How Biden Can Press His Ukraine Advantage
How Biden Can Press His Ukraine Advantage
Plus: Regional strategic shifts in the wake of Israel's dustup with Iran.
A great new spot from our pals at Republican Voters Against Trump is out this morning. “I was wondering if you guys are hiring right now,” the narrator toting the hidden camera asks a sequence of mall-store managers. “I’m currently facing 88 felonies. For retention of classified information . . . Do you all take people that have been found liable for sexual assault?”
It’s gold. Watch it here. Happy Monday.
Pressing the Advantage on Ukraine
Saturday’s series of votes in the House of Representatives approving aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan was a signal victory for the forces of freedom and democracy, at a time when such victories have been hard to come by.
Those who fought hard for that outcome are entitled to enjoy the moment. So go on, take a moment . . .
Okay, time’s up!
Because while enjoying victories is pleasant, the task in politics is to take advantage of them.
What will Saturday’s legislative victory—one that will be completed tomorrow, when the Senate passes the legislation and President Biden signs it—mean if Donald Trump prevails at the polls this November?
Not much, I fear. In that case, the legislative victory of April 20 will go up in smoke, a temporary respite in a terrible national decline.
So the task is to use this victory to weaken Trump and strengthen Joe Biden.
This means using this moment to broaden the anti-Trump coalition. This is the time to bring home to all Nikki Haley supporters, to all Reagan Republicans, to all those in any party who love liberty and loathe tyranny, that Trump is not with them. Indeed, that he is against them.
On the fundamental question of what we can and should do to shape a decent world in the 21st century, three-quarters of the Congress, including its Republican leaders, are on one side.rump and his minions are on the other.
There’s not going to be a better time to discredit Trump as a leader of the free world. There’s not going to be a better time to explain why Trump cannot be our next president.
So run campaign ads. Send out surrogates. Have pro-Ukraine Republicans—including former Trump officials like Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, and Mark Esper—to the White House to hear directly from the president, and to make suggestions to him on how to build on this moment to strengthen a bipartisan consensus for a pro-freedom foreign policy. Strike while this iron is hot.
But if one side of the coin is marginalizing Trump and splitting as many Republicans as possible from him, the other is showing that Biden can rise to the moment.
This means speaking to the country, in a far more sustained way than he has so far, about Ukraine, and more broadly about the importance of U.S. leadership in the world.
Biden’s hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, provides a model. The Lend Lease Act passed Congress and was signed by President Roosevelt on March 11, 1941. On March 15, FDR spoke about the significance of what had happened. I urge you—and all our readers in the White House—to read and/or listen to the whole speech.
But here’s a taste of what FDR said:
The big news story of this week is this: The world has been told that we, as a united Nation, realize the danger that confronts us—and that to meet that danger our democracy has gone into action . . .
The world is no longer left in doubt. This decision is the end of any attempts at appeasement in our land; the end of urging us to get along with dictators; the end of compromise with tyranny and the forces of oppression . . .
And so our country is going to be what our people have proclaimed it must be—the arsenal of democracy.
And when—no, I didn’t say if, I said when—dictatorships disintegrate—and pray God that will be sooner than any of us now dares to hope—then our country must continue to play its great part in the period of world reconstruction for the good of humanity.
As it happens, President Roosevelt gave this speech at the 1941 White House Correspondents Dinner, which took place four days after the Lend Lease vote. This year’s White House Correspondents Dinner is Saturday. But I wouldn’t follow FDR’s example in this respect. Biden, I suspect, should speak directly to the nation. From the Oval Office. Or perhaps from the FDR Memorial, which includes a quotation from his Lend Lease speech.
But I leave such questions of tactics to the president’s able advisors. For now, though, the president and his allies need to seize this plastic moment, when impressions can be shaped, to do two things:
Remind Americans why Biden is the right man for the job at this time. And remind Americans why Trump is not.
—William Kristol
Back from the Brink in Iran—For Now
The chances for a broader regional war temporarily receded following air strikes against an Iranian Air Force base in Isfahan last Thursday. Although the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) refused to comment, the IDF almost certainly conducted this attack in retaliation for Iran’s missile barrage on April 13, which Israel and its allies thwarted.
Commercial imagery appears to show that the IDF struck a Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, specifically its radar. Russia delivered the S-300 in 2016. Iran uses the S-300 to protect the Natanz Nuclear Complex, its primary uranium enrichment facility. By conducting a precision strike deep inside Iran, possibly using a new radar-evading missile, the Israelis likely hoped to restore deterrence by showcasing Israel’s technological prowess.
While the Biden administration is likely relieved that tensions have relaxed following Iran’s decision not to retaliate, the chances of escalation remain very high. The IDF is fighting an Iranian proxy network lobbing attacks from Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Should the opportunity present itself again, the IDF will kill more senior Iranian Quds Forces officers, as they did on April 1, in preparation for a future fight against Hezbollah. Further, as the IDF gears up for its pending Rafah operation, Iran’s proxy network could escalate on other fronts to relieve pressure on a decimated Hamas.
It is tempting to declare the Iranians the loser in this exchange, but they did not leave empty-handed. They gained invaluable insight into Israel’s anti-air capabilities and will calibrate their next attack accordingly. Moreover, despite firing 300 drones and missiles at Israel, Iran and its proxies walked away from the exchange without much of a scratch. They may have lost some Quds Forces generals, but they showed the region they have the nerve to fight Israel conventionally.
More importantly, despite orchestrating the October 7 pogrom and attacking Israel for six months via their proxy network, the Iranians have suffered on;y economic sanctions and some strikes on their proxies. The Iranians now know that the Biden administration will use its power to restrain Israel, even after Iran attacks them directly. The Iranians may not have “won” this exchange, but there is no reason to believe they will not press their asymmetric advantage over Israel, considering they have suffered little to no consequences.
There will be more Iranian attacks. You can count on it.
—Will Selber
Catching up . . .
Opening statements to begin today in Trump’s criminal trial: New York Times
Marjorie Taylor Greene blinks on Mike Johnson ouster campaign: Axios
As protests continue at Columbia, some Jewish students feel targeted: New York Times
Israeli military intel chief resigns over Oct. 7 failings; Netanyahu vows to reject U.S. sanctions on IDF unit: NBC News
The House votes for possible TikTok ban in the United States, but don’t expect the app to go away anytime soon: AP News
Biden is marking Earth Day by announcing $7 billion in federal solar power grants: AP News
Quick Hits
1. My Kevin’s Big Mistake
Here’s a crazy thing to contemplate: Mike Johnson, a true-blue conservative-flanker throughout his time in Congress, is doing a better job maneuvering as speaker while defying his caucus hardliners than did Kevin McCarthy, an ideological chameleon whose alleged strengths throughout his time in Congress were as a pure political animal. Writing on the site today, Tim points out that McCarthy could’ve saved his own hide too—if he hadn’t decided his path to salvation was tripling and quadrupling down on his MAGA bona fides and had done a touch more olive-branching with House Democrats instead:
Time and again the MAGA enablers in the right-wing commentariat and consultant class and the remaining pre-MAGA GOP politicians rationalize their complicity by arguing that they have no choice but to go along with Trump. In this worldview, the only way to maintain power is to act as if Democrats are enemies of the people who must be opposed at all costs and Trump is an unstable nuisance that must be constantly appeased.
Anyone who challenges this MAGAventional wisdom is dismissed as an out-of-touch cuck with TDS.
This misdiagnosis has led Republicans time and again to make choices that are bad for both their party and the country. During the McCarthy saga, prominent conservatives absolved Kevin for refusing to even consider modulating his posture, even as they lambasted Democrats and Never Trumpers for not bailing out the unrepentant Trump toady.
“At every turn Democrats have chosen to assist the arsonists out of a belief that it ultimately helps them politically,” wrote the editor of National Review Online.
The reality? Democrats just weren’t willing to help an arsonist in a tuxedo defeat an arsonist in overalls. But they have been happy to work with Republicans who treated them as counterparties in a democracy as opposed to cockroaches that needed to be stamped out.
The recent deals cut by James Lankford and Mike Johnson prove that this whole time, there was another more responsible approach Republican politicians could take. A middle ground, not conceding to Democrats but working with them. So far, the results indicate this was the better approach.
2. ‘Following diminished, posting accelerating’
You know how it’s impossible to mentally reconstruct the full majesty of the Grand Canyon minutes after you leave it, like the human mind doesn’t quite have the capacity to store such sights away? Donald Trump’s Truth Social account is a little like that. We don’t begrudge anybody who doesn’t regularly drink deep from that well of sludge, but if you don’t, it’s honestly difficult to communicate to you just how totally unhinged he’s gotten on there.
The Washington Post has a good bird’s eye view up today: 29 posts a day. 760 posts written in all caps. Hundreds featuring direct personal insults; hundreds more boosting his election denialism. “In between all that, Trump reposts bizarre AI-generated art and crudely doctored images. And the site abounds with fringe companies peddling diet supplements, political-themed knickknacks and gold bars.”
Read it here, if you’ve got the stomach.
Cheap Shots
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Thanks for including the audio link for FDR's 3-15-1941 Lend Lease Speech. I listened to the whole thing (it's well worth the 13 minute time investment) and was stunned to see how closely his insights from 82 years ago parallel our current geopolitical situation. Soon after, history graphically demonstrated to all Americans what happens when authoritarians and dictators are let off the leash. What is past is prologue?
Ten or fifteen years ago, if someone told me that I would agree with, much less rally to, the words of Bill Kristol, I would not have believed them and probably punched them in the nose! Since writing the morning comments, he has articulated my thoughts and hopes for the country very well. Today’s post was inspiring; I hope the President takes his advice.