The news from around the globe is grim. Evil is having its day in the sun. We must be committed to confronting it. The core of the issue is that the totalitarian fascist regime of Vladimir Putin has forged an alliance of sorts with the radical Islamist theocracy in Iran. As we discussed last week, Ukraine is on the frontline of this conflict in Europe. And in the Middle East, it is Israel that is standing at the barricade dividing good from evil.
Putin’s Plague
Russia’s approach to foreign policy is not complicated. The President of Russia seeks to be a modern-day tsar and is fast approaching the longevity and brutality of Stalin’s rule. He’s already amassed more wealth than he could spend in 100 lifetimes by stealing from his people. And he’s already consolidated power in Russia in a manner not seen since the heyday of the Soviet Union. So what’s next? Continued expansion. There is no satiating the appetite of evil and the people of Ukraine are fighting and dying because of Vladimir Putin’s fascist megalomania.
For its part, Israel has sent 100 tons of humanitarian aid to the people of Ukraine and is setting up a field hospital in the brave and beleaguered state. In addition, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett traveled to Moscow and met with Putin in an effort to broker peace followed by a visit to Berlin. Take a moment to appreciate the historical context of this. That in 2022 an Israeli Prime Minister is conducting shuttle diplomacy between Moscow and Berlin. Something completely unthinkable 60 years ago.
Bennett is also in contact with the President of Ukraine and America’s leaders on a regular basis. It’s worth noting that Bennett, an orthodox Jew, made the trip on the Sabbath. Traveling on the Sabbath is prohibited, but under Jewish tradition, one may do anything necessary (and moral) to save human life.
An Iranian Disaster
For several days now we’ve been hearing that the world powers and Iran are on the brink of signing a nuclear accord. These same reports make clear that the Biden deal would be worse than the Obama deal. The absurdity of the United States helping to birth a disastrous Russian-Iranian agreement while Moscow is fighting a land war in Europe is unthinkable if not immoral.
According to our friends at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “Under the deal, Iran would get access to more than $100 billion, which it could spend on terrorism, missiles, and the pursuit of regional hegemony. Enforcement remains weak or non-existent, so there is no barrier to Iran’s crossing the nuclear threshold at a time of its choosing. Terrorism sanctions imposed on the Central Bank of Iran, the National Iranian Oil Company, and a host of other banks and companies will be suspended without any evidence that these institutions are no longer engaged in financing terrorism.”
This description is as succinct as it is harrowing, but the ink
wasn’t yet dry on the stories declaring an Iran deal imminent before new stories started coming out that Russia was now making demands in the context of the Iran deal that directly impact US sanctions on Moscow for their invasion of Ukraine. In sum, we’re going from bad to worse.
An American Disgrace
One might be led to believe that the new Russian demands could throw a wrench into the works and undermine a bad Iran deal. That’s possible in a fingers crossed kind of way, but given successive American
capitulations to the worst regimes in the world one should not hold out such hope. Rather, it is more likely that the Biden administration will once again give the enemies of freedom what they want and fecklessly declare “peace in our time,” all in the same breath.
We are a bipartisan organization. We’ve condemned those on the fringe left, like the “Squad” for their blatant antisemitism and hatred for Israel. And we’ve condemned those on the right, like Sen. Rand Paul for his wrongheaded approach to foreign affairs and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for her appalling antisemitism. But none of these people (praise God) sit in the Oval Office.
Joe Biden is the President of the United States. When he makes a mistake, it’s huge. It costs lives and can upend stability around the world. President Biden’s desperate, weak kumbaya approach to foreign policy has emboldened the worst actors on the world’s stage. Will he reverse course before the entirety of Ukraine is subjugated by Russia and more of Europe is threatened? Will he accept the astounding error of his ways before Iran is on the precipice of acquiring nuclear weapons?
We pray he will, and in the meantime, we’re going to fight this disgraceful weakness with everything we have.
