The Biden administration has returned to the Obama administration’s policy of appeasing Iran, allowing it time off to develop nuclear infrastructure provided it delays building the bomb. Peculiar reasoning, but then not unlike the US policy of printing endless amounts of paper debt in the hope that the long term never ends.

The Kerry policy always carried with it the corollary of shutting out Saudi Arabia, Iran’s nemesis in the Middle East, and giving the cold shoulder to Israel, whose elections Obama once tried and failed to manipulate. It is, however, only one manifestation of a foreign policy based on feelings and not on hard logic. This is a godsend to President Putin at a time of need.

Democrat John Kerry breached the Logan Act in conducting talks out of office with the Iranians while Donald Trump was in the White House, purposefully encouraging Teheran to believe other opportunities lay ahead once Trump was gone. The muddle grows. At the same time Biden is alienating oil rich Saudi Arabia by opposing its war against the Yemenis who are blatantly armed by Iran, the White House is wilfully destroying US independence in energy production.

The Biden people then make everything even worse by highlighting what everyone knew to be true anyway: how the head of the Royal House himself made the key decision to dispose of the fly in the ointment, the brave but foolhardy Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, through his dismemberment. Surely no one believed that some underling brought this about in a country ruled fiercely from the throne? Does the Democrat camel corps in Washington DC not know what impact loss of face will have on relations with a personal despotism? Or does it know and not care? Were all those sheeps’ eyes eaten for nothing?

In what manner does the emotional gratification achieved enhance US interests? And how does this overriding concern for human rights square with dismissing the horrendous Chinese suppression of the masses of Uighurs as some kind of cultural difference, which Biden has done? Are the Saudis to be judged on a different plane, despite even more evident cultural differences? The confusion of thinking at the top is truly baffling. In Moscow at Smolenskaya they must be passing around the chocolates.

Thus far the Iranians have treated the US about-face with contempt, raising the price of appeasement to new highs; as the Russians but not the Americans long ago realised, the Iranians have a sturdy reputation for being extremely cunning. So the contradictions underlying American policy are quickly emerging. The attack by Iran’s supporters in Iraq elicited an American air strike by the Biden administration which began to realise that showing weakness has consequences. The Israelis are busy studying their cards to work on new options that would circumvent US policy. And the Saudis?

Here the Russians clearly see an opening; indeed, probably more than one: the first is that the Saudi arms market is more likely to go to uncritical salesmen from Russia than from the United States. For the next, watch this space.

See hardline Vzglyad ru:

Ссора саудитов с Америкой открывает России новый рынок оружия