Presidents face crises that lie beyond their control. Ask George W. Bush about September 11, 2001 or Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Their legacies are defined by how they respond to them. President Joe Biden is handling the Russian invasion of Ukraine deftly, argues Franklin Foer in The Atlantic. A Hillary Clinton attack ad from 2008 proposed a 3 a.m. call to the White House to suggest Barack Obama was dangerously underqualified to be president. Biden actually took that call and responded skillfully to a Ukraine crisis that could easily escalate into nuclear war:
Joe Biden hasn’t received the full credit he deserves for his statecraft during this crisis, because he has pursued a policy of self-effacement. Rather than touting his accomplishments in mobilizing a unified global response to the invasion, he has portrayed the stringent sanctions as the triumph of an alliance. By carefully limiting his own public role—and letting France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz take turns as the lead faces of NATO—he has left Vladimir Putin with little opportunity to portray the conflict as a standoff with the United States, a narrative that the Russian leader would clearly prefer. He’s shown how to wield American leadership in the face of deep European ambivalence about its exercise.
His handling of the domestic politics of the crisis has been just as savvy. Although he could justifiably have portrayed Republicans as the party of Putin apologists, he refrained from dinging his political enemies. During his State of the Union address, he actively encouraged Republicans to feel as if they were his partners in a popular front.
This is surely redolent of the bipartisan foreign policy that Biden nostalgically yearns to revive. But it’s also an important tactic. By depoliticizing the issue, he has made it likely that Congress will quickly fund aid and arms for the Ukrainian military. And as gas prices spike, it will be rhetorically harder for Republicans to effectively pin the blame on him, because they have been fully supportive of sanctions.
Hardly. Republicans and their News Corp. propaganda arm will try.
Would Republicans support cutting off Russian oil imports then turn around and blame Biden for higher gas prices? Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy responded with sarcasm, writes Slate’s Jim Newell:
“Of course Republicans are going to savage Democrats for an increase in gas prices, and will not reference their support for a Russian oil embargo at all,” Murphy, stepping down from the sarcasm, went on. “We just need to be ready for that, that Republicans are not going to play this straight.”
Biden has played his role less reflexively, writes Foer, avoiding bluster and refusing to match Putin’s putting his nuclear arsenal on “special combat readiness.” Biden has rebuffed calls for establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine that would allow Putin to argue he and Russia are U.S. targets. Not to mention sparking WWIII.
After Afghanistan revealed a failure to imagine the worst-case scenario, Biden’s response to Russia’s war has been marked by its creativity. In advance of the invasion, the administration surreptitiously hastened its shipments of arms to Ukraine, bestowing on it an armament well suited to the eventuality of urban combat. By preparing a suite of unconventional sanctions long before Putin’s troops crossed the border, the administration avoided the need to cobble together policy and the scramble to inform allies of its plans. The legwork was already done. Most impressively, it broadcast its intelligence about Russia to the world in anticipation of an invasion. (Having a veteran diplomat as CIA chief helps.) Because its assessment of Russian intentions proved to be painfully accurate, the maneuver has helped reclaim the lost trust of allies and the global public.
“In the middle of Joe Biden’s 3 a.m. call, I find myself grateful that he’s the one answering the phone,” Foer concludes. Perhaps he had the former president in mind in writing that.
The United States “should label its F-22 planes with the Chinese flag and ‘bomb the s–t out of Russia.’” former president Donald Trump told top GOP donors on Saturday. “And then we say, China did it, we didn’t do it, China did it, and then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch.”
Yeah, we might have had that guy in the White House. It’s enough to send cold chills down your spine.
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