Only Biden Can Keep Russia Out of Moscow

By Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog 

“When Putin decided to go into Russia—I mean, he’s gonna go from Russia into Ukraine,” Biden told Time. “Trump—what he never understood—which is that Russia, he wasn’t just going into Moscow, I mean from Russia into Ukraine.”

If you understood that gibberish, you too are qualified to serve as leader of the free world.

What’s left of it.

In a wide ranging interview showcasing Biden’s foreign policy accomplishments, he confused Iran and Iraq, Russia and Ukraine, South Korea and Taiwan, Putin and Xi, and blamed his misspeaking on a cold, his voice and then claimed that the magazine thought he was crazy.

The Time transcript is notable for its incomprehensibility. The same party that used to mock ‘Bushisms’ has given us a president whom even his own supporters can’t actually understand. At times the Time transcript has no choice but to mark sections ‘unintelligible’ while other sentences just make no sense. And that’s a problem when speaking on a world stage.

Whether or not we end up in a war with China might depend on this sentence about Taiwan.

Ready? Get set, go! 

“It would depend on the circumstances. You know, by the way, I’ve made clear to Xi Jinping that we agree with—we signed on to previous presidents going way back—to the policy of, that, it is we are not seeking independence for Taiwan nor will we in fact, not defend Taiwan if they if, if China unilaterally tries to change the status.”

Trump was accused of using chaos to confuse and deter foreign adversaries while Biden unintentionally uses chaos to confuse them so that they don’t know what he’s talking about.

Biden promised to defend Taiwan in 2021, then claimed in 2022 that he would only do so if there was “an unprecedented attack” (echoing his warning to Putin that a “minor incursion” into Ukraine would be okay) and all the way to now with “nor will we in fact, not defend Taiwan”.

How well China interprets Biden’s double negatives could determine if it invades Taiwan. And whether we go to war with China. And whether thousands of American soldiers die in combat.

And yet with national misery reaching new heights, Biden’s only reelection arguments are that democratically electing Trump threatens democracy, abortion and foreign policy.

Trump doesn’t understand Russia, Biden insists, even while confusing Russia and Ukraine. And warning that Russia shouldn’t go into Moscow. He suggests that China is “rooting” for Trump even while accusing Trump of wanting to put “10% tariffs on everything”. Biden insists that “Trump wants to eviscerate NATO” and wouldn’t cut a deal to control North Korea’s nukes.

Not only is much of this untrue or backward, but what has Joe Biden done for foreign policy?

If Biden’s closing argument is Ukraine, Putin invaded other countries under Obama and Biden, not Trump. Likewise, China and Iran amped up their aggressive tactics under Biden. The madman theory of geopolitical deterrence works better with Trump than with Biden’s ambiguity.

Biden’s fixation on NATO impresses globalist elites, but Trump understood correctly that NATO was useless without the United States. Biden’s big idea of having Europeans handle the Ukraine war was a disaster. “We spent a lot of money in Ukraine, but Europe has spent more money than the United States has, collectively,” Biden brags. But that’s nothing to brag about.

America and Europe have spent a lot of money and prestige on Ukraine with little result except a lot of dead Russians. And while any Cold War general would have appreciated the (likely vastly overstated) number of Russian casualties, the war didn’t need to happen in the first place.

Biden adopted Obama’s strategy of leading from behind. Rather than bolstering American military credibility, he undermined it in Afghanistan and around the world. Putin accurately read Biden’s unwillingness to fight as an opening and he took it. When it did happen, he kept on leading from behind, providing weapons that slowly escalated the war rather than ending it.

The United States could have either averted or quickly ended the war by signaling clearly what its position was and what it intended to do. Instead, Biden slowly allowed the war to escalate until American weapons are being used to strike targets in Russia and Ukraine is up for NATO membership without actually having any idea of what the next step is. That’s not how you win.

China’s growing threats to Taiwan and Iran’s drone strikes on Israel are both a response to lessons learned from the Ukraine war. If Xi attacks, it’s because he will be betting that a rapid invasion can be accomplished in a matter of days or weeks while Biden is convening international conferences and waiting months or years to provide meaningful military support.

Biden would like us to believe that he is on top of foreign affairs. “I did it. And we’re now the strongest nation. We have the strongest alliance in all of America,” he brags. But then why is the world such a mess? Unable to take credit for actual accomplishments, he instead boasts about all the international organizations he helped set up. Even the ones he didn’t set up.

At one point, Biden argued that “NATO is considerably stronger than it was when I took office. I put it together” and also and claimed credit for having “put together a Quad that never existed before” which was actually put together by George W. Bush twenty years ago.

Biden wants to make it seem like he’s in control. What does that look like?

“When Putin decided to go into Russia,” Biden postures. “The reason why I cleared the intelligence so we can release the information we knew that he was going to attack, was to let the world know we were still in charge.”

Did the United States releasing intelligence about a planned Russian attack really “let the world know we were still in charge?” Is releasing intelligence what countries that are in charge do?

Being in charge means taking decisive steps, not issuing a press release.

And Biden issues press releases. He talks and boasts, and then he reacts to what someone else does, whether it’s Russia, China, Iran or any of the other players on the board. The final tragic summary of Biden’s foreign policy isn’t that he sold out allies or wasted American lives, it’s that he never does take charge because he reacts, rather than acts. Whatever position he takes can be reversed by a forceful enough foreign or domestic campaign because he’s weak.

Biden got into a war in Ukraine that he initially opposed because he’s weak. And he betrayed Israel after his initial support because he’s weak. Given a chance, he’ll betray Taiwan too.

“We are, we are the world power. And what I inherited, as a consequence of the mistake that we made in Afghanistan is a—was not a loss in Afghanistan, excuse my cold,” Biden tremulously opened the interview.

This is not how a world power acts or talks. The Ottoman Empire used to be called the Sick Man of Europe. Under Biden, America is the Sick Man of the World. But hopefully it’s only a cold.

 

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.