The Patriot Post® · As Iran Attacks Israel, Blinken Touts Team Harris
From the annals of “That Didn’t Age Well” comes a lengthy op-ed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken titled “America’s Strategy of Renewal.” Published in Foreign Affairs yesterday, October 1, Blinken made a forceful case for the foreign policy strategy of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
By Blinken’s fanciful telling, “The Biden administration’s strategy has put the United States in a much stronger geopolitical position today than it was four years ago.” Wars in Ukraine and Israel, coupled with Chinese aggression, belie that claim.
If it weren’t so dangerous, it would be hilarious, but Blinken also wrote, “We increased diplomatic pressure and strengthened the U.S. military’s force posture to deter and constrain Tehran.”
Unfortunately, events exposed his phony baloney. The op-ed hit the web just a few hours before Iran launched ballistic missile strikes against Israel in retaliation for the latter’s incursion into Lebanon — which was the inevitable follow-up to Mossad’s brilliant pager and radio attack last month. Israel has been hitting back against Hezbollah because the Iranian-backed terror group has attacked Israel frequently ever since Iran’s other client, Hamas, slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and took 250 hostages, including Americans, last October 7.
Anyone who thinks the world would be in such chaos if Donald Trump were still president has taken leave of their senses. Blinken’s poorly timed gaslighting only illustrates how reprehensibly Biden and Harris have stewarded — or, rather, undermined — American leadership.
Blinken says the Biden-Harris administration has been “clear-eyed” about Iran. He explains, “The Trump administration’s unilateral and misguided exit from the Iran nuclear deal freed Tehran’s nuclear program from its confinement, undermining the security of the United States and its partners. We demonstrated to Iran that there was a path back to a mutual return to compliance — if Iran was willing to take it — while maintaining a robust sanctions regime and our commitment that Iran will never be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon.”
The Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran was a farce, and Trump was right to keep his promise to leave it. Barack Obama and now Joe Biden (and Kamala Harris) have done next to nothing to deter Iranian aggression in the Middle East, and the proof is all over today’s headlines.
The terrible truth is that the Obama-Biden-Harris trifecta appeased Iran, including with sanctions relief and cash for hostages — on 9/11, no less.
As for Israel, Team Biden has, at best, sent mixed signals. At worst, the Biden-Harris waffling and pandering to the Democrats’ growing anti-Semitic/pro-Palestinian base have emboldened the murderous jihadis of Hamas and Hezbollah — and now their sponsors in Tehran. Team Biden refused, as our Jack DeVine advises today, to “cut the head off the snake.”
Voters do have a choice, however. “Under former President Donald Trump,” notes veteran journalist John Solomon, “the United States starved Iran of money and drained its accounts down to a few billion, assassinated Iran’s top general and canceled an Obama-era nuclear deal over clear evidence that Tehran was cheating. As a result, Iranian-backed aggression waned.”
The Biden-Harris approach has reversed all of that. Harris lied in her debate with Trump that “there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone in any war zone around the world.” Shouldn’t a person one heartbeat away from being commander-in-chief know that, according to the Pentagon, the U.S. is currently engaged in active war zones, including Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Libya? Three American military personnel were killed recently in Syria. Apparently, Harris does not count those — or the 13 American service personnel killed during the surrender and retreat from Afghanistan.
Her claim about service personnel is even less true now, as a “few thousand” more American boots will soon be on the ground in the Middle East, in addition to the roughly 40,000 already there.
Secretary Blinken may argue that the Biden-Harris approach to the world is the right one. But anyone paying attention knows that the world is a more dangerous place, and the U.S. is in a weaker position to counter it than four years ago.