Biden Foreign Policy
October 7, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Our friends at Tikvah deem this the most consequential year in modern Jewish history. They refer, of course, to the invasion of Israel by Hamas this past October 7 and the related events since then. Well, since then…as has frequently been noted by the Israelis, they have been fighting a war on seven fronts. On every front the intention of Israel’s enemies is to wipe it off the map. They
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October 4, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Iran regime struck Israel with some 180 ballistic missiles fired from Iran. The Iranian regime meant to inflict death and destruction on Israel. As it is, Israel’s most sophisticated missile defense system approached perfection under an assault that was intended to overwhelm it. In the event, the strike did damage but killed only one Gazan Arab who had relocated to the West Bank. Watching the strike in real time
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September 30, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Israel’s stunning success in taking out the entire leadership of Hezbollah has laid the foundation for a ground incursion that will eliminate the terrorists’ ability to threaten northern Israel, where somewhere around 100,000 people have had to flee their homes to avoid Hezbollah rockets. The Wall Street Journal reports: Israeli special forces have been carrying out small, targeted raids into southern Lebanon, gathering intelligence and probing ahead of an expected
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September 27, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday the White House hosted Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Vice President Harris met with Zelensky. The White House has posted a readout of their meeting. Among other things, they discussed Zelenskyy’s plans for victory. In a public statement with Zelensky by her side Harris talked tough. “Putin started this war and he could end it tomorrow if he simply withdrew his troops from Ukraine’s sovereign territory,” she said. Harris: 'I
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September 25, 2024 — Scott Johnson
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
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September 12, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Fox News gives us a glimpse of the deep thoughts of Biden NSC spokesman John Kirby in the long story headlined “Kirby: ‘No use in responding’ to a ‘handful of vets’ on Biden’s botched Afghan withdrawal.” Subhead: ‘Obviously no use in responding. A handful of vets indeed and all of one stripe,’ Kirby said in a ‘reply all’ email chain.” Fox News sought comment from Kirby on criticism of our
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September 5, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Prime Minister Netanyahu called a press conference for foreign reporters yesterday. He posted a clip of his 23-minute opening statement on X with the statement “Fighting for the truth of Israel” and the request “Share!” In his 23-minute statement Netanyahu conducts a master class on Israel’s objectives in the war and the rationale of its negotiating position. Netanyahu then takes hostile questions from the assembled reporters and answers every question
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September 3, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden has seized on the murder of six hostages by Hamas to undermine Prime Minister Netanyahu. The murder of an American/Israeli citizen by Hamas has not sobered him. Asked whether Netanyahu is doing enough to get the remaining hostages back, Biden said “no.” President Biden: "Netanyahu is not doing enough." It is beyond concerning that after Hamas executed an American and 5 Israelis, any blame falls on Netanyahu, with
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September 1, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The news out of Israel compounds the horror of the October 7 massacre. Here is the opening of the Times of Israel story by Emanuel Fabian: The bodies of six hostages abducted alive by Hamas on October 7 were recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah overnight, shortly after they were murdered by terrorists, the Israel Defense Forces announced Sunday. The hostages were Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24,
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August 27, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
Three years after the Afghanistan debacle, John finds it “impossible to understand how the Biden administration could have organized the withdrawal so poorly.” The simplest explanation comes from Biden, who called the withdrawal an “extraordinary success,” so it was what the Delaware Democrat wanted to happen. That invites a look back at one of Biden’s key handlers. Tom Donilon worked in the Carter administration and served as campaign coordinator for
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August 26, 2024 — John Hinderaker
The Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was a fiasco in several ways. Thirteen American service members were killed during the chaotic scene at Kabul’s airport. Billions of dollars in American war materiel were left behind, which the Taliban now proudly parades like a Roman triumph. The chaotic scene in which thousands of Afghans tried desperately to flee, reminiscent of South Vietnam, will not be forgotten. It is impossible to understand
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August 26, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden put his foreign policy perversity vividly on display for all the world to see in our exit from Afghanistan. It served Biden’s vanity while putting the world on notice of the new American unseriousness. It also reminded us of the apothegm Robert Gates’s 2014 memoir Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War: “I think [Joe Biden] has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security
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August 20, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden took the George McGovern Memorial Time Slot at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last night. I have posted the video below. The White House has not yet posted a transcript. The Time transcript is posted here. Time times the transcript as a “27 minute read.” On a feels-like basis, it’s more like 27 hours. The New York Post cover (right) captures the indignity of it all. It
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August 15, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The signature foreign policy “achievement” of the Biden/Harris administration must be our Afghanistan exit, pursued by a Taliban bear. Yesterday the Taliban celebrated the third anniversary of their victory with a party and parade at the Bagram Air Base featuring the materiel we left behind (video below). The AP reported on the festivities in a story datelined Kabul: Under blue skies and blazing sunshine at the Bagram base — once
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August 9, 2024 — Scott Johnson
“President Biden” has issued a joint statement with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar telling Israel it’s time to knock off its efforts to eliminate Hamas as an effective force in Gaza. Qatar was home to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh before his untimely death in Tehran last week. Egypt appears to have accommodated the smuggling of materials into Gaza that were turned into Hamas’s massive Gaza infrastructure. Biden has now
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August 5, 2024 — John Hinderaker
This Wall Street Journal article is a fascinating behind the scenes look at the prisoner exchange that involved Russia, the U.S. and Germany. The exchange was controversial in Germany because that country released Vadim Krasikov, a Russian assassin who was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering a Chechen exile in a park in Berlin. The article is interesting in several ways, but I want to focus on the relevance of
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August 5, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton appeared on Fox News Channel’s Life, Liberty & Levin over the weekend. As we await the enlargement of the war on Israel this week, Senator Cotton speaks for me. The Biden/Harris regime poses the question Why Not the Worst? — far worse than Jimmy Carter’s Why Not the Best? presidency. Carter at least learned something from events. The contemporary Democrats exhibit a highly developed immunity to
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