When Is Blowing Up the World A Success?

by Victor Davis Hanson

Recently, Secretary of State Antony Blinken bragged in an op-ed that “The Biden administration’s strategy has put the United States in a much stronger geopolitical position today than it was four years ago.”

What?

This is the latest campaign fantasy narrative also served up by Harris-Walz—analogous to the four-year untruth that “the border is secure” and “the economy is strong”—as they try to explain why the world utterly blew up on their watch and due to their own actions.

And the mythologies continue. Harris just refused to concede that the Netanyahu elected government of wartime Israel is an ally of America. Walz on Sunday would not answer whether the U.S. approves of Israel hitting Iran hard in response to their recent massive barrages.

Blinken ended his political op-ed by adding, “As secretary of state, I don’t do politics; I do policy.” Actually, he proved far more adept at politics than at policy.

Remember this apolitical fiction comes from Biden’s 2020 campaign foreign policy “expert,” who was rewarded with the appointment as Secretary of State after working with former interim CIA Director Michael Morell to round up “51 former intelligence officials” to lie in a public letter on the eve of the final 2020 debate that the Hunter Biden laptop (at the time in the possession of the FBI and authenticated as genuine) had all the “hallmarks” of a Russian disinformation operation.

That letter was an orchestrated flat-out lie that was used, as intended, by a prevaricating Biden in the debate. It may have well warped the 2020 election, as the FBI operators further conspired with social media to suppress accurate news reports of the laptop’s incriminating authenticity.

I suppose Blinken defines “a much stronger geopolitical position today than it was four years ago”, as believing the Putin 2022 invasion of Ukraine was preferable to him keeping inside his borders during the Trump administration.

Did lifting the Trump terrorist designation of the Houthis, scuttling the Abraham Accords, and Biden’s campaign demagoguing the Saudis as a “pariah” all lead to a calmer Red Sea?

Did restoring fungible funds to the West Bank and Gaza terrorists and tunnel builders ensure there would not be an October 7?

Perhaps lifting sanctions on Iran, resulting in a $100-billion oil revenue windfall to Tehran, or arranging a payment to the theocracy of some $6 billion to return hostages, or begging Iran to reenter the Iran Deal, all meant that Iran so far has only sent 500 ballistic missiles, drones, and cruise missiles into Israel?

Did the humiliating 2021 retreat from Afghanistan discourage Putin to keep out of Ukraine? Maybe abandoning $50 billion in American munitions and supplies to the Taliban terrorists scared Vladimir Putin, Jinping Xi, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei into their current supposed nonaggression?

Did Biden stating that America’s reaction to a Russian invasion would depend on whether it was a major or minor offensive deter Putin?

Did putting a hold on approved munitions to Ukraine in early 2021 or offering to fly Zelensky out of his country in the first days of the invasion dissuade Putin?

Did the March 2021 Chinese communist public dressing down of Blinken and Jake Sullivan in Anchorage, Alaska prevent China from serially threatening Taiwan the last three years, or from sending a spy balloon with impunity across the United States for over a week?

Did Biden’s 2019 campaign assurance that China was not in competition with the U.S. detour China from its subsequent combative stance toward Taiwan?

Did giving millions to the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and Hezbollah persuade them not to send some 20,000 rockets and missiles into Israel after October 7?

Will giving Lebanon some $157 million in “extra” aid persuade the population to turn on Hezbollah that has stored some 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel in their midst? Did prior aid result in only 9,000 missiles being launched from Lebanon at Israel?

Did the DEI mandates and advertising, the new woke protocols, and the vaccine expulsions all explain why the Pentagon was only 45,000 short in its targeted manpower recruitments?

So please, Secretary Blinken, President Biden, a Vice President Harris, and candidate Walz, do not in the last weeks of the election gaslight us, the American people, that a world now in freefall and on the threshold of multiple theater-wide wars, all involving nuclear powers, is somehow a sign of a “stronger geopolitical position.”

First published on X.