Catastrophic Israeli consequences of weak Iran appeasement actions are but among the most recent examples proving that Robert Gates, the former national security director serving eight presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama (except for Bill Clinton) was right in declaring that Joe Biden has "been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."
Gates has noted that while Obama's "gutsy call" approving the raid resulting in the killing of Osama bin Laden was considered the sentinel crowning achievement of his presidency, then-Vice President Biden was a lone White House voice against it.
Recalling the fateful meeting in his personal memoir, Gates said: "Finally, the president went around the table and asked each person for his or her recommendation. Biden was against the operation" out of concern for the "political consequences of failure."
Notwithstanding an all-too-frequent voter tendency to prioritize domestic leadership issues including inflation far above events occurring out of sight somewhere else, doing so defers realities that bad consequences of things "over there" often have enormous influences on vital matters here at home ... national and economic security most particularly.
This being the case, judgment and actions of our currently elected "leader of the free world" offer little cause for confidence.
Apart from terrible death and suffering inflicted upon allies and foreign innocents, here are but a few self-interested reasons Americans should care.
Money for Iran Mula Terrorist Proxies
We have learned that the brutal surprise Israeli attack last week was being coordinated between Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard and Hamas Israeli attackers since August during the same time the Biden administration agreed to release $6 billion of frozen Iranian funds in exchange for releasing five U.S. prisoners.
The Biden White House has also ignored Trump sanctions on Iran oil sales, up now from about 4,000 barrels per day to more than 3 million, with most of it going to China with revenues to Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist proxies.
Feckless Iran Nuclear Dealings
Disastrously obsessed with resurrecting the failed Obama Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — better known as the Iran Nuclear Deal — the Biden administration has enlisted Russia to broker an agreement on our behalf at the same time Tehran is supplying them weaponized drones for their war in Ukraine.
The misguided goal is to protect the planet from millions of years of climate change as China continues to build the equivalent of a new coal-fired plant weekly.
As a result, Iran has reportedly advanced uranium to 83.7% near weapons grade purity along with ICBM capabilities not addressed by JCPOA to deliver the devices to continental U.S. targets.
Dithering on Russia Ukraine Invasion
As Russian troops and armaments amassed along Ukraine borders in January 2022, President Biden treated it as no big deal, remarking, "It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera."
Although we can never know if Donald Trump would have been right in claiming that Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine if he had remained president, failure to confront Vladimir Putin with convincingly strong reasons not to attack might have avoided a very costly big deal after all.
Included, according to the Center for Strategic & International Studies, is the expenditure of about one-third of our weapons inventory.
Afghanistan Withdrawal Debacle
Iran, Russia, China, and other U.S. adversaries are obviously emboldened by Biden administration weakness and military leadership incompetence which left 13 of our service personnel dead and abandoned Afghanistan along with about $8 billion of military equipment, the enormously strategic Bagram Airfield, and thousands of American citizens and local supporters to the Taliban.
Unsurprisingly, some of that weaponry is falling into hands of other U.S. adversaries.
Authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir have informed NBC News that militant groups designated by the U.S. as terrorist organizations trying to annex the region for Pakistan are carrying M4s, M16s and other American made arms and ammunition left behind in our helter-skelter Afghanistan withdrawal.
Israel as an Escalating Middle East Warfront
More directly concerning to Israel and America, some of those Afghanistan weapons are also reportedly being provided by Russia to arm Hamas.
Although President Biden appropriately condemned attacks on Israelis by Hamas as terrorism and pledged America's support for Israel including ammunition and other assistance, it remains to be figured out where those armament resources will come from.
This dilemma is resulting in large measure after having continued to expend dwindling supplies in Ukraine and bequeathing others to Taliban military merchants for sale to terrorist organizations and adversarial regimes.
Contemplate, for example, Israel's need to resupply its rapidly depleting Iron Dome missile defenses against two-front Hamas and Hezbollah attacks, including rapidly advancing nuclear strike capabilities prompted and afforded by their primary sponsor, Iran.
Adding insult to irony, recall that after committing $6 billion to recover five U.S. hostages, the Iran planned and financed attack has already resulted in known deaths of at least 14 Americans along with more than 1,000 Israelis.
Altogether, whereas former DNI Gates is proven right about Biden reliably being wrong, it was their former boss Barack Obama that also deserves credit for warning us.
Speaking to a fellow Democrat about Joe becoming his party's 2020 presidential nominee, Obama prudently advised, "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f--- things up."
Hopefully, more people will recognize this painful truth in 2024.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.
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