Dictators, Double Standards, and the Taliban
In her brilliant foreign policy essay "Dictators and Double Standards" (link in comments), Jeane Kirkpatrick made the commonsense case for always supporting our friends and opposing our enemies. That policy might seem obvious, but Biden seems determined to pursue the opposite.
Like his Democrat predecessor Obama, whose first act in office was to remove the statue of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office, Biden is turning his back on our friends. He abandoned Bagram air base without even bothering to inform our allies in Afghanistan and fled with no apparent concern for the thousands of allied troops still in the country. He has encouraged the flood of migrants traveling through Mexico and Central America, again without discussion with those nations. His time seems reserved for long talks with Xi and Putin, and the Taliban, whom he has already supplied with $86 billion in arms and with whom he is discussing more American aid. Biden has fallen into precisely the trap that Jeane Kirkpatrick warned against.
As any student of history would understand that the first necessity for survival is economic and military strength. Biden's spending priorities direct funds away from military (and police) and toward so-called social programs that are really just an attempt to buy votes through income redistribution and graft.
Along with a strong economy and military, something further is necessary: a cohesive foreign policy that assures our allies and deters our enemies. Biden does not even appear to know the difference. Like Obama before him, he refuses to acknowledge the existence of "Islamic terrorists." Even as they were killing our troops in Afghanistan, he was checking his watch — wondering, I suppose, when he would get to lunch.
Jeane Kirkpatrick knew that the world was largely ruled by autocrats who were either friendly or unfriendly to America and its interests. In the case of the Taliban today, with the Biden administration still determined to employ "negotiations" to get our citizens out, it's good to be reminded of just who our friends and enemies are. President Trump understood, and hopefully he or whoever is the Republican nominee in 2024 will convert this knowledge into sound policy.
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