President Joe Biden ’s reckless decision to abruptly withdraw United States troops from Afghanistan in August 2021 set into motion an unstoppable sequence of events that have made the world a far more dangerous place. From heads of state to the legacy media, people everywhere recognized that the aftershocks of Biden’s catastrophic withdrawal would be felt for years to come. America’s humiliating military retreat had shaken the balance of power across the globe profoundly and irrevocably.

Though Biden placed blame for the chaos that ensued at the hands of the inept Afghan National Army and even on former President Donald Trump , his responsibility was clear. His massive display of weakness and his abdication of duty as the leader of the free world had created a power vacuum. And, well aware of the opportunity this presented, the tyrants of the world joined forces to exploit it.

Within months, Russian President Vladimir Putin began massing troops near the Ukrainian border in preparation for his February 2022 invasion. Shortly before launching his "special military operation," Putin joined Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing for talks where the two announced a “friendship without limits.”

Moreover, in Biden’s zeal to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, President Barack Obama’s farcical nuclear deal with Iran, he handed power to that authoritarian regime as well. And on Oct. 7, we saw them flex their muscles in the most depraved display of evil in modern memory.

Sadly, armed conflict in Israel is nothing new. What is new is the deliberate targeting of civilians and the glee of the terrorists who are carrying it out.

In a Sky News interview, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro pointed out that the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists against Israeli citizens were even worse than those of the Nazis. The Nazis, he noted, at least knew what they were doing was wrong and tried to hide it. The Hamas militants, on the other hand, live-streamed their barbarity on social media.

Hamas is bankrolled by Iran (and to some extent by Qatar). According to Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), the terrorist group receives 93% of its funding from Iran. The crippling economic sanctions enacted by the Trump administration had put a serious damper on Iran’s ability to wage a proxy war on Israel. But the Biden administration foolishly turned a blind eye to those restrictions and even lifted $6 billion in sanctions last month, allowing the regime to generate billions of dollars in revenue from oil sales.

Claire Jungman, chief of staff at watchdog group United Against a Nuclear Iran, told the Washington Free Beacon last week that Iran has earned $80 billion from oil sales since Biden took office. "With the resurgence of Iran's primary revenue source, oil, into play, it's paramount to recognize the substantial financial leeway they've gained through years of relaxed sanctions," she said. "This surplus not only sustained them but also significantly fortified their proxies."

To his credit, Biden strongly condemned the Hamas massacre and vowed to stand behind Israel last week. But conspicuously missing from his remarks was any mention of Iran’s complicity.

It took the Wall Street Journal just one day to determine that Iran had helped plan the deadly attack. According to their sources, “Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land, and sea incursions — the most significant breach of Israel’s borders since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.” The report said further that Iranian officials had given “the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut” just five days earlier. Still, Biden administration officials refuse to admit the regime’s involvement.

Instead, in his Tuesday address, Biden warned “any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation,” that he had just “one word” for them: “Don’t. Don’t.” Unfortunately, he stopped short of telling them what they might expect if they did exploit the tragedy.

Predictably, Biden’s warning fell on deaf ears. On Saturday, Axios reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian issued a warning of his own via the United Nations. If Israel invades Gaza, he promised that Iran would intervene “either directly or indirectly” through Lebanon-based proxy Hezbollah and it would cause “a huge earthquake.”

Mankind is now staring evil in the face and the times call for strong leadership. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inspires confidence. Biden, most definitely, does not. Nothing says “follow me” quite like his declaration — after tripping and nearly falling again — at the Tioga Marine Terminal in Philadelphia on Friday that climate change is the “only existential threat to humanity.”

As wars rage in Ukraine and Israel, and China turns its eyes toward Taiwan, it’s beginning to feel a lot like the 1930s. And where is the U.S. president?

Biden’s unwillingness to acknowledge the truth about Iran, the enemy he and his administration have coddled and enriched in their pursuit of a nuclear deal that the regime will never honor, renders him unfit to serve as commander in chief. As Israel ramps up its response to the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas, the terrorist group funded by Iran, let’s not forget whose blunders brought us here.

Elizabeth Stauffer is a contributor to the Washington Examiner, Power Line, and AFNN, and she is a fellow at the Heritage Foundation Academy. She is a past contributor to RedState, Newsmax, the Western Journal, and   Bongino.com . Her articles have appeared on RealClearPolitics, MSN, the Federalist, and many other sites. Please follow Elizabeth on   X  or  LinkedIn .