Did President Joe Biden receive advance warning of Iran’s strike against Israel? Reuters is reporting that ‘Iraqi, Turkish and Jordanian officials each said Iran had provided early warning of the attack last week, including some details.’ They further reported that Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Sunday that ‘Iran gave neighbouring countries and Israel’s ally the United States 72 hours’ notice it would launch the strikes,’ according to Reuters.
U.S. News and World Report also reports that Iran alerted Turkey to its planned operation against Israel and adds that ‘Washington had conveyed to Tehran via Ankara that any action it took had to be ‘within certain limits.”
The White House denies the story, which implies that Biden might have greenlighted the drone and missile onslaught, but it fits. Biden has been playing both sides of the field, declaring his support of Israel ‘rock solid and unwavering’ until, that is, it began to cost the president political support.
Young people, key to Biden’s reelection, are angry about Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, and have turned negative on the president’s support of our ally. With pro-Palestinian demonstrations erupting across the nation and polls showing young voters gravitating to former President Donald Trump, Biden’s support of the Jewish state has started … wavering.
Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu over the weekend he will not back Israel in countering Iran’s attack. Certainly no one wants a broad war in the region, and it is possible that a retaliatory move by Israel could provoke another round of attacks, and then another.
But Biden’s caution could also be interpreted as yet another sign that the president, desperate to win in November, will do almost anything to prevent higher oil prices, another political tripwire.
On Maria Bartiromo’s Fox Business show recently, Florida Republican Congressman Michael Waltz urged the Biden White House to ‘cut off Iran’s cash.’ Waltz forgets one thing: doing so would require curtailing Tehran’s oil exports and would send energy prices through the roof. That is unacceptable to Biden.
Hence, Biden’s appeasement of Tehran. When Trump left office, Iran was broke and isolated. Their Arab enemies in the region were increasingly united under the Abraham Accords, establishing diplomatic relations with Israel and forming a powerful bloc to counter Iran’s malicious terror activities.
What a difference three-and-a-half years makes.
The Biden White House enriched Iran by failing to enforce the tough sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, and by permitting $10 billion in relief funds to flow to Tehran, purportedly to buy electricity from Iraq. Biden’s crack foreign policy team claims that this money will be used exclusively for humanitarian purposes, but all funds are fungible. Money for electricity also buys drones, and military aggression.
Biden has turned a blind eye to the country’s surging oil exports. Over the past year, Iran’s production jumped by 50%, to a five-year high. This, despite ongoing Trump-era sanctions which supposedly limited Tehran’s exports. The International Energy Agency reports that Iran exported 1.29 million barrels per day of crude oil last year and predicts overall production will increase another 160,000 barrels per day this year. Most incremental output has gone to China.
Why would Biden allow Iran to export more oil and stockpile money? Because he took office promising to end fossil fuel production on federal lands in the U.S. and committing to an improbable and hopelessly expensive switch to green energy.
It is nearly impossible that his team did not anticipate the cost to Americans, in the form of higher energy and electricity prices, of his ‘green revolution’; actually, given the extreme ideologues driving the White House bus, it is entirely possible.
On numerous fronts, including canceling the Keystone Pipeline, halting drilling permits and leases and raising the costs of exploration, Biden showily stalled the upward march of U.S. oil production that occurred under Trump. As a consequence, as the economy rebounded from the COVID-19 downturn, and when Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, oil prices rose and gasoline prices surged to an all-time high. Americans blamed Biden.
When gasoline prices set records of $5 per gallon in June 2022, the Biden White House sensed electoral danger, and set out to buttress U.S. oil production by seeking incremental supplies wherever they could find them, including our own Strategic Petroleum Reserve. They even sought help from Saudi Arabia, a country spurned by Biden, only to be turned down flat.
When oil prices surged again last year, the White House even lifted sanctions on Venezuela, another unfriendly major oil exporter, under a flimsy agreement that required the country’s hated leader Nicolas Maduro to allow free elections. When oil prices receded and the White House no longer needed to court the dictator, who of course did not allow a fair vote in his country’s election, they resurrected most of the sanctions.
But Biden’s caution could also be interpreted as yet another sign that the president, desperate to win in November, will do almost anything to prevent higher oil prices, another political tripwire.
Meanwhile, they also allowed Iran’s exports to rise. The excuse? Biden’s team insisted they wanted to revive the Iran nuclear deal. Obama failed to produce an agreement that would prevent Iran from creating a nuclear weapon, as did Biden. The collapse of negotiations was almost guaranteed by repeated indications that Iran lied about ongoing uranium enrichment activity and its hidden efforts to build a nuclear device.
Today, you can be sure Biden will continue his appeasement of the Islamic state, hoping that their oil exports will continue uninterrupted as he campaigns for reelection – even as Iran continues its malevolent activities in the region which now include, for the first time, directly attacking Israel.
As he ran for president, Joe Biden claimed to have extraordinary diplomatic capabilities and experience. During his presidency, he has directed the most humiliating military withdrawal in our history as we hastily abandoned Afghanistan, permitted Putin’s deadly invasion of Ukraine, despite having ample warning, and has now reportedly signed off on Iran attacking our long-time ally, Israel.
Biden reportedly wanted to be a historic president. Sadly, he is just that.
