President Biden gave a farewell address to the United Nations General Assembly. The White House has posted the 3,000-word transcript here. I have posted the NBC video at the bottom.
Perhaps more than anything else, it gives us an occasion to recall the insight of former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Gates committed his judgment to book form in Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War: “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Gates’s memoir was published in 2014. We can extend the period covered by Biden’s misjudgment to 50 years.
Gates of course knew what he was talking about. He had actually served with Biden in the Obama administration. He had the opportunity to observe Biden’s foolishness up close at a time when Biden was in full possession of his faculties.
New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin invokes Jimmy Carter in his review of Biden’s speech. Goodwin posits the thought that Biden might be worse than Carter. I would make that judgment definitive. Carter woke up. Biden sinks ever deeper into sleep.
To take just one example, Biden discusses Israel’s current war with Iran and its proxies:
Full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest. Even as the situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible. In fact, it remains the only path to lasting security to allow the residents from both countries to return to their homes on the border safely. And that’s what working — that’s what we’re working tirelessly to achieve.
As we look ahead, we must also address the rise of violence against innocent Palestinians on the West Bank and set the conditions for a better future, including a two-state solution, where the world — where Israel enjoys security and peace and full recognition and normalized relations with all its neighbors, where Palestinians live in security, dignity, and self-determination in a state of their own. (Applause.)
Progress toward peace will put us in a stronger position to deal with the ongoing threat posed by Iran. Together, we must deny oxygen to terrorists — to its terrorist proxies, which have called for more October 7ths, and ensure that Iran will never, ever obtain a nuclear weapon.
Put to one side Biden’s cowardly defamation of Israel (for the “rise of violence against innocent Palestinians”). It’s bad enough that Biden reiterates his belief in the two-state final solution. It is a blatantly stupid fantasy. Indeed, Biden’s fantasy supplies the metaphorical “oxygen to terrorists” as his relaxation of sanctions literally funds Iran. What a pathetic performance.
Biden canvasses global hot spots that he purports to have dealt with. He omits the role of the United Nations itself in aggravating the crises. Will anyone notice that the world was in better shape as recently as December 2020?
