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FOREIGN POLICY

360 degrees of hostility: The Biden administration and Israel Caroline Glick

https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/360-degrees-of-hostility-the-biden-administration-and-israel/

The Mothers of IDF Soldiers group led a demonstration last week of army mothers, reservists in the Israel Defense Forces, bereaved families and other concerned citizens outside the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. They demanded that President Joe Biden stop leveraging power to force Israel to resupply Hamas.

The following day, hundreds of Israelis, including parents of soldiers, families of hostages and terror victims gathered outside Ashdod Port. For hours, they blocked trucks laden with supplies for Gaza from exiting the port. Activists have been blocking trucks from entering Gaza via the Kerem Shalom and Nitzana border crossings for more than two weeks.

Speaking to the crowd in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, Shifra Shahar, who runs a nonprofit organization that cares for the needs of soldiers, addressed her remarks to Israel’s leaders:

“Government of Israel, defense minister, IDF chief of staff, get ahold of yourselves!

“No other nation feeds and sustains its enemy! It’s truly an Israeli start-up.

“We had elections last year. I don’t recall voting for [U.S. Secretary of State Antony] Blinken! Blinken is sitting in the war cabinet and protecting the interests of my enemy. … We have sons in Gaza. We have sons fighting. The entry of the trucks endangers them, prolongs the war, increases the number of casualties and delays the return of the hostages!

“They tell me, ‘There are constraints.’ He who is constrained doesn’t win the war.

“They tell me, ‘The Americans are threatening not to provide us with ammunition.’

“To this, I say, if we were besieging them, we wouldn’t need ammunition! The war would end. They’d be screaming for help, returning the hostages and the war would end!”

The rising expressions of rage 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.

BIDEN’S MIDDLE EAST POLICY IS A LOT OF SOUND AND FURY SIGNIFYING FAILURE ERIC LEVINE

NO URL ERIC LEVINE IS AN ATTORNEY IN NEW YORK WHO SPEAKS AND WRITES FREQUENTLY ON ISRAEL AND FOREIGN POLICY

Speaking at the Atlantic Festival on September 30, 2023, Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan proudly bragged: “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”

Last week – a mere four months later – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ominously proclaimed: “[W]e’ve not seen a situation as dangerous as the one we’re facing now across the [Middle East] since at least 1973, and arguably even before that….”

How did we go from the golden age of American diplomacy to the dark ages of war in such short order? The answer is: Nothing has really changed. Unbeknownst to a clueless Administration, we have been in the dark ages of war since Joe Biden took office. His appeasement of Iran has seen to that. 

Despite Iran’s funding of Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and a vast terrorist network in Syria and Iraq, the Administration remains wedded to the fantasy that with the just the right policy and the right amount of cajoling from the United States, Iran will end its nuclear program and turn into a responsible citizen in the community of nations.  AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and their fellow Squad members are more likely to host next year’s Israel Day Parade in New York City.

Part of the Administration’s strategy of modifying Iran’s behavior entails failing to enforce economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic and providing outright gifts of billions of dollars of cash.  What could go wrong?  When Joe Biden became President, Iran had $4 billion dollars in foreign currency reserves; virtual bankruptcy.  As a result of this Administration’s policy of appeasement, Iran now has $70 billion to fund the precise malign behavior Biden claims he is seeking to prevent. 

Biden Opened the Floodgates of Hell by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20381/biden-global-war

China and Russia [do]… not respect the sovereignty of other states.

Biden… should realize that there can be no accommodation with regimes that either seek the destruction of the United States—China and Iran, for instance—or regimes helping such enemies—most notably Russia. Biden should be supporting America’s friends to the hilt and seeking total victory for Ukraine and Israel.

Continuing with existing policies is perhaps the most dangerous option of all. Those policies may sound reasonable, constructive, and pleasing to the ear, but they have in fact created the disastrous situation that now exists.

Biden has opened the floodgates of Hell. Although nothing is inevitable, we are fast approaching the point where, as a practical matter, he will not be able to stop China and Russia, directly and through proxies, from merging existing conflicts and turning them into the next global war.

President Joe Biden should realize that there can be no accommodation with regimes that either seek the destruction of the United States—China and Iran, for instance—or regimes helping such enemies—most notably Russia. Biden should be supporting America’s friends to the hilt and seeking total victory for

President Joe Biden’s foreign policy has collapsed. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan effectively admitted that to CNN’s Dana Bash on February 4.

“You have said now a couple times on this show and you have said this many times before that the administration is trying to prevent this from spreading into a regional conflict,” Bash told Sullivan on “State of the Union,” referring to the war in Gaza.

The CNN anchor proceeded to list some of the places to which the Gaza conflict has now spread. Then she asked this:

“My colleague Peter Bergen smartly pointed out that this conflict involves 10 countries, at least four major terrorist groups, so isn’t this already a regional conflict?”

US’ Middle East policy defied by Middle East reality Yoram Ettinger

http://bit.ly/3SoVuLR

*For the last 45 years, the US has attempted to pacify the anti-US Iran’s Ayatollahs, via dramatic financial and diplomatic gestures, to advance the cause of human rights and democracy in Iran, and to promote peaceful coexistence between Iran and its Sunni Arab neighbors. In fact, the 45-year-old US diplomatic option toward the Ayatollahs, has downplayed the centrality of the Ayatollahs’ ideology and their track record, assuming that “money talks.”  The US expected that dramatic financial and diplomatic gestures would induce the Ayatollahs to abandon their 1,400-year-old fanatical vision and become a constructive member of the global community.

However, as expected, Iran’s Ayatollahs would not allow financial and diplomatic temptations to transcend their imperialistic violent ideology. Moreover, they have leveraged the lavish US gestures, intensifying domestic oppression and persecution, and boosting their determination to humiliate and defeat “the Great American Satan,” expanding anti-US global terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced weaponry, increasingly in Latin America from Chile’ to the US-Mexico border.

Furthermore, the US’ eagerness to conclude another agreement with the anti-US Iran, the courting of the anti-US Moslem Brotherhood (the largest Sunni terror organization), and delisting the anti-US Houthis from the terror list, while pressuring the pro-US Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, has pushed these countries closer to China and Russia, militarily and commercially.

*In 2024, the US State Department promotes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River, contending that it would peacefully coexist with Israel.
However, all pro-US Arab regimes have systematically limited their support of the proposed Palestinian state to an embracing talk, while displaying a lukewarm-to-negative walk.    

Furthermore, the State Department has downplayed the Palestinian track record and ideology, basing its policy on subjective and speculative future scenarios and diplomatic Palestinian statements.  But, the pro-US Arab regimes have focused on the subversive and terroristic intra-Arab Palestinian track record in Egypt (1950s), Syria (1960s), Jordan (1968-70), Lebanon (1970-1982) and Kuwait (1990).  These pro-US Arab regimes recognize the despotic, corrupt and terroristic nature of the Palestinian leadership, its rogue education system, and its global track record (e.g., collaboration with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Bloc, Iran’s Ayatollahs, No. Korea and Venezuela and training international terrorists from Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America).

Biden Must Abandon Plans to Withdraw US forces from Syria and Iraq by Con Coughlin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20361/us-withdrawal-syria-iraq

[T]he priority now for the White House must be to strengthen its military presence in the region, not reduce it. Worse, the vacuum created by any withdrawal by US troops is sure to be filled by adversaries of America and the free world.

Any US withdrawal is sure to be seen, especially after the US surrender in Afghanistan, as America running away — again.

[I]t would be folly of the highest order for the Biden administration even to contemplate a reduction of US forces in the region. With Iran clearly intent on pursuing its proxy war against the US and its allies, the US needs to demonstrate its determination to prevent Tehran from expanding its malign influence in the Middle East, rather than capitulating in the face of Iranian violence.

With Iran seemingly intent on intensifying its confrontation with the US, it is hard to imagine a worse time for the Biden administration even to consider withdrawing any of the US forces currently based in the Middle East.

Prior to the latest Iranian-sponsored attack on US forces based in Jordan, in which three serving American service personnel were killed and another 34 were injured, the White House had already opened negotiations with the Iraqi government on the future of US and other allied troops based in the country.

A statement issued by the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, after the first round of talks opened in Baghdad at the weekend, declared that the talks were aimed at ending the US-led coalition in Iraq.

There are currently an estimated 2,500 US troops based in Iraq. The US deployment in the country was originally part of the coalition formed in 2014 to fight Islamic State (IS). The force has continued to operate in Iraq despite the fact that the so-called IS caliphate established in the Syrian city of Raqqa has been destroyed.

The Cynical ‘Biden Doctrine’ Middle East Peace Plan is Dead on Arrival All Americans should speak out against the so-called Biden Doctrine as a perverse politicization of American foreign policy that could significantly harm a close U.S. ally. By Fred Fleitz

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/02/the-cynical-biden-doctrine-middle-east-peace-plan-is-dead-on-arrival/

According to a January 31 Axios article and a February 1 New York Times column by Thomas Friedman, the Biden administration is considering a major new Middle East peace initiative to end the Israel/Hamas War by quickly recognizing a fully independent Palestinian state. Friedman calls this “the Biden Doctrine,” which he describes as “big and bold” and potentially “the biggest strategic realignment in the region since the 1979 Camp David treaty.”

The real purpose of this plan is to counter Biden’s sagging poll numbers and growing criticism of his Middle East policy. Although the reported Biden Doctrine has absolutely no chance of being implemented, it could succeed in further isolating Israel.

According to Friedman, the Biden Doctrine is a Middle East peace plan with three parts: (1) a tough U.S. stand on Iran, including robust military retaliation against Iranian proxies; (2) the U.S. will push for recognition now or very soon of a Palestinian state that is demilitarized and led by a reformed Palestinian authority; and (3) a greatly scaled-up U.S. security alliance with Saudi Arabia with the aim of Saudi-Israel normalization if Israel agrees to part 2.

Part 1, a tough U.S. response to Iran and its proxies, is long overdue, but this is empty rhetoric.  Given how weak U.S. responses have been to attacks by Iranian-backed proxies, only a massive U.S. military response has any chance of stopping their attacks. It is hard to believe that President Biden will approve such a response. Moreover, the fact that Biden still has not ordered retaliatory air strikes in response to the January 28 attack on a U.S. base in Jordan that killed three U.S. servicemembers has further eroded his credibility.

Part 2, to promote an independent, demilitarized Palestinian state under the control of a transformed Palestinian Authority, is a complete fantasy. The real purpose of this idea is to salvage Biden’s abysmal Middle East policy and make him look like a peacemaker at home.  Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis will ever agree to this proposal.

Israeli leaders have made it clear that an independent Palestinian state under the two-state solution is off the table because of security threats in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack.

The State Department Has Lost the Plot Noah Rothman

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-state-department-has-lost-the-plot/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm

Since the October 7 attacks, the State Department has exposed for all to see a level of rot within the institution that was once apparent only to Republicans, who would inherit the agency from Democrats only to find their imperatives implemented with conspicuous lethargy — if they were implemented at all.

Like so many agencies within Joe Biden’s administration — up to and including the White House itself — the State Department is struggling to navigate a mutiny among the lower-level functionaries who are beside themselves over the president’s support for Israel’s defensive war against Hamas. Unlike most of those other executive agencies, Foggy Bottom has tried to appease the insurrectionaries under its roof. The latest example of that foolhardy impulse is apparent in its reported commitment to fast-track American recognition of a Palestinian state.

Axios reporter Barak Ravid has the details:

The Biden administration is linking possible normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia to the creation of a pathway for the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of its post-war strategy. This initiative is based on the administration’s efforts prior to Oct. 7 to negotiate a mega-deal with Saudi Arabia that included a peace agreement between the kingdom and Israel.

Ravid adds that the U.S. could pursue this strategy either passively, by declining to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution admitting the territories as full member states, or actively by recognizing Palestine directly and encouraging its allies to do the same. Either way, it is an ideologically blinkered enterprise.

It is not as though there is no rationale for supporting Palestinian statehood today, even within the context of Israel’s anti-Hamas campaign. As Ravid notes, it could serve as an inducement to accelerate Saudi Arabia’s recognition of Israel. Past presidencies, Trump’s included, have paid lip service to the desirability of a Palestinian state as an aspirational objective as part of a broader regional normalization strategy. But to consent to that approach today would be to reward terrorism.

As many have rationally speculated, including Joe Biden himself, the impetus that led Hamas to execute the October 7 massacre was to advance the interests of the terrorist group’s Iranian benefactors by derailing the ongoing normalization process between Israel and its Sunni neighbors. Simply deeming Palestine a state as a direct result of Hamas’s attack will not impose sobriety on the Palestinian Authority, which the White House seems to regard as the only viable alternative to Hamas rule in Gaza. It would only create incentives for more terrorism — conduct in which the party in control of the Palestinian Authority is more than capable of engaging in, too.

The second, most intractable obstacle before Palestinian statehood is that “Palestine” is a fiction. No rational observer looks at the two noncontiguous territories in the West Bank and Gaza — two places with distinct governments (which, by the way, hate each other), disparate economies and foreign policies, and wildly divergent social contracts — and sees the Westphalian ideal. It’s especially telling that the State Department is evincing so much frustration with the uncooperative world that it appears inclined to simply impose statehood on the Palestinian territories in the absence of any reliable Palestinian negotiating partner. The whole initiative is an outgrowth of a variety of narratives to which America’s diplomatic class is beholden but do not much reflect the world it is tasked with understanding.

The Biden Administration and the Iranian Regime’s Nuclear Weapons by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20341/iran-nuclear-weapons

In a noteworthy development, for the first time, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued a warning, signaling that Iran now holds a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium capable of producing multiple nuclear warheads.

The regime has been actively supporting Hamas against Israel, providing assistance to Yemen’s Houthi terror group to attack ships in the Red Sea, escalating tensions with Pakistan, and providing weaponry to Russia for use against Ukraine. These multifaceted engagements in regional and global conflicts indicate the regime’s likely view of nuclear weapons as a means to further its strategic objectives.

In the midst of these ongoing conflicts, the last thing we need is an aggressive regime, with terrorist inclinations — and clearly no intention, despite every opportunity the West has given it, of “coming in from the cold” — possessing nuclear weapons.

The Biden administration’s nuclear policy concerning Iran’s nuclear program and its ability to acquire nuclear weapons is a complete disaster. Under the Biden administration’s leadership, Iran has made significant advances in its nuclear program that surpass the progress achieved under any previous administrations.

In a noteworthy development, for the first time, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued a warning, signaling that Iran now holds a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium capable of producing multiple nuclear warheads. This development, reported by Bloomberg on January 18, prompted IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to denounce Iran’s actions. Grossi also told The National newspaper, “Iran is the only non-nuclear weapon state which is enriching uranium at this very, very high level”.

Did the State Department Just Let an Architect of October 7 into America?By Jimmy Quinn

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/did-the-state-department-just-let-an-architect-of-october-7-into-america/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=blog-post&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=first

For the second time since the October 7 attack, the State Department has granted a visa to Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, to attend meetings at the U.N. this week in New York. That’s noteworthy, of course, because Iran is a significant backer of Hamas and the rest of the so-called “axis of resistance,” including the Houthis.

Amir-Abdollahian, who arrived today, was quick to meet with another of Tehran’s partners: The Russian foreign ministry posted a picture of him with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is also in town for meetings at the U.N. Security Council this week.

Amir-Abdollahian played a major role in building out Iran’s alliances with regional terrorist groups as the de facto foreign minister of Qassem Soleimani’s Quds Force. In fact, an Iranian lawmaker once called him “another Qassem Soleimani in the field of diplomacy,” in recognition of his efforts to unite Iran’s many terrorist allies throughout the region.

If you buy into the Wall Street Journal’s October 8 report on Iran’s role in planning the massacres in Israel, he’s also a key architect of that terrorist attack. If that reporting is accurate, Amir-Abdollahian attended key planning meetings leading up to October 7, though many analysts have expressed skepticism of the degree of direct Iranian involvement in approving it in the way that the Journal described.

Either way, given Amir-Abdollahian’s close coordination with the Quds Force, the Biden administration has ample reason to claim an exemption to the U.N. headquarters agreement that otherwise compels the U.S. to grant visas to its adversaries. But for the second time since October 7, State has apparently chosen not to exercise that option.

Why Do The U.S. And Israel Tolerate Qatar’s Blatant Anti-U.S. And Anti-Israel Policies? By Yigal Carmon*

https://www.memri.org/reports/why-do-us-and-israel-tolerate-qatars-blatant-anti-us-and-anti-israel-policies

Introduction

Two developments with dangerous and even explosive repercussions for the standing and interests of both the U.S. and Israel in the Middle East occurred in the last few days.

1. The U.S. has extended its presence at Qatar’s Al-Udeid airbase – CENTCOM’s main airbase in the region – for another 10 years[1]: In recent weeks, there has been criticism of Qatar for its sponsoring of terrorism, causing President Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to maintain ambiguity about the future of the U.S.-Qatar alliance. This follows years of frequent undeserved U.S. praise for Qatar.

The Qataris, realizing that their very existence is threatened if the U.S. relocates its CENTCOM operations to the UAE or Saudi Arabia, hastened to nail down the U.S. for another decade in Qatar. This happened despite Qatar’s support of both Sunni and Shi’ite terrorist organizations worldwide, and despite its open alliance with Iran, including joint Qatari naval training with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).[2] And the fact that it is standing with the Houthis, with whom the U.S. is currently engaged in military conflict to ensure free passage of shipping in the Red Sea.

Without CENTCOM in Qatar, the ruling family will be unable to continue ruling Qatar. Yet it seems like the U.S.  did not demand that Qatar reverse its policies of sponsoring terrorism – let alone demand the release of American hostages held by its proxy Hamas in Gaza, after it killed 32 U.S. nationals on October 7. How can this inconceivable approach on the part of the Americans be explained?

2. Israel is allowing Qatar to take charge of all the humanitarian support entering the Gaza Strip, where it is hijacked by Hamas gunmen as soon as it crosses the border. In fact, Qatar is keeping Hamas fighters in power, enabling them to kill Israeli soldiers every day. This is being done with the total consent of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had, over the past decade, allowed Qatar to build Hamas’s military power in the first place. Netanyahu is now actually allowing an ongoing process, by which his soldiers are being killed every day because he is a captive and hostage of Qatar, as well as its collaborator, and does not dare confront it lest it expose him. One solution to freeing the aid from Qatar’s pro-Hamas influence would be by giving the money to Egypt and Jordan, who have peace agreements with Israel, so that they could fully control the humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, with no Qatari strings attached.

These approaches on the part of the U.S. and Israel are also prompting the natural allies of both, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to distance themselves from them and to join anti-U.S. alliances such as BRICS. How can these two mindboggling phenomena be explained?

This report will attempt to answer these questions.