Biden’s Foreign Policy in Context — Part 1
@John Fedup and
@spoz,
1. Great to see that adults are in charge again under the Biden administration — with the corresponding marginalisation of the stupid and moving on from failed adventures in perception management without substance — Jen Psaki dealt with the Haifa port issue, effectively and moved on to other issues in a coherent manner. As
President Biden said:
"Over the past two weeks, I've spoken with the leaders of many of our closest friends — Canada, Mexico, the U.K., Germany, France, NATO, Japan, South Korea and Australia — to begin reforming the habits of cooperation and rebuilding the muscles of democratic alliances that have atrophied over the past few years of neglect and, I would argue, abuse."
Yes, they can but they had better be ready for some blowback. Biden can only do so much in holding back the desires of many Americans who would (foolishly IMO) like to abandon allies and isolate America from the ROW.
2. Joe Biden, Tony Blinken, Lloyd Austin, Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk (with the last 2 at the National Security Council) are not stupid, as they would understand Israel better and work in a more productive manner to get the info the Americans need. At every level, the Biden administration is reaching out to their counter parts in Israel to connect and manage the problematic issues, instead of going to the press or getting into a public pissing match. This includes calls through:
(a) Jake Sullivan; and
(b) Lloyd Austin.
3. As I said before, the Chinese will tell you that Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo has accelerated America’s decline in influence and felt that they do more harm to American interests than any other US President or Secretary of State, in history. Beijing's conviction is that the U.S. is now rapidly declining, gives Xi strategic patience.
4. This stupidity of raising the Haifa port issue in public (under Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo) has emboldened China to accelerate pursuit of longtime goal of sowing discord. Getting in a public pissing match with Israel is an own goal, especially since inter-ministry coordination in Israel is totally lacking — the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. It would help you actually read the link you provided. This is a Trump era, knee-jerk issue, with no coherence in execution.
5. John, can you stop trying to sow more Trump era discord, as it helps China? Often times, many who are blindly anti-China do the most to advance China’s agenda, accidentally.
6. I am also betting you don’t know who is Brett McGurk — whose input to Jake Sullivan as NSA, would guide decisions. In Feb 2019, McGurk received
the James Foley Freedom Award for his work in securing the release of Americans held hostage by the Iranian government and his leadership in the campaign to defeat ISIS. Previously, McGurk quit his role as the US envoy to the international coalition to combat the ISIS late in 2018 (over Trump's decision to withdraw American troops from northern Syria).
7. Jake Sullivan, told reporters that the White House is working with international partners on sanctions for individuals and entities controlled by the military. "We believe we have plenty of space to be able to find the types of sanctions targets necessary to sharpen the choice for the Burmese military," Sullivan said. The White House is also considering an executive order on the issue, he said.
And given how much support Israel has received from the US over the years, you would think they would be wary of cutting of their nose to spite their face. Although their lobby has enjoyed effectively bipartisan support for years because of its electoral clout, you wouldn’t want to take that for granted, and you would, I should have thought, wanted to be careful not to p**s off your major ally. Particularly as the US relationship with China is deteriorating pretty spectacularly, and that doesn’t seem likely to change much under Joe based on the comments of his Secs of State and Def
8. I think this Haifa port thing is a non-issue, as there are bigger, more urgent issues to manage, for President Biden. Biden concerns include a 1 Feb 2021 coup in Myanmar and the Russian government’s sentencing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny to more than two years in prison — events that have posed a challenge to one of Biden’s top global priorities: promoting democracy.
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