ANALYSIS:
President Biden and his administration knew for days that Iran was preparing a major military strike on Israel, but they were unable to stop it.
It marked the second high-profile failure of the administration’s diplomacy-oriented policies over just the past two years. In both instances, the administration could not deter a serious regional conflict despite advance warning of impending attacks.
In 2022, U.S. intelligence agencies provided extraordinary details of Russian military plans for the invasion of Ukraine. Still, the administration could not head off an invasion that set in motion the largest European conflict since World War II.
Those failures could have major consequences. There are growing fears that China’s leaders will calculate that American power has declined to a point where Beijing’s military can act within impunity and launch their own major regional conflict.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to take over the democratic-ruled island of Taiwan. At the same time, China‘s hostility has grown toward both Japan over the Senkaku islands in the East China Sea and the Philippines in the South China Sea.
Both are U.S. defense treaty allies. A Chinese attack would likely pull the United States into a regional conflict in Asia for the first time since the Vietnam War.
Focus on Taiwan
Taiwan remains a critical flashpoint.
Retired Rear Adm. Mike Studeman, who until recently was the commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence, said he met recently with Taiwan’s leaders amid growing signs China is preparing for either a blockade or even an all-out invasion of Taiwan within the next 10 years.
“The question wasn’t whether. The question was when,” he said of China‘s potential move on Taiwan.
Critics say the administration’s deterrence failures are the result of weak policies that lack credible threats of military action or other punitive steps that the U.S. might take, such as imposing financial or other sanctions on the aggressor. The U.S. has imposed significant financial sanctions on Russia since it invaded Ukraine, but those steps appear to have had little impact on the Kremlin’s decision-making.
For a variety of reasons, it seems that foreign leaders in hostile states are concluding that the benefits, as they see them, of military attacks are worth whatever risks they might face.
Even Mr. Biden‘s direct warnings seem to have done little. The president signaled last Friday that the U.S. expected an Iranian attack on Israel “sooner rather than later.” His main public action in response was to send the Iranians a one-word warning: “Don’t.”
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the president and his administration clearly failed to deter Iran, as the Islamic Republic did not heed those warnings.
Mr. Biden said, “Don’t’ multiple times and don’t isn’t a national security policy,” Mr. Pompeo said on Fox News. “It’s not even a deterrent.”
The president’s comment reflected what is said to be specific U.S. intelligence warnings that Iranian military forces were in the advanced stages of preparing for the massive attack on Israel, America’s key Middle East ally. Most of the Iranian weapons were shot down before they reached Israel.
The Iranian attack was a response to Israel’s April 1 bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, that killed several Iranian military officials.
Iran said its attack was retaliating for a violation of its sovereignty in the embassy strike.
Iranian terrorists linked to Tehran have been blamed for several other embassy attacks. For example, U.S. intelligence agencies linked Iran to the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people, including several CIA officers.
Now, the world is watching for an Israeli counterstrike on Iran. Despite the administration pushing for diplomacy rather than escalation, Israeli military leaders signaled that a response is forthcoming.
Critics say the president’s handling of the entire episode is another example of a failure of foreign policy.
“Witness a U.S. president who works a three-day week, struggles to read a teleprompter, and shouts more at conservative Americans than at America’s enemies,” said Hoover Institute fellow Victor Davis Hanson.
Russia brushes off U.S. warnings
In the months leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, U.S. intelligence agencies had penetrated the country’s military command and knew that Russian military leaders were deep in the planning stages for an invasion.
Yet the administration’s response was merely to provide the communist government in China with some of the intelligence in an attempt to head off the Russian invasion.
What’s worse, White House officials later acknowledged that the Chinese government shared American intelligence previewing the Russian invasion with Moscow.
When it comes to China, the administration’s approach to deterring Beijing so far appears to be a day late and tens of millions of dollars short.
The outgoing commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. John Aquilino, warned Congress last month that the administration is not moving fast enough to deter China.
For example, Congress authorized $1 billion for the administration to speed up weapons deliveries to Taiwan last September. But only $345 million worth of arms have so far been transferred.
Adm. Aquilino said the arms transfers are too slow.
“All parts of our government and our industry have to get together and move faster,” he said.
Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said administration policies have undermined and weakened deterrence against China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
China, in particular, is closely watching how the U.S. acts in Europe in drawing lessons on how Washington will meet its commitments to allies and partners in that region.
“We must restore American deterrence,” said Mr. Rogers, Alabama Republican.
“It starts with this administration finally articulating a winning strategy,” he said.
The Hoover Institution’s Mr. Hanson said the president has severely weakened hard-won U.S. deterrence, beginning with the disastrous pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2021. The Taliban took control of U.S. weapons after the American withdrawal.
Mr. Hanson said Mr. Biden either does not understand deterrence or does not believe in its utility.
“Either way, the result has been a foreign policy disaster that exceeds the strategic calamity of the Carter administration,” he said.
In China, the administration ignored a Chinese surveillance balloon that traveled unimpeded across the U.S. last year until public pressure forced a military shootdown over the Atlantic.
Critics also say the administration has failed to hold the Chinese government responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic that likely originated from a Wuhan laboratory where dangerous gain-of-function virus research was conducted.
On Ukraine, Mr. Biden also sent the wrong signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin a month before the invasion by saying the Western reaction would depend on whether the attack is “a minor incursion” or major action.
On Iran, administration policy also has been to seek closer relations with the regime in Tehran and a revival of the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a deal that limited Iran‘s nuclear program in exchange for economic sanctions relief. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of that deal in 2018.
As part of its diplomatic olive branch to Tehran, Mr. Biden agreed to allow Iran to receive between $50 billion and $100 billion in oil sanctions waivers.
As its deterrence policies have failed, the administration has taken steps that may have emboldened enemies of the U.S. and Israel. For example, Mr. Biden rescinded the terrorist designation on Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The Iran-backed group is responsible for a months-long campaign to disrupt commercial ship traffic in the Red Sea and other regional waterways.
Mr. Biden also faces charges that he is allowing presidential politics to impact his foreign policy decision-making. For example, the administration’s public criticism toward Israel over its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip has steadily gotten louder and more pointed in recent months, as some elements of the political left have gotten more vocal in their own criticism of America’s policy toward Israel. The administration also is publicly calling on Israel to exercise restraint and respond diplomatically, rather than militarily, to Iran‘s attack last weekend.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.