Biden’s Ode to Perpetual War

In final U.N. speech, President ignores a world on fire

Joe Biden’s final speech as president at the U.N. on Tuesday was no Eisenhower military-industrial complex farewell. It was a journey into an old man’s mind, from the Cold War to today’s mess, optimistic on the one hand, delusional on the other.

Biden began his speech reflecting on the Vietnam War, calling it America’s longest war, a tip-off that the speech was going to have a casual relationship with the truth.

“America was at war in Vietnam at this point, the longest war in America’s history,” Biden said of the start of his political career. “But even then, I entered public life not out of despair, but out of optimism.” 

The Vietnam War, however, lasted 20 years. Today, we are going on 23 years of war in the Middle East since 9/11.

There’s a fine line between optimism and delusion; and Biden’s speech pole vaulted over that line. He handwaved away one simmering foreign policy crisis after another with little more than platitudes. “We’re also working to bring a greater measure of peace and stability to the Middle East,” Biden said.

Working to? I should hope so! The war in Gaza has now fully expanded to Lebanon, where Israel is conducting the most intensive bombing of Hezbollah in decades. On the soaring tensions, Biden had this to say: “Full scale war is not in anyone’s interest.” 

Wow, thanks for that! I can see now why your advisors tweet stuff like this.

Screenshot of an actual tweet from the Deputy Assistant to President Biden

“I put forward with Qatar and Egypt a ceasefire and hostage deal,” Biden says of the war in Gaza, as if he’s some kind of virtuoso of diplomacy. But the Wall Street Journal reports that the people involved think the deal is dead. “Now is the time for the parties to finalize its terms.” Now? U.S. arms continue to flow to Israel and are currently being used in Lebanon, America has influenced little, and the “now” moment is over.

On Ukraine, Biden’s remarks are little different from his glossing over the facts in the Middle East.

“I recognize the challenges from Ukraine to Gaza to Sudan and beyond,” Biden said. Ukraine is a “challenge”? Now, nearing its third year? His happy talk shows suggests how delusional he is about what a mess Ukraine’s war with Russia is.

Biden says that he has authored a strategy that “ensured the survival of Ukraine as a free nation,” adding that “Putin’s war has failed.” (I tend to agree, but it is mostly because Ukraine has defied everyone’s expectations — including Washington’s — and done many things on its own to ferociously defend its territory.) But Biden then says “we can not look away” and “we will not let up on our support for Ukraine.” So which one is it? Victory or a continued grind? Ukraine now occupies territory in Russia and attacks targets deep inside the country on a regular basis. Where’s the room for optimism? Is it that NATO has expanded and is arming itself for more war? 

On the U.S. war in Afghanistan, arguably one of Biden’s legacies, he says,“I was determined to end it; and I did.” But on both counts he is wrong. From Obama onwards, everyone was “determined” to end it but couldn’t pull the plug. The Pentagon was “determined” to end it. No one wanted it to revert to where it was before 2001, and argued about how to prevent that. Biden advocated letting the chips fall where they may, and now the Taliban are again building their medieval society. But still, it was a good thing to pull U.S. troops out because there was no end in sight. 

What is more, America’s war there isn’t over. The U.S. continues to conduct aerial assassinations and covert operations from neighboring countries like Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, part of what Washington euphemistically calls an “over the horizon” campaign. On paper, the administration says there are no U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and that’s technically true. But U.S. military personnel simply operate under covert task forces, directed from Qatar, and aided by duplicitous Middle East “partners.” Such is the reality  of warfare these days: politicians can say no boots on the ground and no one is in combat even while it is patently untrue. 

Biden didn’t quite have the chutzpah to say the  global war on terror was over, which of course it isn’t. The United States is still at war with the same terror groups we’ve been fighting with since 9/11, including al Qaeda. U.S. forces remain scattered throughout countries like Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, the gulf states, and Saudi Arabia, under the auspices of Operation Inherent Resolve, the name for the coalition war on ISIS, as well as in U.S. unilateral special operations efforts. And then there’s the whole preparing for war with Iran thing, a constant state of tension that the Biden administration has done nothing to improve.

On China, Biden calls for peaceful competition rather than confrontation. “We also need to uphold our principles as we seek to responsibly manage the competition with China so it does not veer into conflict.” Meanwhile, a new Cold War is upon us and his administration seems to be doing everything it can to posture itself for confrontation. The CIA, for example, has tripled its budget for responding to China in the last three years alone, as I reported earlier this month. China hysteria is creeping up into Americans’ everyday lives, as the administration prepares to ban the TikTok social media app on the purely hypothetical concern that it might coordinate with Beijing, as I’ve also written about. 

On one geopolitical mess after another, Biden hints at the long arc of progress, efforts that he’s been “tirelessly” pursuing, and “challenges” that force the United States and its allies to maintain their resolve. In other words, we can offer no resolution, so we just have to continue to support all of the wars we can’t end. 

“No one knows all the answers,” Joe Biden says toward his closing remarks at the UN, washing his hands of a world at war. That much is abundantly clear.

— Edited by William M. Arkin