The Patriot Post® · Appeasement for Our Time
Someday soon, don’t be surprised if Joe Biden lands at Joint Base Andrews, steps off Air Force One, and triumphantly waves a piece of paper while proclaiming “peace for our time.”
It worked for Neville Chamberlain, right?
“We’re prepared to reengage in negotiations with the P5+1 on Iran’s nuclear program,” he told the Munich Security Conference on Friday, referring to the disastrous Iran “nuke deal” cut by Barack Obama’s former Secretary of State, John Kerry and his predecessor, Hillary Clinton.
If nothing else, Biden’s foreign policy team has a sense of history. It was in that same city of Munich, after all, where Hitler punked Chamberlain.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board wonders whether the Biden administration’s plan of appeasement by committee will be more effective than the Trump administration’s policy of solitary strength. “Mr. Trump,” the editors write, “upset Iran, and America’s European allies, by leaving the 2015 nuclear deal and embarking on a ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions campaign. Mr. Biden has said Washington would return to the accord and lift sanctions if Tehran returned to compliance, while the Islamic Republic demanded the inverse. Someone has to blink.”
Will that “someone” be Biden’s unfortunately surnamed secretary of state, Tony Blinken? Because we’d be willing to bet it won’t be Iran. After all, if Biden’s first term is really nothing more than his former boss’s third term, then the mullahs already know how it ends. As the Journal continues, “Tehran ran circles around Barack Obama’s negotiators, many of whom have returned to the Biden Administration, so it wouldn’t be surprising if Iran now agrees to talks. Some informal negotiations are inevitable, but this was an especially bad week for the U.S. to take the plunge.”
If weakness is provocative, then Biden has been showing plenty of leg lately — especially toward Iran. “The Ayatollah understands only strength,” former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told The Washington Free Beacon. “I led a response to the Iranian threat that protected the American people from its terror and supported the Jewish state of Israel. Adopting the European Union model of accommodation will guarantee Iran a path to a nuclear arsenal.”
Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Rebeccah Heinrichs, who specializes in nuclear deterrence and missile defense, was less diplomatic yet: “Iran takes cheating on the nuclear deal to the next level, fires rockets at Americans in Erbil just days ago, then threatens to keep nuclear inspectors out, and how does Biden respond? Absolutely chokes,” she declared. “And what a disastrous message to be sending to adversaries the world over.”
And so, the Biden administration has cozied back up to China by rejoining both the corrupt World Health Organization and the ruinous Paris climate agreement. And he’s signaled a willingness to appease Iran by returning to a nuclear agreement that Donald Trump called “one of the most incompetently drawn deals I’ve ever seen.” And we’re just a month into his administration.
At some point, Biden is going to run out of giveaways with which to appease our enemies. And then what? Then we’ll see whether strength or weakness was the better approach to foreign policy.
As for appeasement, a new and detailed report from the Washington Times indicates that former Secretary of State and current Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and current special envoy on Iran policy Robert Malley colluded with the Iranian regime throughout Donald Trump’s term in office. Somehow a non-violation of the Logan Act can be used to railroad Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, but an authentic and ongoing violation merits nary a peep from the mainstream media.
(Updated.)