Utopian intentions. Naive assumptions. Petty political point scoring. Inept planning. Disastrous outcomes. These traits characterize every foreign policy decision President Joe Biden has made since taking office and are apparent in the catastrophic failure of his aid plan for Gaza.
Two months and $320 million after he first announced the project during his State of the Union address, the U.S. Navy delivered the first 16 trucks of aid to Gaza on Saturday, carrying 569 tons of food and other humanitarian items.
Eleven of the trucks were robbed of their entire payloads before reaching their destination. None of the food that made it to its warehouse destination has since been successfully distributed.
Video footage shows Palestinians jumping onto moving vehicles, tearing away aid, and tossing it to others waiting to catch it. Eventually, the whole convoy was swarmed and halted, and its aid was looted. One Gazan was shot and killed in the chaos.
Asked if any of the aid delivered via Biden’s pier had yet reached its proper destination in Gaza, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder admitted this week, “As of today, I do not believe so.”
Getting food to starving people is a worthy goal. However, getting aid to Gaza has not been a genuine problem, despite unjust criticisms of Israel for failing to deliver it. Gazans are not starving because Israel is stopping aid from reaching them, but because Hamas wants them to starve for propaganda purposes. The terrorist group controls the gangs that have been stealing aid and selling it on the black market. Until Hamas is defeated, feeding the people of Gaza will be challenging. It’s another reason Hamas should be dismantled.
Despite Biden’s claims, his administration has deliberately prolonged Hamas’s grip on Gaza, frustrating and delaying Israeli efforts to take necessary action.
The result is a bloody quagmire that divides Biden’s political base in an election year, explaining the impromptu announcement of the pier during his State of the Union speech. It did not alleviate any suffering in Gaza but did boost Biden’s poll numbers, temporarily quelling discussions of his potential replacement at the Democratic National Convention.
The parallels to Biden’s Afghanistan debacle are striking. There, Biden aimed to remove U.S. troops from danger and end the civil war. However, the plans were politically driven by the 9/11 anniversary. Top generals warned the president that his plan would lead to the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and endanger U.S. lives at the hands of the Taliban. Biden ignored the warnings and pressed ahead. Thirteen U.S. troops paid the price with their lives, and countless other Afghan civilians died as the Taliban swept to power, as predicted by everyone except Biden, who had denied the possibility.
The world saw Biden’s arrogant weakness and took note. Russian President Vladimir Putin, noticing Biden’s retreat, saw American weakness and invaded Ukraine.
Tehran also observed Biden’s spinelessness in weakening sanctions on Iran and attempting to revive President Barack Obama’s failed nuclear deal. Free to sell oil as it had not been under President Donald Trump, Tehran used petrodollars to fund proxy militants throughout the region including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza. Without Tehran’s funding, training, and permission, Hamas would never have attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Asked to assess Biden’s pier operation, former U.S. Agency for International Development official and current Refugees International president Jeremy Konyndyk called it “political theater.” We hope Biden will bring down the curtain before American soldiers get hurt.
