Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
When Joe Biden became president, the Middle East was calm. Now it is in the midst of a multifront war.
So quiet was the inheritance from the prior Trump administration that nearly three years later, on September 29, 2023—and just eight days before the October 7 Hamas massacre of Israelis—Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan could still brag that “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”
So, what exactly happened to the inherited calm that led to the current nonstop chaos of the present?
In a word, theocratic Iran—the nexus of almost all current Middle East terrorism and conflict—was unleashed by Team Biden after having been neutered by the Trump administration.
The Biden-Harris administration adopted a 5-step revisionist protocol that appeased and encouraged Iran and its terrorist surrogates Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
The result was a near guarantee that something akin to the October 7 massacres would inevitably follow—along with a subsequent year of violence that has now engulfed the Middle East.
First, on the 2020 campaign trail, Biden damned long-time American ally Saudi Arabia as a “pariah.”
He overturned the policies of both the previous Obama and Trump administrations by siding with the Iranian-supplied terrorist Houthis in their war on Saudi Arabia.
Biden accused the kingdom of war crimes, warning it would “be held accountable” for its actions in Yemen. Biden-Harris took the murderous Houthis off the U.S. terrorist list.
Almost immediately followed continuous Houthi attacks on international shipping, Israel, and U.S. warships—rendering the Red Sea, the entryway to the Suez Canal, de facto closed to international maritime transit.
Worse still, by the time of the 2022 midterms, when spiraling gas prices threatened Democratic congressional majorities, Biden opportunistically flipped and implored Saudi Arabia to pump more oil to lower world prices before the November election. Appearing obnoxious and then obsequious to an old Middle East ally is a prescription for regional chaos.
Second, Biden-Harris nihilistically killed off the Trump administration’s “Abraham Accords.” That diplomatic breakthrough had proven a successful blueprint for moderate Arab nations to seek détente with Israel, ending decades of hostilities to unite against the common Middle East threat of Iran.
Third, Biden begged Iran to reenter the appeasing, so-called Iran Deal that virtually had ensured that Iran would eventually get the bomb.
Worse yet, it dropped oil sanctions against the theocracy, allowing a near-destitute Iran to recoup $100 billion in profits. And it greenlighted $6 billion in hostage ransoms to Tehran.
An enriched Tehran immediately sent billions of dollars in support and weapons to the anti-Western terrorists of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis to attack Israel, Americans, and international shipping. Iran soon began partnering with China and Russia to form a new anti-American axis.
Biden-Harris also fled abruptly from Afghanistan, abandoning billions in weapons and American contractors. The humiliation thus virtually destroyed American deterrence in the Middle East, inciting enemies and endangering friends.
Fourth, Biden-Harris restored hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the West Bank and Gaza, but without any guarantees that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas would desist from their past serial terrorist acts.
In the case of Hamas, U.S. and Western “humanitarian aid” simply freed up more fungible dollars in Gaza to arm Hamas and to expand its subterranean tunnel complex essential to its October 7 massacres and hostage-taking.
Fifth, from the outset of the ensuing increased tensions, Biden-Harris began pressuring the Israelis to act “proportionally” in responding to the massacre of some 1,200 Israelis and nearly 20,000 missiles, rockets, and drones launched at their homeland from Iran, the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah.
Such straitjacketing of our closest Middle East friend further signaled the Iranian-backed terrorists that there was now “daylight” between the U.S. and its closest regional ally. That opportunity provided still further incentives for Iran to test just how far it could safely go in attacking Israel.
But why did Biden-Harris so foolishly ignite the Middle East?
In part, the administration naively tried to resurrect the old, discredited Obama administration notion of ‘creative tension’—of empowering a rogue Iran and its terrorists to play off Israel and the moderate Arab regimes, as a new sort of balance of power in the region.
In part, Biden-Harris was caving to increased anti-Semitism at home and the rise of powerful, pro-Palestinian groups on U.S. campuses and in critical swing Electoral College states.
In part, Biden-Harris was naïve and gullible. The two bought into the anti-Americanism and anti-Israel boilerplate of our enemies. So, they thought to make amends by seeing Iran and its terrorists as the moral equivalent of democratic, pro-American Israel.
Their malignant legacy is the current Middle East disaster.
Yes. Vance Tuesday night was right that Trump had established deterrence.
In the late 70″s, the deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi said, ” The third world war will be over oil. The United States will be the dog and the rest of the world will be the fleas.”
Why do I seem to be the only person that remembers this quote?
Why do the Democrats hate America?
Communist subversion and its close working within the democrat party. Starting in the early-twentieth century, it has infected multiple facets of American society, including academia, media, government bureaucracies, unions and now social media.
Slo Joe Biden is renowned for his terrible judgement in foreign affairs, and his criminal tendencies domestically are well known too. Putting this man – and his criminal family – anywhere close to the reins of the nation was malfeasance of the first order. His best and only meaningful function was serving as an insurance policy for Obama, and he did it well. The idea was sheer genius on the part of the Leftist cabal who attempted to use the same formula for Biden with Harris protecting. It was, and is, folly, leaving us the mess we are in today. A non compos mentis POTUS – defenestrated by his Party – and an incompetent VP with delusions of power taking us under every day.
It is sad to me that so many citizens have no clue about the actions of the Biden-Harris administration to aid and abet Iran at the expense of the rest of the world.
I hope and pray that the electorate will reward them with significant win for Trump-Vance and all the Republican Senate candidates looking to knock off Democrat incumbents…..
Not only is it sad that so many citizens have no clue, it is astonishing. To think that educated, intelligent people can be so easily brainwashed is startling. And they are accusing the conservatives of exactly what they are doing.
I hope and pray that enough of the electorate will see the light in time to vote these people out. But it seems as though the gaslighting may work and another Establishment puppet may occupy the White House.
What can you expect when they don’t even teach cursive in the schools these days. So these kids can’t even read the Constitution of the US.
I pray enough people will be able to see through Biden and Harris, if not on foreign blunders, on the awful economy and their clueless statements. Lord help the US if we have to go through another 4 woke, self-hating years with a party that wants to make America into a banana republic.
China likely possesses the capability to defeat the United States militarily, given its superior navy, vast land forces, and competent air force. However, the Chinese economy relies heavily on American consumer spending, much like mistletoe depends on an oak tree for survival.
I am reminded of this dependency every time I purchase a Milwaukee or DeWalt power tool. For China, outright confrontation with the U.S. would be counterproductive, as The Art of War advises that direct conflict should be a last resort.
Rather than engaging in overt hostilities, China can subtly influence and undermine the U.S. from within, weakening the nation without outright destruction. They understand the vulnerability of American politicians, who are easily swayed by financial incentives or blackmail.
This explains, in part, why certain U.S. political figures, particularly within the Democratic Party, continue to make decisions that appear to weaken the country, including those related to the Middle East.
These decisions have nothing to do with rational thought, as evidenced by this article by VDH.
That’s why Democrats appear to hate America.
What other reasons could there be?
1. Do they value the Declaration of Independence with its theological underpinnings, or do they reject the notion of a Creator who gives men their rights which government only acknowledges?
2. Do they want to live want to uphold the Constitution, or would they rather change the law to fit their present desires?
3. Are they taught a representative understanding of United States and world history, or do they accentuate and indoctrinate only the parts that further their goals?
4. Are they for limited government and individual freedom constrained by biblical morality or are they for totalitarian control and secular licentiousness?
5. Are they in favor of individual merit and a free-market economy where men work to eat and advance themselves or are they bent on dividing people and striving for an unobtainable egalitarian utopia with the wealthy rulers in control?
6. Do they value a biblical morality and justice system or are they in opposition to the Bible and want to establish a human sense of rightness apart from the Scriptures?
7. Are they in favor of the United States of America as a sovereign nation or are they in favor of abolishing those American distinctions to form an economic, environmental, secular, utopian, totalitarian government?
8. My underlying hunch is that liberals want liberation from God as their Lord and seek to undermine America to advance a secular world system in opposition to God.
Having offered all these possible reasons why some Americans appear to hate America,
I am called to love the democrat and the republican, the liberal and the conservative, as God would have me love them as myself.
I believe that the country and the world is heading towards fulfilling biblical prophecy which includes a united global government against its Creator God, Jesus the Christ.
This perspective is not meant to offend democrats or divide Americans against themselves or to lambast those who are less patriotic, but to warn all men to repent and seek salvation in Christ as Lord and Savior.
Peter, would you love the child molesters parent – who knew of the depravity, but said nothing? DJT has divided us, good from evil. He has made the evil of Democrats easy to see. I do not love them. I despise them. I despise evil. They are evil or enablers of evil. What is the difference? Christian love and tolerance was never a suicide pact.
We are still one nation. Let’s win them with ideas. Let’s show them that a conservative perspective benefits the whole country and is good for individuals.
DJT has campaigned on the issues and policy flaws of the democrat party.
What basis do you have for claiming that DJT has divided Americans into good and evil?
How has he made the evil of Democrats easy to see?
What you are saying is what the Left is doing.
P.S. What are the synonyms used by the democrats for deplorable in describing those who do not vote for them.
Trump voters are Ultra-MAGA, fascist, threat to democracy, are a few that come to mind.
Ask Joe Biden what he thinks of those who used their intellect to refuse injecting a mRNA producing spike protein into their body.
Be careful about despising people as evil.
The Bible will say that each one has his own evil in his heart in which he will be held responsible to God as moral judge.
What other people do is ancillary to the accountability that each one will experience personally for their own sin.
Finally, I would love the parents of a child molester by telling them the truth.
Love is not sentimental and enabling but constructive. It seeks the highest good of others even if it is despised.
Spoke too soon, do you consider abortion to be a form of child molestation?
I think Democrats are in favour of abandoning Science, ignoring the global warming crisis, rewriting science with a biblical text written 2 to 3000 years ago, electing the most corrupt president in the history of the nation, and banning books that don’t agree with their strict religious dogma.
Democrats are also well-known for jumping on every possible conspiracy theory in order to justify their hatred of their opponent’s political party.
It’s also well-known that when Democratic presidents retire, literally everyone of their former staff and Cabinet members disparages them publicly.
Yep, everything on the planet that is wrong is a direct result of the Dems. Good thing we have heroic Republicans fighting tonight America.
The earth has been warming for the last 400 years since the last ice age. The greatest greenhouse gas is water vapor found in the atmosphere. The earth goes through periods of warming and cooling and was cooling so much from the mid-1960’s to the early 1980’s that the political fear being used to control people was global cooling due to man’s pollution of the atmosphere. Temperature increases plateaued in the first 10 years of the 2000’s even with increased CO2 output from man. The politics of environmental control negate “science” by enabling China and India.
The negation of science is starkly apparent as people cannot define what a woman is and males are free to play on female sports teams and shower in their locker rooms. The destruction of innocent human beings in their mother’s womb is another example where science is negated, as abortionists suppress the truth that the infant is a human being with rights that are established by God as in the Declaration of Independence. Science has no ability to observe, test hypotheses, and replicate events experimentally regarding the creation of the universe, the formation of life, and the cause for the diversity of life as it has abandoned the scientific method.
Science was ignored in the response to Covid, germs fly through the air at more than 6 feet, the holes in masks were 30 times larger than the virus, and viral particles are able to float through the air without being attached to water droplets.
So, you believe that Joe Biden is the most corrupt president in the history of the nation? That is yet to be proven but there certainly is personal testimony from a former business partner for that. And you believe that books are banned and perhaps information is censored that doesn’t agree with the dominate political view. Then there is evidence for that too, ask Elon Musk what he has learned. And yes, the conspiracy theories abound against political enemies, they are called Hitler, avowed dictator, one who will destroy democracy. And how does Joe Biden feel about democracy being destroyed since he has relinquished his candidacy for president?
And yes, the Bible has stood the test of time and critics for thousands of years. This makes sense since God is its ultimate author and what he writes is true, because he is truth. This same God who created the universe, is not only author but authority. He is our moral judge and we ought to seek him while we can and be reconciled to him. He is Lord and yet has come to earth to deliver men from their sin. He calls us to repent and believe in him as our Lord and Savior.
Many liberals have a secular and cosmopolitan view or preference. Now superficially this should be not a problem with the enlightenment rationalist underpinnings of our legal system and Constitution; the Framers enshrined religious freedom and freedom of association so long as people believed in shared care for Liberty and Justice. Many of the Framers were not even Christian themselves. Yet several said that the Constitution could only survive for a moral and religious people; they likely had those of Christian or Enlightenment Humanist morals in mind. Our present problems seem to stem from this strategic confusion abroad as mentioned, but also more importantly a disillusion and terrible ignorance of the uniting values at home.
Excellent.
Superb…and accurate…explanation of what has been done. Thank you.
Please add Obama to the Biden-Harris Middle East policy. He’s not the only president to have established his post-reign residence in Washington DC for nothing. His malign stamp is on every evil policy this administration has promulgated.
Please refer to See Something: Say Nothing by Philip Haney who details the Bush & Obama administrations submission to jihad factions. Biden was following orders from Barry and his team of treasonous Marxists. President Trump and his team had Iran boxed in perfectly.
We failed to heed Robert Gates, and he failed to yell loudly, his assessment that Joe Biden had been wrong on every foreign policy in the past 40 years back during the Obama administration. Now we have a world nearing total chaos and nobody with any common sense in charge of US domestic or foreign. Or is it they all know what they are doing and do not give a rat’s backside, as long as they enrich themselves while retaining power? Actually a lot of both; American citizens and taxpayers be damned.
As I read this, my IDF feed went off three times with siren warnings over different Israeli cities.
I have been convinced that these policies eminate from Obama.
We’re in the Obama third term.
I don’t think we can survive a 4th term of more “fundamental change”.
Add to this a record-setting 11 embassies have been evacuated since Biden took office. Another indication of his weakness.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/03/18/biden-sets-record-for-most-embassy-evacuations/
Biden and Harris are not naïve. They empowered the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism while shackling and slandering Israel. Their State Department is shot through with unregistered agents for Iran. Their betrayal of our sole democratic ally in the region and subsidy of Iran’s multipronged attack on it is vile and treacherous. In ancillary behavior, Harris eschewed the Jew from Pennsylvania, preferring the comrade of a radical imam–just look at Kamala’s instruction to “have the courage to not say ‘radical Islamic terrorism’.” This is not a matter of “incompetence” or “misplaced optimism”–this is an embrace of the Death to Israel/Death to America enemy.
How many people have died in wars- conflicts since Biden became President ?
The excesses of individualism over the last half century coming to roost maybe, where collective cultural values have been in the crosshairs of intellectuals and progressive movements in the United States. Liberty without responsibility, then all the destructiveness of greed and pride and lust are unchecked and weaken us subtly.
Also question for you Dr. Hanson, have you ever read the work of or spoken with Chris Hedges? You may come from different sides of the political aisle, but you may find enlightening conversation on American society and militarism.
question for you Dr. Hanson, have you ever read the work of or spoken with Chris Hedges? You may come from different sides of the political aisle, but you may find enlightening conversation on American society and militarism.
Iranian sympathizers echo the treasonous bent of Obama, Biden, and Harris:
Exh A-Biden’s Iran envoy who was placed on leave after security clearance suspended amid investigation into possible mishandling of classified material and never adjudicated.
Exh B- Valerie, Jarret, origins from Iran who remains in the inner circle of unaccountables
Exh C- Jake Sullivan a clone
Exh C- Anthony Blinken, unqualified as a clone but superqualifed as a drone.
Ted
Milwaukee, WI
Maybe, a balance of power in the Middle East would promote stability. If not, let moderate Arab regimes & European countries pay for our military presence there, once we regain energy independence under a Trump administration. Israel too needs to achieve energy independence and a self-sufficient economy, i.e., without massive U.S taxpayer subsidies. The least involved we are there, the better.
If only every citizen would read this essay. It is so powerful. Thank you VDH.
It is probable, nay likely, democrats are wrong about everything. But this seems a veneer to their ultimate goal over taking down America to promote a globalist agenda. It’s what any good leftist (communist) would want.
Excellent analysis as always. Most of our current leaders, academics and elites fundamentally misunderstand the actual mindset of the Iranian leadership. VDH often points out, human nature does not change. As VDH says “ our enemies view our magnanimity with contempt .” Unless our decision makers grasp these two points, peace will be elusive and chaos will reign.