Biden Foreign Policy
May 11, 2024 — Scott Johnson
In February President Biden promulgated National Security Memorandum 20. NSM-20 directs the State Department to “obtain certain credible and reliable written assurances from foreign governments receiving [U.S.] defense articles and, as appropriate, defense services” that they will abide by U.S. and international law. NSM-20 also requires the Departments of State and Defense to report to Congress within 90 days on the extent to which these governments and services are abiding
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May 10, 2024 — Scott Johnson
In a November 2020 Wall Street Journal column Tevi Troy recalled “When Biden Met Begin” (posted in accessible form on Pundicity). Tevi recounted how Biden and Begin once clashed in a private June 1982 session with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: Mr. Biden, 39, lectured the 68-year-old [Israeli Prime Minister Menachem] Begin over Israeli settlements, jabbing his finger at the prime minister and banging his fist on the desk. Mr.
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May 9, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden publicly acknowledged his betrayal of Israel’s anticipated offensive in Rafah in an interview with Erin Burnett on CNN. The CNN story on the interview is here. As a practical matter, Biden supports Hamas. Biden opposes Israel. Biden’s declaration of “ironclad” support for Israel is “inoperative,” to borrow a term from Watergate. On Tuesday Biden gave a Holocaust remembrance speech decrying those calling for “the annihilation of Israel, the
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May 8, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden chose to revise and extend his mealymouthed comments on anti-Semitism with a 1600-word speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance Ceremony yesterday. The White House has posted the text of his remarks here. The speech seems to me late and wanting. Revisiting the history of the Holocaust, Biden referred to “the perils of indifference, the complicity of silence in the face of evil that
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May 7, 2024 — Steven Hayward
For a while now the joke has been going around that Biden’s two-state solution for the Israel-Hamas conflict involves the two states of Michigan and Pennsylvania. The more time passes, the more this seems not a joke at all. Biden is apparently terrified not only of the campus left, but that he could lose Michigan’s substantial Arab voting block, and hence the election, if he doesn’t placate them. Here’s a
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May 7, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden is confused. Israel appears to have commenced its long-delayed operation to take Hamas’s refuge in Rafah. John noted it here yesterday. With its “ceasefire deal” card Hamas plays the press for willing tools — because they are. They can’t be that stupid. Biden spoke yesterday with Prime Minister Netanyahu by telephone. The White House has posted its readout of the phone call here. After an exchange of pleasantries,
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May 6, 2024 — John Hinderaker
After a long delay, apparently caused at least in part by opposition from the Biden Administration, Israel has finally begun to attack the Hamas stronghold of Rafah. The move on Rafah was, or should have been, inevitable: Israel can only win the war if it crushes Hamas, and it can’t do that without attacking the terrorist organization’s final redoubt. To me, it seemed that the delay in going into Rafah
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May 5, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Based on two official Israeli sources, Barak Ravid reports at Axios that the Biden administration put a hold on a shipment of American ammunition to Israel. The Biden team of course opposes Israel’s long-delayed operation to clear the last Hamas redoubt in Rafah. Ravid adds this: Last Wednesday U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel and had a “tough” conversation with Netanyahu regarding a possible Israeli operation in Rafah,
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April 16, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Two friends of mine comment on the Obama/Biden administration’s bizarre partiality toward Iran. In the New York Post, Glenn Reynolds writes: Post-[Iran’s] attack [on Israel]— going further yet beyond parody — the Biden administration’s chief effort has been aimed at demanding Israel not retaliate. That’s right. Israel has had more than a thousand of its citizens raped, tortured, murdered and kidnapped, it’s been subjected to a massive missile attack, and
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April 15, 2024 — Scott Johnson
When it comes to Iran’s massive missile and drone attack on Israel this past Saturday evening, President Biden has instructed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to let bygones be bygones. I don’t think he cited Sun Tzu in support of the Biden doctrine, but the White House has not released a readout of Biden’s call to Netanyahu following the attack. Rather, the White House released this statement publicly seeking to deter
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April 14, 2024 — John Hinderaker
That’s a post title you won’t often see on this site! I want to move on to Iran, but first, what did Joe Biden actually tell Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday? I can’t see that an official readout of the conversation has been published, but this account, based on conversation with a “senior White House official,” seems as authoritative as any: Biden told Netanyahu the joint defensive efforts by Israel, the
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April 14, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Iranian regime has been at war with Israel, the United States, and the West roughly since the Ayatollah overthrew the Shah of Iran. It is not a war that Israel has chosen. It is a war that has been thrust upon it by a regime of genocidal maniacs. Thirty years after the fact the Court of Cassation in Buenos Aires issued a ruling blaming Iran for bombing the Asociación
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April 13, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Would that President Biden had not warned the Iranian regime not to attack Israel with his pitiful “don’t” yesterday. In Bidenspeak, “don’t” is an invitation. It something like the shout-out for contestants to “come on down” on The Price Is Right. And as night follows day, the Iranian regime has launched a large drone attack on Israel from Iranian territory. At the moment the targets are unclear. Among the many
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April 13, 2024 — Steven Hayward
It is hard to conclude from media accounts exactly what is up between Israel and Iran right now, because for all of the leaked and disclosed information, there is always more going on behind the scenes that we never find out about for a long time. But this news item just breaking a couple hours ago seems possibly significant: Biden Rushes Back to White House as Iran Weighs Attack on
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April 12, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Aaron MacLean is host of the School of War podcast and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Before that, Aaron worked on Capitol Hill as senior foreign policy advisor and legislative director to Senator Tom Cotton and served on active duty as a U.S. Marine for seven years, deploying to Afghanistan as an infantry officer in 2009–2010. Following his time in the operating forces, he was
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April 11, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
“Foreign terrorists, including ISIS, al-Qaida and their adherents, have renewed calls for attacks against Jewish communities here in the United States and across the West,” Christopher Wray warned on Tuesday. The FBI boss also cited threats from Russia, Iran, North Korea and China, which is “throwing its whole government at undermining the security and economy of the rule-of-law world.” But it wasn’t just about foreign threats. Wray “blasted House Republicans
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April 9, 2024 — Scott Johnson
We are given to understand that the Dearbornistan vote has something to do with the Biden administration’s turn toward Hamas. In the category of what’s wrong with this picture?, the invaluable MEMRI tuned in to the International Al Quds Day rally in front of Dearborn’s Henry Ford Centennial Library (perfect!) this past Friday (video below). Chants of “Death to America” were joined with chants of “Death to Israel” among the
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