Joe Biden and the new ‘Axis of Evil’ ‘Israeli society will explode’

David Frum was one of George W. Bush’s speechwriters. After the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, he coined the term “the axis of evil” to his boss. This meant the states of Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Their common goal was the destruction of the United States.

Russia, China and Iran are pursuing this goal today. Joe Biden doesn’t use the term “axis of evil.” However, in his address to the nation on Thursday evening, the US president spoke clearly:

Unlike Barack Obama, Biden is not a great speaker. But his speech shows that a president has discovered his job. Michael Beschloss, a historian specializing in American presidents, explains in the New York Times: “When a president has found his mission, you usually hear and see it.”

Saving democracy is Biden’s mission. That’s why he took on Donald Trump in 2020. The starting point was the events of 2017 in Charlottesville, a city in the state of Virginia. At the time, neo-Nazis protested the removal of a statue of Confederate General Charles Lee. They chanted slogans such as ‘The Jews will not replace us’.

Nowadays, the threat to the rule of law and democracy does not only come from neo-Nazis, but especially from authoritarian states such as Russia, China and Iran. They are now doing everything they can to exploit Hamas’ horrific massacre to their advantage. They are using the equally horrific attack on a hospital in the Gaza Strip – which was most likely caused by a defective rocket from the terrorists themselves – as an opportunity for anti-American propaganda.

The Economist states:

In Biden’s eyes, the current situation is very similar to the period before the Second World War. In the course of the so-called ‘appeasement’, Hitler was left to his own devices for far too long and thus made the Second World War possible.

President Biden does not want to repeat this mistake. He therefore strongly advocates that the Americans should not shirk their geopolitical responsibility and must resolutely oppose Putin, Xi Jinping and Hamas. He has therefore announced that he will submit an aid package probably worth around $100 billion to Congress for approval. The aid is intended for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

Biden in no way wants this aid to be seen as charity. “It is a wise investment that will pay off for American security for generations to come,” he said. “It will help prevent our soldiers from getting involved in wars and it will help make the world a safer and more prosperous place for our children and grandchildren.”

Convincing his own country of this mission will likely be as difficult for Biden as rallying the rest of the world behind him. Isolationism, the desire of Americans to be an island of the blessed for themselves, has a long tradition in the US. After the failed campaign against Iraq and the disaster in Afghanistan, many Americans are also tired of the war.

A growing number of Republicans have long spoken out against aid to Ukraine, on demagogic grounds that this money would be used to better secure the border with Mexico. Those who understand Putin are gaining support, not least because the majority of Americans cannot find Ukraine on the world map.

What makes matters worse is that Republicans still haven’t found a new Speaker, so the House of Representatives is in no position to pass an aid package.

The late former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright described the US as the “indispensable nation” in the 1990s. This still applies today. President Biden has an incredibly great responsibility: at the same time, he must convince Israel not to act too brutally against the Palestinians. He must keep the moderate Arab states – Jordan, Bachrain and especially Saudi Arabia – in line and the “crazies” in Congress at bay.

The American president cannot shift the burden to others. “Mr. Biden is the only statesman who can hold it together,” notes the Economist. “If it fails and security in the Middle East collapses, it will also be a catastrophe for America.”