Friday for Effect - 2024.09.27

The first several minutes of Joe Biden’s Tuesday morning address to the United Nations General Assembly sounded as if he might not know that he’s no longer a presidential candidate.

He treated his audience to a quite egocentric list of what he seems to consider accomplishments during his long (long) career in elected office.

“In the 1980s, I spoke out against Apartheid in South Africa.”

“In the 1990s, I worked to hold Milošević accountable for war crimes.”

“At home, I wrote and passed the Violence Against Women Act to end the scourge of violence against women and girls.”

Yeah, Joe, that law now includes protections for transgender victims (i.e., men) and provides temporary visas for illegal immigrants who claim to have been victims of domestic violence.

“We need to end the era of war that began on 9/11,” he said. “As Vice President to President Obama, he asked me to work to wind down the military operations in Iraq and we did, painful as it was.”

Yes, Mr. President, so painful that the vacuum created by the complete withdrawal not only was filled by Iranian-backed militias who consolidated their grip on the Iraqi government but also allowed the Islamic State to rise to power in the country’s north.

So, I’m not entirely sure why he brought that up.

And then, wouldn’t you know it? In 2014, after ISIS captured Mosul —Iraq’s second-largest city— and declared a caliphate, Obama reversed course and sent 3,000 troops back in.

Biden would later claim, in a 2020 interview with the Wall Street Journal, that the decision to fully withdraw from Iraq “was a mistake” and claimed that he’d wanted to maintain a “residual force” to keep the Islamic State in check.

During that same WSJ interview, he criticized President Trump for having withdrawn a small number of troops from Syria, asserting, “When we leave a vacuum like he’s leaving it, it creates significant opportunities for difficulty, including what you see right now in the Middle East.”

I wonder why he didn’t apply that wisdom a year later in Afghanistan.

And, just last week, Washington reached a deal with Baghdad for the withdrawal of all remaining US troops from Iraq by the end of 2026. The only reason for the departure is that the Iraqis simply don’t want us around anymore. Seriously.

So, welcome to the vacuum. And, على الرحب والسعة (you’re welcome).

Am I the only one who thinks this is a strategically appropriate place to station a few US troops?