Joe Biden is the worst US president since Jimmy Carter. He specialises in betraying America’s friends and rewarding its enemies, in humiliating the West and empowering the Global South’s autocracies.
His underlying arrogance has been exacerbated by his deteriorating physical and mental condition. He acts like a blundering, interfering imperial overlord plagued by the shortest of attention spans. He sends out mixed signals, sucks up to random rogues, relentlessly bullies allies, micromanages complex conflicts from a distance and a position of ignorance, and inevitably angers both sides of every argument. Under his leadership, the world’s supreme economic, technological and military power exudes weakness, self-doubt and moral uncertainty.
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin should have little to celebrate, yet they are holding a sickeningly triumphalist summit this week, emboldened by Biden’s pusillanimity towards anti-Western forces at home and abroad, and his strategic and tactical blunders. The China-Russia-Iran-North Korea axis is on the march again. America’s reputation in the emerging world is at its lowest ebb since the 1970s: outside of the West, strength, resilience and determination matter, and nobody respects cowardice and vacillation.
Biden double-crossed Britain over Brexit, taking the EU and Ireland’s side, displaying contempt for the supposed “special relationship”. He helped re-establish the Stone Age Taliban regime in Afghanistan. His botched withdrawal surely encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine, as did Biden’s ludicrous claim that “a minor incursion” may not trigger a strong response.
He has subsequently given the heroic Ukrainians just enough to defend themselves, but not to win. Many Republicans acted abominably, but the problem is now cross-party: there is no way that even a re-elected Biden would fund Ukraine to the tune of $60 billion a year in a forever war. Kyiv has already been sold down the river. The latest package was probably Biden’s last major intervention: after giving Volodymyr Zelensky false hope, he will eventually embrace a negotiated settlement that will effectively hand victory to the axis of evil.
Biden’s betrayal of Israel has been even more egregious: he has simultaneously helped it in unprecedented ways through gifts of weaponry and direct protection, while hobbling it, seeking to control it and ultimately sabotaging its war effort. In a staggeringly short-termist move to appease his woke base, Biden has bought into the toxic Left-wing dogma that effectively criminalises all wars (though only when waged by democracies), even those of self-defence. He constantly questions whether Israel has breached human rights, even though its civilian-death-to-combatant-killed ratio is superior to anything America ever achieved.
The US president has handed billions to Iran, the world’s terror financier and a provider of weapons to Putin, and failed to adequately enforce sanctions. He has rewarded Qatar for continuing to harbour Hamas. He has mishandled Saudi Arabia, fracturing the anti-Iran coalition. He tolerates Recep Erdoğan’s treachery, even when the Turkish demagogue announces he is treating Hamas members in his hospitals, making a mockery of Nato unity.
America’s 1,000 soldiers in Niger are being expelled, bolstering Russia’s influence in West Africa and trashing US counter-terrorism initiatives in the Sahel. Non-aligned rising players, such as the UAE, are gaining ground in Africa as Washington’s power drains. Biden’s only genuine interest appears to be containing China over Taiwan, but why would anybody trust that America will be steadfast, given his track record? How can Xi take Biden seriously?
What is most frustrating is that Russia and China should be in the midst of an existential crisis, and an imaginary Reagan-esque US president should be moving in for the metaphorical kill.