Our so-called commander-in-chief has hit the daily double.  He’s managing to sabotage Ukraine’s war with Russia and Israel’s war with Iranian proxies, including their mother ship.

This must be part of the plan; there is really no other logical explanation available.  And you almost have to give the guy credit — in addition to slow-walking critical munitions to both countries, he’s dictating tactics to Ukraine and obstructing Israel’s strategy.  Who knew he had the mental bandwidth to do three-dimensional chess like this, across divergent theaters of operation?

From a military perspective, the best time to assist Ukraine would have been during the months-long buildup of Russian forces on their border, before the invasion.  Instead, Biden has repeatedly questioned whether to send a series of critical weapon systems (like ATACMS and the F-16), then allowed their shipment after months of dithering.  In addition, he has constrained use to less than their maximum effective range, limiting the targets available in the Russian theater of operations.

In Israel, Biden pressured Netanyahu to use only a “proportional” response immediately after the October 7 attack, instead of just providing moral and material support while allowing one of our closest allies to destroy their enemy, this being the best method of self-defense.  Biden has continued to hamstring the Israeli Defense Forces, even after repeated ballistic missile attacks by Iran.  If the U.S. had suffered similar attacks, the public outcry to declare war would be overwhelming.  Why would he want to constrain Israel’s military response?

If you sat down to draft concepts of operation that would benefit our adversaries, to the worst detriment of our allies, how would they look different?  And I haven’t even addressed the dormant approach to defending U.S. interests overseas.

Major population centers are being targeted for destruction, American citizens have been killed and kidnapped abroad, and U.S. military forces are under daily attacks.  Why is it the apparent policy of the State Department, the Joint Chiefs, and the Executive Branch to let this take place with no response?  When does fear of escalation dissolve into ridiculousness?

We still have the most magnificent warriors and weapons the world has ever known, but they are operating with diminishing resources and are cursed by senior leadership with diminished capacity.  Netanyahu and Zelensky are not without their faults, but they are effective wartime leaders fighting for their people.  Biden seems so small in comparison.  Washington, Lincoln, Truman, and even Roosevelt must be looking down in shame.

We can only hope that the right-thinkers among the people, the Congress, and the armed forces can jointly push back on this administration, peacefully protesting but raising an outcry, forcing them to reverse course and start fighting on behalf of our allies and ourselves.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.