4 Years of Living Dangerously Under Joe Biden, Part 2: China, Iran Make Deal

4 Years of Living Dangerously Under Joe Biden, Part 2: China, Iran Make Deal
President Joe Biden speaks to reporters as he holds his first formal news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, on March 25, 2021. Leah Millis/Reuters
Thomas Del Beccaro
Updated:
Just after his inauguration, I warned of four years of living dangerously under President Joe Biden. The weakness of his policies and person are obvious for all to see.

The world then watched his first press conference. While the American press fawned over Biden for partisan reasons, the chief adversaries of the United States—China and Iran—watched for serious geopolitical reasons. They know he’s weak and his staff naïve, and, last week, they did something about it.

Here in the United States, it was the story Americans likely didn’t hear about—again for reasons of domestic politics.

First, it bears repeating that, slowly but surely, since Harry Truman and the dropping of the nuclear bomb that ended World War II, Democratic administrations have eschewed foreign policy and focused on domestic policies. “Butter, not guns” was the argument they championed following the Vietnam War.

In plain terms, Democratic presidents and their supporters are bound and determined to turn the United States into their version of a European social democracy dominated by socialist or semi-socialist policies. That is their main focus.

In the process, Democrats have convinced the world that, when they are in power, the United States will be less vigilant abroad. That’s a dangerous dynamic because weakness begets provocativeness among our enemies.

The story that got little coverage in the United States last week was the budding alliance between the world’s two most dangerous countries: China and Iran.

China has designs on world domination—literally. Just ask them if you haven’t watched them or read their public plans. To achieve that, they need to continue their economic growth. To achieve economic growth, they need oil.

Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of terror, has designs on Middle East domination. The regime in Tehran has been quite public about that as well. To do that, they need money. To get money, they need to sell oil.

The growing alliance between China and Iran, including the promise for Iran to sell oil to China, should more than concern everyone.

While the details were few, which surprises no one, given the two authoritarian governments involved, China and Iran “signed a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement addressing economic issues.”

The New York Times reported that “China will invest some $400 billion in Iran in exchange for oil as part of the deal. The two countries will also step up military cooperation with joint training, research and intelligence sharing.”

In short, China gets the oil supply it desperately wants to fuel its ambitions without any concern for the West’s obsession with climate change/global warming.

As for Iran, The Times of Israel correctly noted that the deal effectively cripples U.S. sanctions on Iran. With this deal, Iran gets the money it needs to pursue its military ambitions.

Certainly, we know from former Democratic President Barack Obama’s Iran deal that Iran didn’t use the money it secured for domestic charities. Even doe-eyed John Kerry conceded that some of the money would go toward terrorism.

The price tag on this deal, $400 billion, dwarfs Obama’s deal and will set Iran on a clear path to obtaining nuclear weapons—likely in less than a decade. In the short run, however, it gives Iran the ability to fund its conventional war operations in the Middle East, which I wrote about in 2015, when Obama’s deal was announced: “Iran’s other victory - The nuclear deal also cemented the regime’s conventional war gains.”

Meanwhile, the world isn’t even sure who is in charge in the White House.

No one can seriously believe that Biden cuts a vigorous figure. To borrow a phrase, the world knew John F. Kennedy and Biden is no John F. Kennedy.

Nor is Biden a Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump. He’s not capable of projecting the strength necessary to achieve peace through strength.

Beyond that, his foreign policy staff is committed to curtailing U.S. economic might by adopting Green New Deal policies, including returning to the Paris climate accord, which plays into China’s hands. By self-inflicting economic weakness at home, Biden and the Democrats are limiting the United States’ ability to respond internationally and to confront the serious challenge China represents to world freedom.

We also know that Biden wanted to make an Obama-style deal with Iran that would have lifted U.S. sanctions and let Iran sell the oil it needs to get the money it needs to realize its ambitions. That was last month’s news. Iran has a new benefactor—the communist regime of China.

What will the Biden administration do in response to that incredibly dangerous growing alliance? The likely answer is precious little—all of which not only cements our four years of living dangerously under Biden but threatens world stability as far as the eye can see.

Thomas Del Beccaro is an acclaimed author, speaker, Fox News, Fox Business, and Epoch Times opinion writer, and former chairman of the California Republican Party. He is the author of the historical perspectives “The Divided Era” and “The New Conservative Paradigm.”
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Thomas Del Beccaro
Thomas Del Beccaro
contributor
Thomas Del Beccaro is an acclaimed author, speaker, former chairman of the California Republican Party, and Fox News, Fox Business, and Epoch Times opinion writer. He is author of the historical perspectives “The Divided Era” and “The New Conservative Paradigm” and is publisher of PoliticalVanguard.com, where he publishes daily commentaries.
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