Who's running the foreign policy agenda for the Biden administration? I only ask because some folks seem to be running their own plan, and we have memos to prove it. We'll get to that in a second, but twice in the past month, we've had fake news about a temporary cessation of hostilities between Hamas and Israel. The political class doesn't call it a ceasefire, but that's what it is. The new poll-tested phrase is "humanitarian pauses," almost as nauseating as describing tax increases as "revenue enhancement."
The Biden administration hasn't been terrible at moving assets into the area. We have two carrier strike groups, a ballistic missile submarine, and an array of anti-ballistic missile systems deployed in the region. The announcement of the submarine in the area by CENTCOM shouldn't have happened, but it is what it is. But the diplomatic shenanigans are almost a throwback to a soft, deep state – only this one is pro-terrorist.
The White House is already besieged by dissent cables demanding the president pressure the Israelis to de-escalate their justified war against Hamas. It's as if the barbaric atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 against 1,200-1,400 Israeli men, women, and children have been memory-holed. If 45,000 Americans were slaughtered like those on October 7, this wouldn't be a debate, but thinking is hard for liberals. It's non-existent among those who are pro-Hamas, and dozens walk the halls of the State Department.
It's arguably slightly worse than the anti-Trump nonsense that engulfed the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, which saw staffers form a rebel group on encrypted devices connected through a group chat dubbed "Dumbledore's Army." At least they never leaked stuff to the press about ceasefires that were never agreed to by the parties involved.
The first foul-up centered on hours-long pauses to allow civilians to go through Israeli lines to safety. Israel denied this, adding that it's already enacted such a policy for days. The second was recently pushed by The Washington Post, where a five-day ceasefire was reportedly agreed to, except that it wasn't. The position has been the same: they're "close." Yet, Israel should continue to plow through Hamas until the group is annihilated. Then, there could be something better: an everlasting ceasefire in Gaza since a significant terror group is no more.
We have not reached a deal yet, but we continue to work hard to get to a deal. https://t.co/rbSqcqfaKo
— Adrienne Watson (@NSC_Spox) November 19, 2023