From the very beginning of his term, President Joe Biden prided himself as a foreign policy president. “Diplomacy is back,” he declared. And yet, when historians assess Biden’s legacy, foreign policy will be among his worst areas.
The problem is not simply Biden or even Secretary of State Antony Blinken, whose naivete in the face of evil too often makes him seem like the second coming of Frank Kellogg. The problem, rather, is a slew of special envoys appointed to take charge of Biden’s top initiatives. Whereas both law and precedent create a confirmation process for assistant secretaries and above, special envoys, as well as the National Security Council staff, face none.
US, IRAN ‘NOT CLOSE’ TO REENTERING NUCLEAR AGREEMENT
The most damning disappointments of the Biden administration directly relate to his and Blinken’s choice of special envoy.
Consider climate envoy John Kerry. While the United States possesses enough oil and gas to fuel itself and export to the world, Kerry’s prioritization of fighting global warming and hostility to oil has not only made the U.S. vulnerable to oil shocks and contributed to inflation, but it has also made a mockery of human rights. Last year, for example, Kerry dismissed concerns about China’s genocide against its Uyghur population with the quip, “Life is full of tough choices.” While Kerry, as the former top diplomat, has deep experience in foreign policy, his radicalism and hypocrisy may have made prospective Senate confirmation difficult. For one example, Kerry jetted to Antarctica as secretary of state to tour the continent and conduct a meeting just as easily held by video conference.
Then, there is Afghanistan. While Biden’s team foists responsibility for the disastrous withdrawal on commitments by the Trump administration, they nevertheless carried over Trump’s special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. That was as clear an endorsement of his initiative as they could make. Khalilzad’s history with the Taliban dates back to the pre-9/11 days, when he lobbied on their behalf in Washington. At a minimum, it would have been useful for Congress to flesh out his record and associations prior to entrusting him with the Afghanistan portfolio.
Biden’s Iran initiative predates his administration. During his campaign, Biden promised to reenter the 2015 Iran nuclear deal from which Trump walked away. Upon taking office, Blinken appointed Robert Malley to direct the effort. Malley is a nice man but an ideological radical. His mother worked for Algeria’s National Liberation Front, a terrorist group that led Algeria to independence from France but then implemented a radical, rejectionist agenda. President Barack Obama initially dropped Malley from his team due to Malley’s outreach to and apologia for the terrorist group Hamas. At the International Crisis Group that Malley headed between the Obama and Biden eras, he pursued similar policies whitewashing both Iran and the various terrorist groups it supported. After his extremism led to a purge of more moderate members of his team, Malley took on Jarrett Blanc as his deputy, perhaps the only person in Washington’s policy community more radical than himself but also with a troubling tendency toward dishonesty. Given the ramifications of flooding Iran with billions of dollars and greenlighting a return to a nuclear deal that would allow the regime to retain its infrastructure and continue its research, allowing Congress to have a say in the judgment of the men leading Biden’s strategy should be a minimum precaution.
Biden may be a decent man, and he may be rightly frustrated at his crumbling legacy. Personal is policy, though, and Biden is responsible for those whom he and Blinken charged with leading their agenda.
Congress, of course, might yield the power of the purse to punish the State Department until it refrains from bypassing Congress, but congressional leaders know this would paralyze diplomacy at a time of spreading crises. The buck stops with Biden and Blinken. They embraced a radical agenda and sought deliberately to bypass any checks and balances in order to implement it against the will of Congress. The U.S. and the world now suffer for their shortcut.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Michael Rubin (@mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
