Biden Foreign Policy
September 25, 2023 — Steven Hayward
BUDAPEST, September 25: I’ve been so overbooked in Budapest that I haven’t had time to file any foreign dispatches, and I have a lot to catch up on. I spent most of Saturday at a small roundtable convened by the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, which was devoted to exploring American and Hungarian perspectives on a variety of issues. The meeting was off-the-record and under Chatham House rules, so I
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September 21, 2023 — Scott Johnson
When it comes to the Iranian mullahcracy, the Biden administration has formulated a policy that it has deftly kept under wraps. Indeed, there doesn’t seem to be much interest in it. Former National Security Council Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction Rich Goldberg spells it out in the column
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September 20, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The Biden administration’s $6 billion hostage deal with Iran is a big story, but the public version is for chumps. I fell for it, and perhaps that assessment is overly harsh on similarly situated citizens who follow the news. The real deal hasn’t been covered in the news and the administration has deftly lied about it. Rich Goldberg is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. From
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September 14, 2023 — Scott Johnson
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby attended yesterday’s White House press briefing. The White House has posted the transcript here. Kirby was asked about the $6 billion payoff to Iran for the release of five American hostages, with additional American hostages to be taken later. I have written about this disgraceful and destructive deal several times. One reporter actually asked Kirby about the administration’s nonsensical dodge regarding the payoff: Question:
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September 13, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Here I thought I was just amusing myself by invoking Robert Gover’s One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding, but no. The Biden administration’s $6 billion deal with Iran appears to be subject to the kind of misunderstanding that vexed the protagonists in Gover’s cult classic. According to the Biden administration, the use of the $6 billion is subject to severe constraints. It can’t be used to support the mullahs’ nuclear weapons program.
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September 12, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Robert Gover wrote the cult classic One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding. It might have been cutting-edge in 1962, when it was published, but not for long. Insofar as my subject here is related to President Biden, I can note that Hunter Biden’s misadventures have taken reality far beyond Gover’s satire. However, I have found Gover’s title an irresistible source of headlines for comments on the news. Today comes word that the
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August 11, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Robert Gover wrote the cult classic One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding. It might have been cutting-edge in 1962, when it was published, but not for long. Insofar as my subject here is related to President Biden, I can note that Hunter Biden’s misadventures have taken reality far beyond Gover’s satire. However, I have found Gover’s title an irresistible source of headlines for comments on the news. Today comes word via the
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July 10, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Joe Biden is in London, kicking off a European trip. He has just engaged in “climate talks” with King Charles. I will hazard a guess that these talks will have zero impact on the Earth’s climate. Meanwhile, Biden is not getting a positive reception. In the Telegraph, Nial Gardiner unloads with both barrels: “Here comes Biden, the world’s worst diplomat.” No president in modern American history has done more to
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July 9, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The position United States Secretary of the Treasury is exalted. It has been held by eminent officials in Democratic and Republican administrations. As Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen degrades the office she holds. She revealed herself as a political hack with her toeing of the administration’s “inflation is transitory” line. She toes every aspect of the administration’s line, including its humanly destructive abortion line and its economically destructive green
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June 30, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The State Department has released a redacted version of its After Action Review on Afghanistan. It appears to be dated March 2022. As released to the public the report runs 23 pages. The classified original runs to 87 pages. The narrative portion of the report appears to have been withheld in its entirety. In best scandal management style, the report was released on the Friday afternoon preceding a long holiday
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June 28, 2023 — Scott Johnson
A veteran reporter, foreign correspondent, and editor at the New York Times and other publications, Clifford May is the founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He writes a weekly column for the Washington Times that is cross-posted at the invaluable FDD site. Cliff has given us standing permission to publish his column on Power Line. This week Cliff writes “Yes, Xi Jinping is a dictator, and
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June 22, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Over the past weekend President Biden discussed the Chinese spy balloon that captured our attention earlier this year. “I don’t think the leadership knew where it was, and knew what was in it, and knew what was going on,” Biden told reporters as he headed to Philadelphia for his first campaign rally of the 2024 election. “I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional.” I attributed Biden’s description
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June 20, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Students of ancient history may recall that when Secretary of State Dean Acheson spoke to the National Press Club in January 1950, he addressed America’s “defensive perimeter” in Asia. He defined the American “defensive perimeter” in the Pacific as a line running through Japan, the Ryukyus, and the Philippines. Acheson left South Korea and Taiwan outside it. Observers immediately decried Acheson’s speech as giving North Korea the “green light” to
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June 12, 2023 — Scott Johnson
In Friday’s Wall Street Journal Warren Strobel and Gordon Lubold broke the story “Cuba to Host Secret Chinese Spy Base Focusing on U.S.” (in the newspaper: “China plans spy base in Cuba”). According to Strobel and Lubold: “China and Cuba have reached a secret agreement for China to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island, in a brash new geopolitical challenge by Beijing to the U.S., according to U.S.
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April 13, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Joe Biden is in Ireland, where he had a senior interlude with an Irish kid, and told a few lies. But much more important is the geopolitical context, as Nile Gardiner writes in the Telegraph: President Biden’s insulting decision to prioritise Ireland over the UK on his visit to mark the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement should have come as no surprise. It is just as unsurprising as his
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April 7, 2023 — Elizabeth Stauffer
Former White House stenographer Mike McCormick spent six years (2011-2017) at then-Vice President Joe Biden’s side as he met with world leaders, delivered speeches and interacted with members of the news media, an experience that provided him with both insider knowledge and a unique perspective. In an interview with The Daily Mail this week, McCormick said that just three days after Hunter Biden joined Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings Ltd (on
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April 5, 2023 — Elizabeth Stauffer
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is a right-wing populist political party whose members fiercely oppose the elitist, globalist agenda now favored by leftists around the world. On Friday, the morning after news broke of New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment of former President Donald Trump, AfD member of the Bundestag Petr Bystron stood before his colleagues to deliver remarks on the state of U.S. politics and the September
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