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Reckless endangerment

Reckless endangerment. 
 That’s President Biden’s policy on Iran. 
 The US is at war with Russia in Ukraine —and Iran is at war with the US in Ukraine. Iran sells drones to Putin to counter America’s efforts by killing Ukrainian civilians.

Biden, however, has spent virtually his entire tenure in office trying to get Iran to agree to a new nuclear deal.

Iran won’t even sit in the same room as the US, but snub after snub did not keep Biden from going back to the table.

Surprise?

Iran undercuts the US effort in Ukraine — this is a surprise? Iran has already exported terrorism to inflict harm on US allies, such as Israel.

And such as Saudi Arabia.

Yes, let’s compare Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Iran is a dictatorship, so is Saudi Arabia. Iran is a brutal regime, so is Saudi Arabia. But: Iran suppresses women, while Saudi Arabia has loosened restrictions on women. Iran is a fanatical theocracy, while Saudi Arabia is loosening the theocracy. Iran announces its intent to destroy Israel, while Saudi Arabia now opens its air space to Israel.

Iran has not stood with the US since 1979, Saudi Arabia has.

So what does Biden do?

He exacerbates US relations with Saudi Arabia while seeking to build relations with Saudi Arabia’s (and Israel’s) arch enemy, Iran.

Oh yes, don’t forget. Biden says Iran will never get a nuclear bomb on his watch. Right now, Biden is reduced to watching Iran build the bomb.Biden thought he could resuscitate the Iran nuclear deal (with a fatal sunset provision to begin with) just by imposing it on Iran. Biden thought that simply by saying Trump got it wrong by canceling the deal and intensifying the sanctions on Iran he could get it right.

Remember when Biden was saying, first he’ll resuscitate the old deal, and then he’ll impose a stricter one?

Biden thought that his thoughts determined reality. But reality was that the deal was dead — when Iran will not even sit with you in the same room, what other signal do you need as to Iran’s true intentions?

So here we are.

No nuclear deal.

And no plan to stop the Iranians from getting the bomb.

Biden is reportedly upset even at Israel’s assassination of Iran’s nuclear scientists — as if Biden has a different option, military or diplomatic — just like Biden has no apparent option to stop those Iranian drones from boosting Putin’s mass murder of Ukrainian civilians.

Sanctions will not stop Iran, any more than they have stopped Putin.

Meanwhile, reportedly, America’s production of F-35s has been artificially capped; ditto for warships. A top Pentagon official warns that the US is unprepared for a really big war.

Biden has stepped up in Ukraine with, as The New York Times columnist Bret Stephens put it, a nick-of-time strategy. This has worked on the battlefield, but it is not holding up against Putin’s war-crime brutality, decimating Ukraine, just as he decimated Georgia and Syria.

For Putin, lives don’t count.

Not his own, not his enemy’s.

If he can’t win on the battlefield, he’ll destroy the critical infrastructure from the air.

Biden has no strategy against this.

Biden screams against the brutality, yes; but speeches don’t win wars — more importantly, speeches and after-the-crime sanctions do not deter wars. Remember all the US-Russia diplomatic back-and-forth a year ago when Putin massed 150,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders? Remember when Biden and Secretary of State Blinken actually thought Biden might not mean business? Then Putin attacked Ukraine last Feb. 24, and Blinken — please recall — was exasperated because, after all, he had given Putin every possible “off ramp” — as if Putin cared one whit. Neither Biden nor Blinken faced Putin’s dream of restoring imperial Russia, as if Putin’s pain-free takeover of Crimea years earlier never happened.

Before WW II, when the Nazis rebuilt Germany’s military, John F. Kennedy wrote Why England Slept. I don’t know why the West, including the US, has slept as Putin has sought to rebuild his empire, but indeed it has slept. Remember when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014? President Obama scolded Putin — another speech — saying the US would not “stand by,” but that is what Obama did, slapping on a few sanctions, sending no weapons, and promising that there would be no new Cold War. Now Russia wants Ukraine and thought it could take it, the same as it took Crimea. This is a surprise?

Biden has no long-term strategy against Putin, against China or against Iran.

Biden sends very clear signals. He needlessly turns Afghanistan over to the Taliban, he does not radically boost America’s military hardware, he alienates the Saudis by calling it a name, “pariah state,” as if name-calling is, or lays the groundwork for, effective diplomacy. Now the Saudis deny Biden’s request to pump more oil. This is a surprise?

And we’re supposed to feel confident that Biden knows how to handle Iran’s nuclear program?

Reckless endangerment.

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