Let us set aside the astonishing hypocrisy here. With reference to Biden's impending appointments, how much of this will come to pass as he stocks the West Wing, the Pentagon and State?
Very, very little, in my view, and maybe none of it to any appreciable degree. This is not a difficult call. It is a bitter call, in part because it is not at all difficult.
Those who expected the Biden regime to give Americans a thoughtful, informed, post-exceptionalist foreign policy and I am not among these people are in for too many disappointments to list over the next four years. Let us consider a few of the more consequential.
No Peace Pipe with Russia
It is possible that Biden will open up space for negotiations to extend the about-to-expire New START arms-control treaty with Russia, crucial if we are to avoid another ruinous arms race. This would be a fine thing.
How cynically Biden would approach new talks is for now an outstanding question, but my answer is very if Rice, Flournoy and other such figures have anything to do with the undertaking.
Of this there is no question: Biden has zero intention of reversing our prevalent Russophobic paranoia and constructively recasting relations with Moscow.
No Peace in Northeast Asia
In his final presidential debate with Trump, Biden was vigorously critical of Trump's two summits with Kim Jong-un, accusing Trump of legitimizing "a thug."
He went on to say he would reassume the pre-Trump position on North Korea an insistence that Pyongyang meet U.S. demands before negotiations can begin on those very demands. It's an illogical nonstarter cynically intended to fail.
No Peace in the Mideast
There is little chance Biden will reverse much, or maybe any, of Trump's radical shift in Israel policy. Two reasons. One, by moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, subsequently recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory and negotiating a peace plan that is almost comically unbalanced in Israel's favor, Trump has moved the fence posts in U.S.-Israeli relations and Biden has neither the integrity nor the principle to address this forthrightly. Two, Biden is himself far too pro-Israel to risk a politically damaging breach either with Israel or on Capitol Hill.
Here he is telling a reporter that "You don't have to be Jewish to be a Zionist.
And here he is on the Senate floor saying that if Israel didn't exist, it would have to be invented.
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