Replace Joe Biden? Forget it

The talk in Democratic circles in Washington is about two things: how to persuade Joe Biden to step down at the end off his four-year term and who to put in his place with less than five months to go before the election. All these discussions are pretty silly and certainly a waste of energy and time. Biden has already said that he intends to stick with it and has promised to do better the next time he debates with Trump, and there really really isn't anyone else who can take over his candidacy and beat Trump. Biden beat Trump the last time and believes fervently that he can do so again, despite the Milwaukee malarkey. If he was replaced by someone younger it might make the Democratic party feel more hopeful because, after all, Trump is not many years away from becoming 80. But the hopes would be foolish. Who, seriously, could come forward now and defeat Trump? Kamala Harris? I think not. Gavin Newsom, California governor? No, and no. I anticipate Trump woukld be quite happy for Biden to be dropped and replaced, in desperation, by Newsom or Harris or whoever because, despite his insults about Biden's age and faltering debate in Milwaukee last Thursday he knows the president is the most experienced rival he could possiby face - by far. He would be more than confident of seeing off Harris or Newsom. So the Democratic party must bite the bullet and stay loyal to Biden. He still could win on November 5.

Biden and Trump clash on foreign policy

Foreign policy rarely plays a significant role in a US presidential election. Domestic issues, the economy, money in the pocket, jobs, immigration, these are what voters are most concerned about. But this time, it could be different. The first TV debate between President Biden and Donald Trump seemed focused on one thing: is Biden the man to trust to lead the western alliance for another four-year term? Or, as Trump insinuated, is he so weakened and fragile that none of the adversarial leaders in the world have any respect for him, let alone fear him? Fear, it seems, is the former president’s trump card. As he told Biden and voters in the debate, Vladimir Putin would never have dared invade Ukraine, had he been president. Nor would Hamas have committed the atrocity against Israel on Oct 7 last year, if he had been in the White House. While his claim is unprovable, it has become one of Trump’s favourite mantras and in a debate where Biden stumbled and faltered and struggled to compete with his political rival’s foreign policy boasts, the impression left in people’s minds seemed incontrovertible: Trump is the tough leader who gets things done. In reality, there are a lot of grey areas. While he didn’t put it across with sufficient clarity or robustness, Biden’s great achievement in office was to corral 50 nations into an alliance to provide western backbone for Ukraine’s fight against Russia. The US, on Biden’s watch, has delivered $175 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February, 2022, and, if he wins a second term in the White House, he has promised to support the Ukrainians for as long as it takes to bring the war to an end to Kyiv’s satisfaction. While Biden described this as a noble and necessary endeavour to prevent Putin from winning in Ukraine and moving on to seize territory elsewhere in the region, such as Poland, he has to persuade sceptical voters that this remains the only way forward when his rival for the White House is promising – and did so again in the debate – to bring the war in Ukraine to a close on his first day. Trump didn’t explain how he would achieve this, but he didn’t have to because what he is offering probably sounds a lot more attractive to a hardworking, low-earning American voter than a for-ever war in a country a long way away which is costing taxpayers billions and billions of dollars. Trump had no easy answer to ending the war in Gaza, but he and Biden at least appeared to share some common ground: they both vowed always to support Israel, but Trump said he wanted the Israeli military to destroy Hamas at all costs while Biden has become increasingly concerned about the methods used to achieve that objective. For America’s allies in Europe, the Far East and Middle East, Biden’s lacklustre performance will have caused considerable anxiety. They will be anticipating another Trump presidency with a mixture of alarm and trepidation. He was not an easy man to get along with and gave the impression that he was dismissive of many of the leaders he confronted. Biden, on the other hand, has been viewed as a president willing to listen. No one in the alliance fears Biden. Many fear Trump and what he stands for. Biden accused Trump of planning to destroy Nato. He reminded viewers of Trump’s throwaway remark when he invited Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to Nato members who failed to meet their defence commitments. In fact, more than 70 per cent of Nato allies are now on track to spend at least two per cent of GDP on defence. Trump made no pledges about backing Nato. With the alliance to hold its 75th anniversary summit in Washington next month, allied leaders will be wondering whether it will be Biden’s swansong. The clashes on foreign policy throughout the debate revealed nothing new from either Biden or Trump. But the contrast in presentation was so marked, even when Trump was making highly dubious claims, that it undermined Biden’s insistence that he had been a strong and dependable leader of the alliance. This is the lingering impression that will be left in American voters’ minds which is why foreign policy, normally much lower down the average person’s priority list, could make a difference when they make their decision in the election on November 5.

Biden croaks and Trump shouts

The contrast between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in their first TV debate could not have been more dramatic. Biden sounded so croaky he might as well have stayed at home. He faltered and fumbled and croaked while Trump bellowed and shouted and insulted. If I was a voter in America I would have decided then and there that neither candidate was right to be the incumbent in the White House for the next four years. But Biden did try to get the message across, albeit without any sign of vigour, that he had done a lot in his first four years and was ready to do another four. The US newspapers are now full of advisory commentaries and analyses giving reasons why Biden should step down and let a younger candidate step forward. Biden said he had a sore throat whch was why he sounded so fragile but in recent months that is exactly how he has sounded every time he got up to speak. People who work with him in the White House insist he is still totally on the ball and makes decisions in a proper and authoritative way. But politics is all about convincing the public and allies that you know what you are doing. And that TV performance is not going to convince any doubters that they should vote for Biden.

Will sending US contractors to Ukraine provoke Moscow?

Call it “slippery slope” or “mission creep”, America’s strategy for helping Ukraine defend itself against the Russian invasion has changed, adapted and expanded many times in the last 28 months. However, there was a golden rule laid down by President Biden almost on the first day of Russia’s aggression against its neighbour. There would be no “boots on the ground”, he said. No US troops would be deployed to fight the Russians. That Biden doctrine has not changed. And yet now there is serious consideration going on inside Biden’s national security team over whether to allow American contractors to go to Ukraine to help repair and service the multitude of advanced US weapons supplied in recent months, and the F-16 fighter jets which are being provided by European allies and are due to arrive soon. It is imperative to provide tender loving care to fighter jets to keep them safe and operational. While the Ukrainians have plenty of their own experience in servicing their Soviet-designed combat aircraft, the F-16 is a new beast for their ground crews and any help they can get from American experts alongside them would clearly be crucial for maintaining what could be a battle-changing firepower platform for the Kyiv government. However, Biden is not going to find it an easy decision to make. The counter-arguments are strong. The arrival of American contractors in Ukraine would be viewed by Moscow as a deliberate provocation and would, potentially, put American lives in harm’s way. Kyiv sent engineers as well as pilots to be trained in Europe on the F-16, so it’s not as if Ukraine’s air crews will be required to fly combat missions without adequate back-up. However, the proposal to send US contractors, not just for the F-16s, but also for weapons such as the long-range ATACMS missiles and M1A1 Abrams tanks, would guarantee a much-improved maintenance programme and help Ukraine to keep battle-winning systems in play. The Pentagon insists no decision has yet been made but military officials have been urging for some time for the president to take this step as am important, practical measure. Biden has shown reluctance ever since the Russian invasion in February, 2022, to go too far in helping Ukraine do more than defend itself. In the early stages, fighter jets, battle tanks, long-range rockets were simply not on the agenda. But they were always on President Zelensky’s agenda. Some Nato allies, including the United Kingdom, adopted a more robust approach earlier on. The UK sent air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missiles with a range of 155 miles in May 2023. The first American long-range ATACMS with a reach of 190 miles didn’t arrive until almost a year later, after much pleading from Zelensky. Biden was fearful of escalating the war by giving weapons to Kyiv that could be used to hit targets inside Russia. Even now, the longer-range systems have been sent with operational restrictions. However, it is clear the threshold vis a vis escalation concerns has been lowered significantly in recent months. Red lines have been fudged. The possibility of sending US contractors to Ukraine is the latest evidence of this. Moscow might think, American contractors today, combat troops tomorrow. In the war in Vietnam, “special advisers”, consisting of ex-CIA and ex-military, were sent to assist the South Vietnamese government in the 1950s. The first combat troops, US Marines, arrived in 1965. Civil contractors have played a significant role in the field in every US war in modern times. But the US is not at war in Ukraine. This is why Biden is hesitating about sending contractors to despite the huge benefits it would provide for the Ukrainian military. The same arguments are going back and forth over how far to go in offering Nato membership to Kyiv. The subject, vital to Zelensky, is top of the agenda for the next alliance summit, in Washington next month. Judging by the early signs of pre-summit preparations, Ukraine is to be offered a “bridge” to Nato membership. It’s certainly not what Zelensky was hoping for, and it sounds not unlike the sort of language adopted at the Nato summit in Vilnius in July last year. President Putin has made Nato membership for Ukraine one of his red lines. The peace settlement he offered recently said Kyiv would have to give up any thought of joining the western alliance. Washington’s position is: Ukraine will join the alliance, but not yet. As for sending US contractors to Ukraine, we await the conclusion of the internal debate now underway.

Will Trump pledge to end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine in TV debate?

Donald Trump is always full of promises. He said he would end the war in Ukraine on day one of his presidency if he wins the election in November and, no doubt he has a scheme up his sleeve to stop the war in Gaza, too. But will he reveal all when he comes up against Joe Biden at the first presidential TV debate in Milwaukee on Thursday? General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said a long time ago that the only way the war in Ukraine would end would be by negotiation. He saw from the beginning that there was never going to be an outright military victory by either side. But since then, the war has escalated and escalated and there are no signs of peace. But now there are murmurings in Germany that it's time for a peaceful settlement and I suspect Trump will latch onto that if he is asked directly how he plans to bring the terrible conflict to a close in such a short timeframe. But I doubt he will be transparent about exactly what he has in mind. Sine he first made the pledge, a lot has happened, not least the announcement by the International Criminal Court in The Hague that there should be an arrest warrant for President Putin on war crimes charges. There is an arrest warrant also for his former defence minister and his chief of the general staff, announced today. Will Trump do business with a leader who is on the Most Wanted list? Biden will no doubt give his full backing to Ukraine to help them fight the Russians for as long as it takes. But I suspect that line is going to have to be fudged at some point. "For as long as it takes" means there will be more and more destruction and more and more deaths. That can't be in Ukraine's best interest.

Israel says it's about to change military tactics in Gaza

Benjamin Netanyahu, the under-siege Israeli prime minister, has announced that his military strategy for Gaza is soon going to change. In reality the strategy changed several weeks ago after Joe Biden pummelled him with phone calls and visits from his top officials to reject any idea of "invading" the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. An Israeli division has been inside Rafah for about six weeks clearing the city of Hamas fighters but what we haven't seen is the wholesale destruction of property and huge civilian casualties which occurred at the start of Israel's war against Hamas, much of it caused by the dropping of hundreds of heavy, unguided American bombs all over the place in central and northern Gaza. The Rafah operation has caused civilian casualties, but the toll of death and injuries among the civilian population has slowed significantly. Whether this is because of a conscious effort by the Israeli troops to adopt a much more precise and refined attack mission or whether it has more to do with the fact that under Biden's orders, the heavy American bombs are no longer being supplied, it is difficult to know. But the tactics and strategy changed once the US bombs were put on hold. So it's difficult to see how the war in the south is now going to change dramatically while a whole division is still in Rafah attempting to root out the final two battalions of Hamas fighters operating in the city. Netanyahu remains bent on dismantling/destroying the whole Hamas structure and ruling capability, and I would imagine there is still a fair way to go before this is achieved, if it ever can be. So we wait and see what Netanyahu has up his sleeve for the next stage of the war against Hamas.

Is Israel ready for a war with Hezbollah?

The great Shakespearean actor Sir Donald Wolfit would always take one step back before moving forward to leave the stage in a performance. It was for dramatic effect but it was if he was reluctant to give up his place among his fellow actors. In many ways, the policy of the United States vis a vis Israel and the war in Gaza has followed a series of forward and backward steps, with the Biden administration committed never to leaving the stage but eternally frustrated by the cuts and thrusts of Middle Eastern politics. Another week has gone and little has been resolved to end a war which even Israel admits could last at least another six months. And now, perhaps more than at any time since Hamas caught Israel by surprise on October 7 and went on a killing and raping rampage across the border from Gaza, there are increasing fears in Washington that Israel might soon go to full-scale war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The arrival in the region of Amos Hochstein, President Biden's Middle East envoy, a 51-year-old Israeli American with good contacts in Lebanon, underlined Washington's alarm at the potential dangers for Israel arising from a second war front. Until now, Hezbollah, an infinitely superior military force to Hamas both in terms of missile and rocket arsenals and combat manpower, has engaged in regular strikes across the border, some of them ferocious. Israel has forcefully retaliated. Tel Aviv has an approved military plan ready to go to war with Hezbollah, according to senior Israeli officials. The last Israel-Hezbollah war was in 2006 and lasted 34 days, in stalemate. So all eyes were on Hockstein when he flew to Beirut and then moved on to Tel Aviv. But to no avail. He drew a very negative blank in Lebanon. Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen and, to a lesser extent, the Islamic militia forces in Iraq and Syria, have said that their campaign of attacks will continue while Israeli forces remain in Gaza. Hockstein by all accounts received this message loud and clear. It is often premature to suggest that a war has reached a turning-point. But there are many factors now coming together which seem to indicate that Biden’s fear of an expanding Middle Eastern war is looking more rather than less likely. The anti-Israel protagonists in the region share one thing in common, backing by Iran. But so far there is no evidence of a coordinated, multi-prong strategy, masterminded by Tehran to hit Israel from all quarters using its well-armed proxy forces. Could this change? Israel clearly believes this is a possibility which is why it has acted with increasing robustness in hitting Hezbollah military targets and killing individual commanders to remind the powerful Lebanese Shia Islamist group, led by Hassan Nasrallah since 1992, what it would face in a head-on war. The potential threat of a spreading war has galvanised both Washington and Tel Aviv. This might explain why Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s embattled prime minister, suddenly decided to launch a protest at what he sees as Washington’s deliberate withholding of vital munitions which his forces need to complete the current operation in Rafah, viewed as the last Hamas stronghold in southern Gaza. His accusation met with mild reproof in Washington. Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, who has seen more of Netanyahu in the last few months than any other foreign leader, said the only shipment of arms currently being temporarily suspended was a stock of 2,000lb bombs. The reason for this, as had been expounded on previous occasions, was that the US feared the use of these heavyweight air-launched bombs would cause unacceptable collateral damage in Rafah’s dense urban environment. According to the Pentagon, the one shipment referred to by Blinken and also by Biden, consists of 1,800 2,000lb bombs but also 1,700 500lb bombs. Netanyahu wants both categories and feels Washington is letting him down, and more importantly, refusing to send the promised munitions at a time when Israel says it’s in desperate need of them, perhaps for Lebanon as well as for Gaza. The row developed during the week because Washington felt Netanyahu was trying to give the impression that the Pentagon had stopped sending arms to Israel. “Since Hamas’s vicious attack on October 7 we’ve rushed billions of dollars of security assistance to Israel to enable them to defend themselves and we’re going to continue to provide them with the security assistance they need,” said Major-General Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary. The point about these particular bombs is that they are not smart-, precision weapons. They are unguided munitions, and the US doesn’t want to be seen to be helping Israel to drop bombs on Rafah which end up killing civilians and destroying private property. Washington learned this lesson when previous shipments of these heavy bombs did precisely that in Gaza City in the early stages of the war. “There’s not been a final determination at this time on how to proceed with that shipment,” Ryder said. While Netanyahu and Washington have continued their verbal boxing match, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) operation in Rafah has ploughed on but without the sort of offensive which caused such worldwide horror in past bombing missions in Gaza. The IDF’s 162nd Division which has been in Rafah for about six weeks, claims to have killed around 550 Hamas gunmen in the city, reportedly about half of the fighting force there, or the equivalent of two battalions of the four-battalion Hamas Rafah Brigade. In the process, the IDF has lost 22 soldiers, eight of them in a single ambush-attack by Hamas on an IDF armoured vehicle, It's in Israel’s interest to complete the Rafah operation as quickly as possible but it looks likely the IDF will have to wrap it up without those bombs held back in the US. Even then, the war is not going to end because Hamas operatives have been leaving Rafah to set up elsewhere in Gaza. Furthermore, as Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, IDF spokesman, said on Wednesday on Israel’s Channel 13 TV station, eradicating the whole Hamas organisation and its ideology was unattainable. Making Hamas disappear was “simply throwing sand in the eyes of the public,” he said. But this is Netanyahu’s goal upon which Israel’s survival, in his view, and his own political future depend. He duly rebuked the admiral. With all the challenges he is facing at home and in Gaza and across the northern border in Lebanon, the Israeli leader can ill afford to be confronted by disaffection in the military. 2