Author: donelsonfiles

Say what you may about Donald Trump, the world was more stable and safer place with him in charge than the present regime or for that matter, the Obama administration. If you don’t want to give credit to Trump, then at least credit his foreign policy team including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.    Trump administrations was a respite from Obama disastrous foreign policy including his attempt to normalize relations with Iran, one of the world leading terrorist states, and even elevate Iran as part of an integrated Middle East.  At least Trump was smart to realize this was a stupid idea. Biden continued the Obama policy toward Iran and abandoned essentially the Trump policy of producing an alliance between the Sunni States and Israel via the Abraham Accord.   

The recent Hamas attack on Israel may have expanded as it is being reported that Iranian backed Hezbollah are attacking from the North.  The pincer movement if true shows Iran making a bold mood to attack Israel while sending a message to the Sunni states the price they pay if they work with Israel, directly or indirectly.  What is obvious is that Obama/Biden strategy of an integrated Middle East with Iran as a centerpiece has been a disaster and one of the most ill-conceived foreign policy mistakes, period.  World is more unstable today it was under Trump, and it is getting worse.  What we are witnessing the complete failure of Obama/Biden worldview. 

This disaster had its roots in the Obama Administration. The Obama view was ascendant Iran would be a counterbalance to Israel and like previous administration, view the Middle East problems through the prism of Palestinian-Israeli conflict plus this move toward Iran was also supposed to counter our allies just as the Saudi’s.  A balance of power existing among the powers of the region and this balance of power would force Israel hand in dealing with the Palestinians and reduce America’s footprint in the Middle East.

This regional restructuring was Obama’s version of realism, but it was not that.  As Ashley Rindsberg noted in UnHerd, “But it was never realism. It was a contorted idealism rooted in Obama’s rejection of American exceptionalism, including the notion that Western liberal democratic values deserved any primacy in any part of the world. The hands-off approach would allow regional dynamics to establish local equilibrium without what, in Obama’s view, was the destructive influence of American intervention…With this motivation in play, Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. He courted Turkey’s theocrat Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “a strong Turkey that would step in and take on the role of a strong power in the Middle East that would allow the U.S. to step back,” a Turkey expert told Politico in 2016. He left Iraq in the hands of Iranian puppet masters. And most infamously of all, he ceded the Syrian battlefield to, of all people, Vladimir Putin.”

This policy was based on many faulty premises beginning with the idea that Iran was going to collaborate in an integrated Middle East in a benign fashion since it is Iran Mullahs goal was to eliminate the Jewish state, drive the United States out of the Middle East and institute its version of a jihadist regime. It is still a revolutionary regime.  If you want to reduce your presence in the Region it would help to have energy independent policy but both Obama and Biden went green which depends upon minerals produced by China.

What unfolding before our eyes is the Obama policy failures and Hamas and Hezbollah are mere extension of Iran and as Ms. Rindsberg observed, “Today we are seeing the outcome not of mere policy failure, but catastrophe. The result will not be a carefully calibrated set of cantilevers pulling the Middle East into peace-like tension but war, suffering and internal conflict. Obama always fancied himself a great agent of change, a figure upon whom the presidency was virtually bestowed, who would master the world’s greatest problems with his intellect alone, and collect all the rich rewards, prizes, praise and of course the wild jubilation he knew he deserved.”  Obama proved to nothing more than failed intellectual, unable to grasp the reality of the world and man praised by the media as transformation intellectual President but in reality, a second-rate thinker with outdated leftist ideas to draw from

Joe Biden on the other hand is an 80-year-old plus man whose cognitive skills have declined but then at his peak, he was mothing more than mediocrity.  Biden own contribution to this disaster was refunding the Palestinians and then pursuing Iranian deal while giving Iran billions of dollars “for humanitarian uses” as if Iranians were not going to find a way to turn those billions into arms for their allies.  

Robert Greenway, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense contrasted Trump’s approach to Biden’s approach. Presently he is the executive director the Abraham Accords Peace Institute and help develop the accord during the Trump Administration and concluded that Trump administration ran out of time in executing their game plan against Iran.  Greenway noted, “I think if we had more time to do it, we could have brought about something approaching an economic collapse or at least economic paralysis. We probably started too late, so this may be a different discussion.” The Biden administration undid the progress made by the Trump’s foreign policy team, first beginning by not enforcing the sanctions and Greenway noted, that Iran had foreign policy exchange of 50 to 60 billion dollars but when Trump left office, it was down to six billion dollars on the par with Haiti.

Since Biden’s took over, they have increased their oil export and now exceeded their foreign exchange from end of the Obama administration.

Biden approach to Iran and the Middle East is a continuation of the disastrous policy of the Obama administration and it can no longer be denied that Biden foreign policy is proving to ben even worse than Bidennomics and Biden energy policy.

Biden foreign policy has led to a war in Central Europe, a disastrous retreat from Afghanistan in which billions of dollars’ worth of weapons were left behind for the Taliban to use and possibly distribute out to other terrorist or proxy armies like Hamas, and China more aggressive behavior toward Taiwan.   Just consider the alternative from the Trump years, Russia did not move against Ukraine, and this is a fact that can’t be denied.  While combat continued in the Middle East and chaos reigned, the Trump administration did eliminate the ISIS threat that began under the Obama administration.  Iran suffered economically due to the Trump economic pressure but now they have been enriched and on the march.  Biden Foreign policy is a complete failure. 

The massive Hamas attack on Israel represent a failure of Biden’s foreign policy in the Middle East. While Biden gave the impression that they were attempting to work on the Abraham accord between Saudi’s and Israel, the reality is that Biden’s major policy initiative was to resurrect the Obama fantasy of a radical realignment in the Middle East to include Iran.  His recent policy to give Iran 6 billion dollars as part of a swap of Americans gave a different view. Iranian were granted more money to pass around their clients including Hamas and this attack could be designed to split any potential Saudi-Israeli alliance. Biden administration will have to decide between continuing this alliance at the expense of Iranian negotiations or reverse, abandon the alliance to continue the appeasement of Iran. 

United States have pursued a foreign policy throughout the Obama and now Biden’s administration that strengthen Iranian role in the Middle East and allow the Iranians more influence in the region.  United States pursued this policy in order to “ “find a more stable balance of power that would make [the Middle East] less dependent on direct U.S. interference or protection.”  These words belonged to Robert Malley’s who was Barack Obama lead negotiator and we know he is being investigated after he allowed an Iranian agent of influence to into the sensitive positions in both the State Department and in the Pentagon.  Biden has used the phrase” an integrated Middle East”, a phrase means a collaboration with Iran.

Biden Administration has done what it could to undermine Prime Minister Netanyahu and even sent American dollars to support NGO’s protesting against Netanyahu  There is evidence that Iranian agents high-level access to U.S. intelligence, our government has been infiltrated by Iranians. No matter how you cut it, if you give Iranians money, you are supporting the Hamas Palestinian violence. 

Hamas jihadists are committing unspeakable atrocities.  The six billion dollars passed on to Iran, supposedly to monitor by Qatar and “used for food, medicine and other necessities” but as Iranian President noted, ““This money belongs to the Iranian people, the Iranian government, so the Islamic Republic of Iran will decide what to do with this money.”  Translation: We will use the money for whatever or as we all know, money is fungible, money you “use for food and medicine” frees up other money to be used for weapons to be used against Israel. 

Here is what our State Department stated about Iran, “Designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1984, Iran continued its support for terrorist-related activity in 2021, including support for Hizballah, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and various terrorist and militant groups in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain, and elsewhere throughout the Middle East. Iran used the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) to provide support to terrorist organizations, provide cover for associated covert operations, and create instability in the region. Iran has acknowledged the involvement of the IRGC-QF in the Iraq and Syria conflicts, and the IRGC-QF is Iran’s primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorist activity abroad. In 2019, the Secretary of State designated the IRGC, including IRGC-QF, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Iran also used regional militant and proxy groups to provide deniability, in an attempt to shield it from accountability for its destabilizing policies….Since the end of the 2006 Israeli-Hizballah conflict, Iran has supplied Hizballah in Lebanon with thousands of rockets, missiles, and small arms in violation of UNSCR 1701. Israeli security officials and politicians expressed concerns that Iran was supplying Hizballah with advanced weapons systems and technologies, as well as assisting the group in creating infrastructure that would permit it to indigenously produce rockets and missiles to threaten Israel from Lebanon and Syria. Iran has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support of Hizballah and trained thousands of its fighters at camps in Iran. Hizballah fighters have been used extensively in Syria to support the Assad regime.”

Biden thought it was brilliant ideas to give Iran 6 billion dollars but then this administration foreign policy is slowly turning into a disaster with a war in central Europe, now a major conflict in the Middle East, leaving maybe one more conflict in the Pacific, China versus Tawain.  The present conflict had its root in a feckless foreign policy that continued the Obama failed policies that somehow working with Iran will bring stability. 

Palestinians who invaded Israel kidnapped civilians including young women and there was a “rave for peace” located near Gaza targeted by the Palestinians and took young women captive.  The one video, seen by millions shows a murdered naked young woman in the back of a truck, murdered and who knows what else Palestinians did to her while they yell “Allahu Akbar”  (God is great) and one pundit noted, “what a Terrific religion they’ve got there.”

The crowd reacted jubilant corpse and as John Hinderaker of Powerline blog noted, “political entity that rules Gaza with the support of the overwhelming majority of the Palestinians who live there. It is much like Nazi Germany–most Germans were not members of the party, but the vast majority supported Hitler until it was clear that Germany was losing the war. Same thing here, except that until now, it hasn’t been clear that Hamas was losing. Hamas appears to command the loyalty of nearly all of Gaza’s resident.” 

The woman in the video was not Israeli but German at a music event for peace between Palestinians and Israelis and what the video shows is modern day barbarism.  There is on reality and that is Hamas is a barbaric group of thugs whose only goals is the destruction of Israel; it is certainly not ruling with the best interest of the Palestinians since the people live in squalor. 

From 1948, Palestinians had opportunities to have their own state and co-exist next to Israel and every time they managed to refuse to take that step for their own homeland.   

It is time to recognize that until the present leadership is removed or replaced and not just Hamas but also the Palestine Authority, the violence will continue. Their leadership has been a disaster for the Palestine people and these leaders are responsible for the present plight of the Palestinians. Even if Palestine people get their own homeland tomorrow, it will change nothing as long as the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are still the leaders of their respective areas. The people will still be poor. 

The Biden decision to send money to Palestine has proven as much as mistake as giving Iran 6 billion dollars and the administration failure to understand the true nature of the Palestinian government and their ultimate goal, the end the Jewish state.

You will always hear “I follow science” as if this is supposed to end the debate but the leaves the most important question, which science do you follow?  The statement that “I follow the science” assumes the debate over a specific point is over and everyone agrees. Science does not work that way, instead science is forever the search for truth and as we found out during the Covid pandemic, much of what we originally believed proved to be true was shown to be false.  Masks did not stop transmission or for that matter neither did the vaccines.  The experts overestimated the projected death from the virus, and no one gave much consideration to the impact of the lockdowns on the economy and the education of our children. Nowhere was the idea of risk versus benefits considered.  Nor did it help that Covid deaths stats included people with died with Covid and those who died because of Covid, thus overestimating death totals.

Climate change is no different, since we are told that the debate over humans is responsible for present warming, and it is all bad.  Again, it depends which science you follow, is it the science of Michael Mann or the science of Judith Curry or Richard Lindzen?  While most of us are exposed to the former but Curry and Lindzen have over the years produced enough science to dispute the narrative that climate change is human driven and bad.   

Last year, Andrew Dessler debated Steve Koonin on the questions, “Does the world need to rapidly convert to using renewable energy to save the planet from global warming?” and Koonin crushed him. It is a rarity that climate alarmists just as Dessler will debate their counterpart and the reason is obvious, Climate realist often get the better of the argument as their own science is solid.  Galvin Schmidt and his team a few years ago debated Richard Lindzen team on a similar question and Schmidt was so thoroughly outclassed that he will not face an opponent ever again.  Alex Epstein, who has written books on the importance of fossil fuels, has had at least three debates canceled when his opponents simply didn’t show up. 

There is enough debate about what is causing present warming or even if it is bad.  Certainly, we have seen in the increasing wealth throughout the world, more people escaping poverty into the middle class plus we are feeding more than double the population  better diet over the past five decades, so one would think that maybe there is another side to the debate.  You can argue that rising CO2 and warming is good for the planet, or you can argue that there are many other variables involved  but  you can’t argue that the science is settled and debate over.  A better argument is that to follow science means all options are open when discussing climate change since we are basing policy on science. If science is wrong or if the policy recommendations have higher risk than the benefit of solving the problems, it will prove disastrous. 

We saw with the Pandemic; the policy recommendations were based on incomplete data, but no real debate was allowed as the skeptics were essentially ignored with no real scientific exchange.  The same thing is equally true with climate change in which many of the changes will impact the quality of life of Americans and reduce their prosperity.   Again, no real debate is being allowed among policy makers and again disastrous policy will be the results.