NewsNation Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight’s 7 p.m. ET show. Subscribe to War Notes here.
What Bob Gates Said
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is right when he said yesterday the Middle East is the most dangerous it’s been since 1973. That reality traces directly to the policies, misjudgments and worldview of his boss.
As former Defense Secretary Bob Gates once said, “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Biden will probably be wrong again in his decision about retaliation when he said today he has decided on a response to the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Jordan.
The Biden administration believes the Israel-Palestine conflict is the root cause of all conflict in the Middle East. It isn’t. Iran is the root cause of all Middle East problems, and Iran wants you to believe the Israel-Palestine issue is at the heart of the region’s problems.
- Just ask Morocco, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Oman and Sudan, all of which have treaties with Israel in spite of Palestinians and (in the case of the Abraham Accords) because of Iran. Not to mention, the Saudi-Israel alliance scares Iran so badly.
The Biden administration believes that a “proportional” response against Iran’s proxies (not against Iran itself) can limit the risk of escalation. In reality, Iran will gladly trade the lives of its proxies and up the ante to continue its embarrassment of the United States. The only thing that will stop Iran’s proxies is imposing a meaningful price on Iran.
This morning, CNN’s banner read, “Biden admin worries response could trigger wider war with Iran.” That’s exactly what Iran wants Biden worried about.
The Wall Street Journal notes the administration continues to buy rather than exploit Iran’s plausible deniability that it does not control its proxies:
- The Journal notes, “Now the axis (Iran’s proxies around the region) faces a moment of truth. As Iran’s allies stoke even more fires across the region—from attacks on shipping in the Red Sea to Sunday’s drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan—they are pushing their benefactor closer to the brink of a direct conflict with Washington that it has long sought to avoid.”
If only Team Biden would exploit the Ayatollah’s fears of a force-on-force conflict rather than shrink from it.
Watch from last night: General Philip Breedlove, former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, made this point far more eloquently than I did last night.
Cocktail Party Foreign Policy
David Ignatius (one of Biden’s favorite figures) on MSNBC this morning and in his Washington Post opinion couldn’t get it more wrong if he tried. It’s foreign policy that sounds great at cocktail parties but misses the zero-sum game that is the Middle East.
Ignatius likely would have agreed four months ago with Jake Sullivan when he declared at the end of September, “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”
- Now, Blinken says it has never been more dangerous. Watch the clips.
Look forward: Different rules, different results.
- Much like Team Biden, Israel got high on its own supply, thus allowing the massive intelligence, strategic and military failures of Oct 7. However, after getting punched in the nose, Israel completely changed its policy overnight from appeasing Hamas in Gaza to a complete destruction of it. It went from containing terror groups in the West Bank to launching a daring raid (caught on video), infiltrating a hospital and killing three Hamas members inside.
- The Israelis changed the way they thought to better reflect the strategic reality. Team Biden still refuses to look at Iran differently than the country it gave billions upon billions to.
- Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., made the same point last night on the show — Biden served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, yet his foreign policy is a disaster.
Saying the quiet part out loud … literally:
- Joy Reid spoke for a lot of progressives when a hot mic caught her saying Biden was “starting another f–king war.” Michael Luciano (@michaelsluciano) at Mediaite reports that she was most likely referring to the U.S. response to Iran.
- In a broader sense, it shows the “treacherous political choices” Biden faces. The Washington Post lays out the minefield for a president who continues to need progressives, wants the Jewish vote, can’t lose suburban women and needs the vote of the swing states the three dead soldiers came from.
Bonus reading:
- Israel knows it’s alone. Everything that Biden and his team seek to prevent ends up happening — like a war between Hezbollah and Israel that appears more likely than ever.
Agence France Presse quotes the Israeli defense minister speaking about troops on the northern border to those still in Gaza: “They will very soon go into action… so the forces in the north are reinforced. The forces close to you… are leaving the field and moving towards the north, and preparing for what comes next,” he said.
- We warned about this on Jan. 4.
Nikki Haley’s Path to Victory
Philip Bump (@pbump) writes in the Washington Post, “Former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley would like to be president. Step 1 of that plan is to become the Republican Party’s nominee — a step that, as you know, isn’t going terribly well. Yes, she’s one of two remaining candidates, but that’s a bit like saying that Pete Best is one of two remaining Beatles drummers.”
Yes, but it’s still three weeks until South Carolina’s primary and more than a month until Super Tuesday — a lifetime in American politics.
Watch tonight: We will talk with George Will, who just got back from South Carolina and from a meeting with Haley about how she flips the polling and actually wins.
- In his latest Washington Post opinion, Will writes, “Haley is the last candle fending off darkness. And she’s fired up.”
What Haley donors are thinking:
- Isaac Shorr (@isaac_schorr) of Mediaite quotes Haley donor Clifford Asness saying, “‘It was venture capital. High probability of waste, small probability of saving the country. I don’t think it was a zero probability.”
“Just Give Me the Power”
Biden claimed this morning that he can’t do anything more to secure the border until Congress acts.
In years past, one network in particular took great pride in calling the then-president a “liar.” Rather than calling Biden a liar, perhaps consider he just doesn’t remember the DOZENS of executive orders he signed on his first day in office making illegal immigration easy and appealing.
Facts matter: Biden could easily sign a few executive orders about the asylum process, including bringing back the “remain in Mexico” policy that would drastically slow the flow at the border.
Watch tonight: We’ll ask New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu if Republicans are continuing to screw things up by focusing on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s barbed wire rather than focus on Biden’s dithering.
Fact check: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson wrote out some of the things Biden could do without Congress. Say what you want, but Biden could do these things.
Tune into “On Balance with Leland Vittert” weeknights at 7/6C on NewsNation. Find your channel here.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of NewsNation.
