Is Joe Biden a disappointment?

It's probably too early to make a judgment about Joe Biden's administration. He has been president for less than nine months. And yet I believe the overall impression of the US president is not exactly ecstatic. For the first few weeks there was such relief that Donald Trump was no longer in the White House that Biden had a good run. He was intent on making friends in Congress and appeared to grasp what had to be done to combat the coronavirus pandemic. But much of the good will has dissipated. He is in charge but not in charge. The national security team appeared to be fresh and full of ideas but now, after Afghanistan, look muddled and wary and unsure. The Afghanistan debacle has done that. None of the key administration members have come out well. Not Antony Blinken, secretary of state, not Jake Sullivan, the super-brainy national security adviser, not Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary and certainly not the president. Now Biden is struggling to get through his massive legislation on infrastructure, immigration is all over the place, North Korea is firing missiles almost on a daily basis, Russia and China seem unconcerned about anything Biden does and are getting on with their own global strategies regardless, and Nato no longer knows what the hell it is supposed to be doing. No one wants Trump back, not outside the US anyway, but if Biden doesn't get his act together soon, the West is going to feel leaderless.