Can America keep being the world’s policeman?

America is retreating from the world stage. The country’s senile president appears absent from the dramatic events unfolding in the Middle East. Joe Biden urged Israel not to go into Rafah; to abstain from taking on Hezbollah; and to forgo retaliatory strikes against Iran. At every stage, the Israeli government followed its own counsel and is now reportedly ignoring his administration ahead of next month’s election.

Biden’s term in office has been marked by similar haplessness elsewhere in the region. He will be remembered above all for America’s ignoble and chaotic retreat from Afghanistan, which left local contractors and translators in the lurch and allowed the Taliban to reimpose their theocracy. When the US diplomat Richard Holbrooke insisted America had a responsibility to its local allies, Biden responded: ‘Fuck that, we don’t have to worry about that.’

Biden’s support for Ukraine initially looked like a foreign policy success. But as the war drags on, and the administration remains reluctant to allow Ukraine to use their weapons for strikes inside Russia, even that success threatens to turn into failure.