Biden’s Mideast Tour de Farce… Bankrupt U.S. Foreign Policy on Display

Biden’s top and only priority is to shore up a failing U.S. policy of aggression toward Russia, China and Iran.

In a desperate attempt to align Middle Eastern states against Russia, China and Iran, President Joe Biden this week demonstrated with a tour de force – more accurately “tour de farce” – the humongous scale of U.S. hypocrisy and political bankruptcy.

The stench of Washington’s hypocrisy and duplicity was at once stomach-churning while also farcical.

Biden made his first presidential visit to the Middle East during a four-day itinerary that began in Israel and ended in Saudi Arabia. It was obvious from even U.S. media reporting that the overriding top priority for Biden was to get the Gulf Arab states to pump more oil in order to reduce the repercussions from the U.S.-led NATO proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.

American economic sanctions against Russia, dutifully supported by the servile European Union and other NATO allies, have unleashed a global crisis of inflation. That, in turn, is resulting in all sorts of political tensions and perils for Western governments.

Make no mistake, the conflict in Ukraine has been engineered over the past eight years since the U.S.-backed coup d’état in Kiev in 2014. Biden was then vice president and the point man in the Obama administration for the NATO weaponizing of a Nazi-infested Kiev regime to act as a cat’s paw antagonizing Russia.

Now that the U.S.-led proxy war with Russia has fully manifested, the economic consequences have rebounded with immense pain. With inflation skyrocketing in the United States and Europe, the political impact is undermining incumbent governments. This week saw Italy’s coalition rulers falling down. Last week, Britain’s Boris Johnson became a victim of his corruption and his nation’s economic turmoil. In the U.S., Biden’s Democratic Party is heading for a voter bashing in the midterm elections. Americans, like Europeans, are outraged by the soaring price of fuel, food and other basic commodities.

For Biden, and the U.S. political establishment, getting the spiraling cost inflation of fuel and energy under control is of vital urgency. The social crisis being engendered is threatening to collapse the governing structures. It is no wonder this week that a new poll found that the majority of American voters think that their political system is failing. In short, we are talking about unprecedented civil unrest that is posing an existential threat to the political class in the United States and indeed Europe.

Hence, Biden’s visit to the Middle East was in effect an appeal to Saudi Arabia and other regional countries to pump up the exports of oil as a way to reduce record market prices and crippling consumer inflation. It’s unlikely that that tenuous tactic will succeed in obtaining the desired relief. The genie is out of the bottle and there’s hardly any way to put it back.

The unseemly show of pleading by Biden illustrates the rank hypocrisy of U.S. policy. Washington has no genuine, principled interest in promoting a peace process in Israel with Palestinians, nor a normalization between Arab states and Israel. Biden’s top and only priority is to shore up a failing U.S. policy of aggression toward Russia, China and Iran.

This American president has tried to brand his administration as a defender of “democracy versus authoritarianism”. That, of course, is a cynical attempt to mobilize opposition toward Russia and China under Washington’s leadership. This preposterous U.S. charade has been going on for decades but under Biden the charade is rapidly disintegrating in tatters. Over his half-century in politics, as a congressman and presidential politician, Biden has overseen dozens of criminal U.S. wars and covert subversions against sovereign nations. He personifies American state-sponsored terrorism and imperialism that makes a travesty of democracy, rule of law and humanitarian principles.

The United States under Biden’s dubious leadership is funneling tens of billions of dollars worth of weaponry into Ukraine. This is supposed to be for “defense” of Ukraine’s sovereignty and democracy. The military largesse for a Nazi-infested regime in Kiev far exceeds what Washington is allocating to alleviate American citizens in their struggle with economic misery – misery caused in large part by Biden’s aggression towards Russia.

As is usual for U.S. leaders, Biden fawned over Israeli politicians during his visit this week. He made a perfunctory call to Palestinian occupied territories while making sure that the historic rights of majority Palestinians are of no real concern to the United States. Israel’s continued annexation of territories and occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights is de facto condoned by Washington. Biden didn’t even bother raising concerns about the killing of American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh who was shot dead on May 11 by Israeli Defense Forces. So much for professed principles of democracy, sovereignty and territorial integrity.

America’s naked hypocrisy took a star turn with Biden’s next stop in Saudi Arabia where he also met various Arab leaders. The White House and U.S. media contortions over Biden’s encounter with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman were a study of abject doublethink. It is hilarious to witness the angst-driven contortions and delusions of rectitude.

During his presidential election campaign two years ago, Biden swore that he would make Saudi Arabia a pariah for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The Saudi journalist, who had U.S. residency status and wrote for the Washington Post was abducted, killed and dismembered in 2018. According to Biden’s own intelligence services, Khashoggi’s murder was carried out under the direct orders of the Saudi rulers.

Evidently, Biden has no qualms now about the Saudi autocrats, whether in relation to Khashoggi, the ongoing brutal repression and mass executions of Saudi Shia civilians, or the genocidal war against Yemen – a country designated as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Biden previously vowed to end the supply of U.S. bombs and other military support to Saudi Arabia in its seven-year war of aggression on Yemen.

What is absolutely clear is the total, putrid bankruptcy in U.S. claims of upholding democracy and international law. Biden’s tour de farce in the Middle East this week demonstrates that for U.S. rulers there is only one calculation: how to improve its reckless imperial warmongering.

Washington’s proxy war against Russia is going badly with unanticipated repercussions undermining America and Europe’s governing systems. Biden is desperate to mitigate the self-inflicted calamity and thus the transparently sordid visit to the Middle East. But the brazen cynicism and duplicity of the American president is on global display. That, in turn, only increases international contempt for grotesque U.S. pretensions.

Source: Strategic Culture