The Biden foreign policy debacles
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The Afghanistan debacle looms largest here. In March, Biden said that when it came to withdrawing U.S. military forces, "We’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way." He explained, "We’re in consultation ... with our allies and partners in how to proceed."
That did not happen. Instead, Biden insisted, against military advice and basic logic, on withdrawing all U.S. forces from Afghanistan. This meant the departure of 2,500 troops and associated contractors who were providing Afghan security forces with irreplaceable logistics, maintenance, intelligence, and air support. With the U.S. in full flight, the Afghan military quickly collapsed. The Afghan political class retreated in fear and disorder. The Taliban stormed toward Kabul. The terrible scenes from Kabul's international airport were the result of Biden's poor planning.
Top U.S. allies were ignored when they begged Biden to extend the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline. The truth is that thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghan allies were abandoned by a president who ultimately cared nothing for "a safe and orderly" evacuation.
The video of desperate Afghans flying off the wheels of fleeing U.S. Air Force transports will always be a symbol of Biden's foreign policy legacy, as will the deaths of 13 courageous Americans standing a final watch to protect the ignominious and chaotic rout that Biden forced.
Meanwhile, Biden's post-withdrawal plans for an "over-the-horizon" counterterrorism strategy are a fiction, as his generals have admitted. The retaliatory drone strike — supposedly against terrorists, but actually killing an aid worker and several children — testifies to the fact that Biden's over-the-horizon vision is a contradiction in terms.
The big picture is worse still — China's Xi Jinping, Russia's Vladimir Putin, and Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have come to recognize, from all of this avoidable chaos, Biden's callous ineptitude.
Khamenei now trolls the U.S. and threatens Israel's existence with a waltz of prevarication at nuclear talks in Vienna. As Iran continues to enrich uranium in quantities and to a concentrated purity that portends nuclear weapons development, Biden's negotiators are pathetically begging Iran's theocrats to be more cooperative.
But it is Putin who has made the most of Biden's blunders — a funny thing, since Biden spent much of the 2020 presidential campaign pledging to get tough on Putin. Since entering office, Biden's Russia policy has been one of pure appeasement.
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The ineptitude of Biden and his foreign policy team is hard to ignore. The weaknesses exhibited in Afghanistan has led adversaries to test Biden and he is so far failing those test. Putin wants NATO to abandon allies in Eastern Europe now. Iran's genocidal religious bigots are taking advantage of the lifting of sanctions to rush their development of nuclear weapons while snubbing Biden's attempt to revive Obama's terrible deal. China threatens Taiwan on a daily basis. These people have taken the measure of Biden and the world is a less safe place.
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