OPINION:
Turns out, as foreign policy goes, “Don’t” does not actually work.
Asked about his strategy for confronting Hamas in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, President Biden told CBS’ 60 Minutes he had just one word for the blood-thirsty savages: Don’t.
Hamas terrorists in Gaza stopped raping Israeli girls and murdering innocent hostages long enough to laugh at Mr. Biden before getting back to their barbarism.
Reporter Scott Pelley, realizing Mr. Biden’s strategy was not, in fact, a strategy, tried to help the doddering old man along.
“What is your message to Hezbollah and its backer, Iran?”
Mr. Biden quadrupled down on his tough talk.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t,” he said.
You could hear the shivers down the spines of mullahs in Tehran from here.
Even Mr. Pelley was confused.
“Don’t come across the border?” he inquired. “Don’t escalate this war?”
Cocking his best senile swagger, Mr. Biden replied: “That’s right.”
No one was scared. No one, for that matter, took him seriously.
Mr. Biden’s tough talk was eerily similar to his tough talk during an earlier 60 Minutes interview with Mr. Pelley in September 2022.
Mr. Pelley was gushing over Ukraine’s unremitting successes on the battlefield — so much so that he worried Russian President Vladimir Putin might become so “embarrassed” that he would use chemical or nuclear weapons.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t,” was Mr. Biden’s response.
Only three “don’t”s for Mr. Putin using nuclear weapons and four “don’t”s for Iranian-backed terrorists. Hard to know who was laughing harder at the old geezer.
A year and a half after that warning from Mr. Biden, Ukraine is still mired in so many “successes” on the battlefield, and Mr. Putin is still having his way around the globe. Guess we should be glad he has not gassed or nuked anyone that we know of.
But Mr. Putin never would have invaded Ukraine in the first place if Mr. Biden had not staggered American energy independence as soon as he took office, which jacked up global oil and gas prices — enriching Mr. Putin so that he could invade Ukraine in the first place.
Remember all the months leading up to the invasion of Ukraine when Mr. Biden kept warning Mr. Putin “don’t?”
Even if Mr. Biden had added a fourth “don’t,” it does not appear Mr. Biden’s blundering bluster would have worked.
After months of attacks on U.S. facilities in the Middle East, an Iran-deployed drone struck American soldiers in northeast Jordan this past weekend, killing three and injuring dozens more. It was the deadliest attack on U.S. troops since Mr. Biden’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which killed 13 U.S. troops and left billions of dollars worth of weapons in the hands of terrorists.
It was just months ago that Mr. Biden was still handing billions in cash to Iran — even as the terrorist government-funded terror attacks across the region. Even more profitable for Iran were all the sanctions relief provided by the Biden Administration that has seen Tehran’s oil trade spike skyward since former President Donald Trump left office.
Most galling about all of this is that Mr. Biden did not just arrive on the scene with his spineless policies and cavalier disregard for life — especially the lives of American soldiers. Mr. Biden has been Washington’s reigning expert on foreign policy going back 50 years.
In a mumbling campaign event in South Carolina Sunday, Mr. Biden actually bragged: “I’ve been doing foreign policy for a long, long time” — as if that were something to be proud of in this smoldering world.
He was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and his fingerprints are on every major U.S. foreign policy disaster since the Vietnam War. He was picked to be Barack Obama’s vice president for his foreign policy “expertise.”
Only in Washington.
Perhaps most terrifying of all, however, is not Mr. Biden’s doddering indolence that has led us to where we are now but rather what he possibly holds for the future. In response to the latest attack by Iran, Mr. Biden declared that he “shall respond,” and Republicans in Congress are urging him to bold action.
The only thing more dangerous than a man this hopelessly stupid stuttering meaningless words is a man this hopelessly stupid taking action.
November cannot come soon enough.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.
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