The lives of the deranged, Jew-hating, anti-American protesters who despise Israel and have nothing else to do but spew venom never looked more pathetic than in recent days. In an effort to persuade disinterested Americans of the virtues of Hamas and the mullahs ruling Iran, they unleashed a transparently coordinated plan to force massive delays in the nation’s most prominent cities by blocking access to bridges, airports, and arteries vital to everyday life.
It is difficult to decide which of the following is most ridiculous: the willingness of mindless radicals to disrupt travel and commerce; local governments paralyzed by wokeness refusing to shut them down for hours on end; or the insanity of believing that ruining the day for untold thousands will convince them of the righteousness of their cause. No matter the answer, it certainly sharpens the focus on the issue that could well be for President Joe Biden what Waterloo was to Napoleon, what stagflation was to Jimmy Carter, what the pandemic was to Trump: the fatal blow.
Biden, Iran, and Israel -- No Way Out
There are so many areas where Biden is failing, you might respond, and the Middle East is just one. And it’s true. With six and a half months until Election Day, public confidence in Biden’s stewardship of the economy remains low. Prices continue to rise. The border is still being overrun. Crime continues unabated in once-great cities. Any one of these issues could, in ordinary times, render Biden unelectable. At the same time, the power granted to the office of the president allows for any number of executive actions or maneuvers to spin, hide, or change the subject from politically damaging developments.
This does not mean Biden will win the argument and turn public opinion around on any of these critical issues, even with big media desperate to avoid a second Trump term. But there is much an incumbent can do to try to change his fortunes that a challenger cannot. Biden can position himself as a quasi-populist by hectoring and putting public pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. He can tap the strategic petroleum reserve to lower gas prices, as he did before. He can gin up theatrical shows of force at the border. The president -- undergirded by his amen chorus of left-wing prosecutors -- can use the bully pulpit of the State of the Union address to generate some kind of statistics showing rates of certain crimes have been reduced.
We saw this more than once with Biden’s nakedly political cancellation of billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded student loan debt. Even as the Supreme Court overturned his first attempt to buy off young voters, he went right back to the well recently, likely figuring the High Court won’t have time to reverse the administration’s decision -- again -- until after the election. Votes are on the table for what this Democratic president determines to be the right price.
But there remains one explosive issue over which this president has lost or, perhaps more accurately, ceded any semblance of control: Israel and the widening war in the Middle East. Iran’s first-ever direct attack on Israel is the outcome that could have been predicted on the very day that changed everything, Oct. 7, Israel’s Pearl Harbor and 9-11 rolled into one. So what did Biden do? He pledged “unwavering” support for Israel and then, under political pressure from his far-left/anti-Israel/pro-Iran flank and worried about young voters and Arab-Americans in the crucial battleground state of Michigan, he wavered. The quintessential career politician has been backtracking on a weekly basis, most recently condemning Israel for an accidental civilian strike (for which it quickly took responsibility and apologized), while remaining silent about the unthinkable atrocities of Hamas that have induced the first outright war in the region in 51 years. That war was ended in three weeks. This one has stretched into a seventh month, with no hope of an end in sight.
And yet, even after the savage slaughter of Israeli innocents and transparent declaration of war by Hamas, acting in Iran’s interests, Biden has somehow concluded that Israel must refrain from finishing off the enemy that brazenly murdered 1,200 civilians or even responding to the 300 drones and missiles fired at it directly by Iran.
This is why, when it comes to Israel, Iran, and the frightening escalation of conflict in the Middle East tinderbox, Biden has completely lost any influence he once might have had. He has simultaneously infuriated two competing, overwhelmingly Democratic groups -- Jews and Jew-haters -- as the world marches ever closer to war. Biden’s initial support of Israel was mostly welcomed on both sides of the aisle. But as soon as the left started putting pressure on him, he reversed course and now, in an attempt to be all things to all people, he is nothing to nobody on either side.
Biden’s one-word policy on the Middle East -- now termed the Doctrine of Don’t -- has become a laugh line, appeasing nobody on either side of this twilight struggle between good and evil. The American people, two-thirds of whom do not support Biden’s Middle East policies, may well conclude that any commander-in-chief who fails or refuses to recognize the difference between our longtime allies and sworn enemies, and between civilization and chaos, is not worthy of four more years in the White House.
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