Tornado Alley (PROG)

[12yearplan]

If Joe Biden believes his record as a world leader will help him get re-elected in November, he may have another think coming. His term began with catastrophe in Afghanistan, was thrown into turmoil by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and is ending on a desperately sour note in Gaza. Add in US-China standoffs and a proxy war with Iran, and the old foreign policy hand begins to look decidedly cack-handed.

That was partly the message from Michigan last week, where younger voters used the Democratic presidential primary to signal dismay over Biden’s unstinting backing for Israel’s war with Hamas. For sure, he has gradually become more critical of Benjamin Netanyahu’s criminal clique – and is finally pushing a ceasefire. But his lethal, almost callous misjudgments following 7 October will not be forgotten.

Biden is not the admired foreign policy maestro he seems to think he is. Hundreds of US officials have publicly rejected his Israel policy. So have European and Arab allies, amazed he’s so out of touch.

In a pompous “urgent message” to Biden last week, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman warned, belatedly, that America’s global standing was plummeting alongside Israel’s.

“I don’t think Israelis or the Biden administration fully appreciate the rage that is bubbling up around the world ... over the deaths of so many thousands of Palestinian civilians, particularly children, with US-supplied weapons in Gaza,” Friedman wrote. This is hardly a fresh insight. Biden, deaf to – or careless of – fury overseas, clings to outdated thinking based on Israeli exceptionalism and entitlement. Sometimes the Atlantic seems very wide indeed.

Biden may be finally waking up to his Israel-related electoral peril. The 13% of Michigan Democrats who voted “uncommitted”, rather than for him, could spark a rolling, nationwide de facto boycott of his candidacy, starting with this week’s Super Tuesday primaries. Biden will surely win his party’s nomination. But his cause is tarnished...............................................

.......................................The annual Gallup world affairs survey, conducted last month, found fewer Republicans than ever (61%) think the US should play a leading or major international role. The Biden-era idea of the US as global policeman is now supported by only 65% of Americans overall. Around 10% of Republican voters favour complete isolation.

These findings only serve to reinforce the view, taking root among European and Asian allies, that US global leadership, dominant since 1945, is experiencing epoch-ending, terminal failure – that the Pax Americana crumbles. What they see is two elderly men locked in an ever more destructive, inward-looking electoral knife fight.

One, well-meaning but weak, is a hostage to times past, when the ubiquitous US superpower led as a matter of course. That time is over. He doesn’t get it.

The other represents the very worst of America – selfish, exploitative, uninformed, insular, illiberal, self-obsessed and vicious. Little wonder Europe’s leaders are in a tizzy, clinging to each other like panicky passengers in a sinking lifeboat, arguing about what to do. What shocks to the global order are now in prospect!

This warped and ugly “other America” is no trusted friend, no ally, no partner for the democratic world. Shining city upon a hill no more, it’s an enemy in the making.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/02/the-us-as-defender-of-democracy-will-not-win-votes-trump-gets-it-biden-does-not