraham Accords. The world was a far safer place under former President Donald Trump, but Iran doesn’t want this — not now, not ever.
This is the tragic failure of the Biden policy. Mr. Biden’s speech last night repeats that tragic error. Mr. Biden does not have the strength of character to acknowledge that his policy has failed and it’s time to seek another policy and, because of this, the world is a far more dangerous place.