Washington in Slumber By Elliott Abrams
https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/washington-in-slumber/
Sleepy Washington is likely on the verge of being awakened by a major world crisis.
Washingtonians may not fully grasp the impression their city gives to foreign visitors these days. It is one of somnolence. Too many shops or restaurants are closed, temporarily or permanently; the traffic is light; the streets largely empty. As a suburbanite, I drive into Washington for meetings and find I never have to use a parking garage these days. Downtown is sufficiently deserted to make finding a parking meter easy. Thus, to foreign visitors, it often seems that the city is asleep and nothing important is happening right now.
They are right. What, after all, is happening on Capitol Hill? Nothing — or rather nothing but kabuki. Despite knowing what the outcome will be, the Democratic leadership forces votes that will be lost. Perhaps they are thinking this will be useful in November, but for the moment, it means that Congress is doing nothing of serious value.
And what is going on in the executive branch? On the border issues, nothing. On Covid, nothing: The president has said this is mostly a state issue, and anyway, most Americans have given up relying on so-called experts in the federal government. Americans can sign up now for three free masks, a pathetic measure of government action. The “energy in the Executive” of which Hamilton wrote consists nowadays of travel and speeches, and the only thing that gets this president energized is an opportunity to attack his domestic opponents.
On foreign policy, the president is waiting for Putin’s next move. This puts the United States in a position of reaction, issuing repeated warnings of a vague and general nature. Of real action, such as sending 10,000 troops to Poland or announcing a shipment of 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, there is none. The only significant thing that happened in the foreign-policy world in the last week or two was the president’s disastrous press-conference error in saying that a small incursion into Ukraine by Putin would not be a very big deal. This was such an amazing mistake that the White House issued a correction in the nature of a retraction within one hour of Biden’s speech. But such errors give insight into the mind of the president, and this insight will have been profoundly unnerving to every American friend or ally anywhere in the world. Those who are dependent on Joe Biden for their security will have shivered last Wednesday evening. Think of it: This is the most dangerous, immediate national-security issue, and it was certain to come up at the press conference, yet the president was not only inarticulate but actually unable to state U.S. policy clearly.
Meanwhile, the Iran negotiations are also continuing, and it looks increasingly as if they will produce a deal — another unnerving development for America’s friends because it will likely throw billions or tens of billions of dollars at Iran in exchange for precious few concessions on Iran’s part. The Biden administration will unquestionably blame all of this on Donald Trump and say that there were no alternatives; this deal was the best that could be gotten given what they inherited from the Trump administration. That argument might have sold after Biden had been in office for a few weeks or even a few months. But after a year, and in the aftermath of the disastrous retreat from Afghanistan, it will not be widely credible. Biden has used up too much goodwill.
So what is left? Vicious rhetoric about Republicans, the race card, blaming Trump, and now a press appearance by the president that was as long as it was inarticulate. The longer he speaks, the less impressive he seems.
That’s why I’ve found recent European visitors — conservatives who wish us well — to be in a bit of a funk. No one has to explain to them how much their security is tied to that of the United States, to U.S. foreign policy, and to U.S. credibility. Several of them have said this feels, to them, like 1979. Then, it was President Carter talking about “malaise” and “inordinate fear of Communism” while the shah fell in Iran, the Sandinistas took over Nicaragua, and the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. But let’s be fair to Jimmy Carter: In reaction to the Soviets, a very large defense buildup and U.S. support for the mujahidin in Afghanistan began in 1979 — not under Reagan.
Now, in Joe Biden’s second year, will he make any significant move — even in reaction to a new Russian invasion of a European country? Will he say something similar to what Carter said after the Soviet invasion: “Neither the United States nor any other nation which is committed to world peace and stability can continue to do business as usual with the Soviet Union.” Will he change his team? Will he stop calling political opponents racists and reach out to Republicans in Congress to forge a united policy against Putin’s aggression?
Sleepy Washington is likely on the verge of being awakened by a major world crisis. Whether the president and his team are up to the challenge remains to be seen, and thus far — think of how they handled the retreat from Afghanistan, or of the president’s inability to speak with clarity about the most dangerous issues — there is no reason for confidence. But the sense that little is happening here, of playing the waiting game and watching kabuki votes on the Hill, will surely disappear. Either success will reverse the president’s fortunes and bathe the White House in confidence and good cheer, or the widespread sense of failure, of falling short, will cover it with ashes. And if it is the latter, that will effectively be the end of the Biden administration because it will be followed by defeat at the polls in the midterms in November.
For those European visitors, quiet Washington is actually less like the restful somnolence of the nursery and more like the tense inactivity of the hospital waiting room. Soon we will know: How did it all go, doc?
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