No sane American president takes office hoping for war. Woodrow Wilson, a 56-year-old Princeton academic, said it would be ‘the irony of fate’ if his presidency came to be dominated by foreign affairs. He spoke in 1913. Joe Biden came to office in 2021 promising to end the ‘forever wars’ of Iraq and Afghanistan. But as he boarded Air Force One on Tuesday, another irony of fate was in evidence: the American-enforced world order is crumbling, and the results are now becoming clear.
Iran, far from being neutered by US sanctions, was able to start a war using its Hamas proxies and their Hezbollah allies to attack Israel. At a stroke, the Arab-Israeli rapprochement America had wanted to nurture has been put on ice. Biden had hoped this week to meet his Egyptian, Saudi and Jordanian counterparts along with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. But the summit was called off when a hospital in Gaza was shelled (which Israel and a number of external open source intelligent analysts have blamed on a stray Palestinian rocket, and which Biden said was ‘done by the other team’ during his press conference on Wednesday).
Get Britain's best politics newsletters
Register to get The Spectator's insight and opinion straight to your inbox. You can then read two free articles each week.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in