RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/god-save-the-queen-and-bidens-foreign-policy-blinken-china-iran-deal-ukraine-79c598c0?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

‘God save the queen, man!” said Joe Biden, in an unexpected windup to remarks in Connecticut about gun control last week. Like many of his utterances, the strange outburst prompted widespread confusion. What could this latest eructation from the presidential brain mean?

He knows that Elizabeth II, for 70 years the usual subject of the prayer, is already beyond the good Lord’s earthly protection, surely? He was at the funeral, and apparently awake throughout. Perhaps with all those tasteful Pride Month displays around the White House last week, his loyalty has been captured by a queen of the drag variety. Or maybe it was just an indication that he’s decided the nation needs to amp up the deference it’s been showing the first lady, and a more regal honorific than “Dr. Jill” will now be expected.

But to me the remark made a curious sort of sense, inadvertently reflecting the confused, uncertain and slightly out-of-touch approach to the rest of the world that characterizes the administration’s foreign policy.

What else could explain the news last week that the Biden team is putting together a deal that isn’t a deal with the ayatollahs in Iran?

The plan, according to multiple reports, is for Iran to agree not to enrich its uranium too close to the 90% level needed for weaponization and to release some American hostages, in exchange for sanctions relief and other assistance.

Aside from the naiveté you need to think that Tehran will abide by an agreement that doesn’t even require a signature, the tentative deal betrays trademark confusion and inconsistency in Biden administration policy.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/18/the-ukraine-american-gordian-knot/

Most Americans sympathize with Ukraine and were and are willing to supply it with defensive weapons to repel Russian aggression. 

Proof of that goodwill is the virtual draining of U.S. weapon stocks—from stockpiles of anti-tank weapons and large-caliber artillery shells to anti-aircraft and surface-to-surface missiles. Yet the more the United States gives, the more Volodymyr Zelenskyy demands—and the more the American people acquiesce in sympathy for his plight. 

Given such U.S. largess, Ukraine currently enjoys the third-largest defense budget in the world, behind only the United States itself and China in annual outlays. That gargantuan expenditure is a result almost exclusively of American massive arms shipments and other NATO countries’ arms transfers, all based on a commitment to help Ukraine repel Russian aggression. Officials in Russia, Ukraine, and the United States have all agreed that the war is a high-stakes proxy conflict between nuclear Russia and nuclear NATO. 

The original mission, as assumed, was to aid Ukraine in pushing the invader back to the prior post-2014 borders, de facto established by prior Russian invasions that had absorbed the disputed eastern border and Crimea. Then supposedly, negotiations would begin to adjudicate the ancient border disputes that had led to the first iteration of fighting in 2014. 

The Disputed Ukrainian-Russian Border 

Ukraine’s latest counteroffensive could, in fact, get close to achieving that goal of reclaiming much of the ground taken after February 2022. 

But apparently, the war’s aims have now shifted to reestablishing the 2013 Ukrainian-Russian border. That is an ambitious agenda and, in the past, neither President Barack Obama nor Donald Trump nor Joe Biden had ever signed on to it. Oddly, those on the Left calling for the utter defeat and humiliation of the Putin regime and the retaking of Crimea (and who also gave us 2009 Russian “reset”) had rarely voiced such agendas after the 2014 aggression during the Obama Administration. (And remember that was not Putin’s first rodeo; he had invaded Georgia and absorbed South Ossetia in 2008). 

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19731/biden-arabs-trust

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states apparently still do not trust the Biden Administration, largely because of its perceived abandonment of its traditional Arab allies in the Middle East and President Joe Biden’s hostility to Saudi Arabia. This view began with then-presidential candidate Biden declaring the kingdom a “pariah” state — and is continuing with US attempts, still ongoing, to revive a “nuclear deal” that will enable an expansionist Iran to have nuclear weapons potentially to topple other countries in the region.

Meanwhile, the same Biden Administration has continued to cozy up to the Iranian regime, which the US’s own Department of State has called the “top state sponsor of terrorism” and which has, until recently, has not only been attacking both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates through Iran’s proxy militia, the Houthis in Yemen, but has also been supplying troops and weapons to Russia for attacking Ukraine.

The message being sent is that being America’s enemy pays handsomely, while, as with Afghanistan, being America’s friend can be fatal.

The London-based Rai Al-Youm online newspaper said that Blinken’s visit to Saudi Arabia failed to achieve most of its goals, including promoting normalization between the Kingdom and Israel. According to the newspaper, the Saudi media ignored Blinken’s visit, while playing up the arrival of former Real Madrid soccer player Karim Benzema in the Kingdom….

“There are many obstacles to America’s success in playing these roles, including what is related to the nuclear file, as a nuclear Iran remains a concern for the Gulf and for other countries in the region. The [Saudi] agreement with Iran may alleviate this concern, but it will not dispel it. Washington’s success in settling this file in a way that does not threaten the security and stability of the Gulf states is the bottom line and it is what will determine the future of Washington’s relations with the countries of the region.” — Sam Mansi, Lebanese columnist, Asharq Al-Awsat, June 12, 2023.

“[W]hatever Blinken achieved during his visit to Saudi Arabia will remain weak and incomplete in the face of the dangers of ongoing tensions in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and other conflict areas, most notably the civil war that broke out recently in Sudan, in addition to the comprehensive challenges posed by the fraught relations between Iran and Israel, which may explode if there is no progress in the nuclear talks, and if more daring steps are not taken to limit Iran’s continuation of uranium enrichment, and Iran’s public support for Russia and its cooperation with it in the context of the war against Ukraine.” — Sam Mansi, Asharq Al-Awsat, June 12, 2023.

Judging from the reactions of these Arabs to Blinken’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, it is clear that the Saudis and other Arabs have lost confidence in the Biden administration and are not pinning any hopes on it to bring security and stability to the Middle East.

Moreover, it is evident that the Saudis feel so offended by Biden that they are willing to move closer to Iran and Russia if that enables them to steer clear of the American president. It will take more than a visit by Biden or Blinken or Sullivan to repair the damage that has been done to America’s relations with Arab countries that used to respect the US. In fact, it is safe to assume that the Arabs’ attitudes toward the Biden administration will remain steady regardless of any effort that this administration might choose to make.