Jake Sullivan, who serves as President Joe Biden's National Security Advisor, has not been known for being great at setting expectations, predicting world events, or giving the American people an honest answer about the pressing questions of the day.
That, of course, has not stopped him from continuing to offer his supposedly expert opinion on such things, as he did with a recent essay in Foreign Affairs in which he waxed poetic about President Biden's supposedly brilliant and stabilizing foreign policy.
In a twist of awkward fate, Sullivan wrote and submitted his essay to Foreign Affairs which went to print before Hamas barbarians stormed into Israel and murdered the most Jews in any single day since the Holocaust.
When the online version of Sullivan's essay appeared this week, there were a few notable changes and deletions from his original version that went to print — apparent edits made as Sullivan seeks to save face after being caught praising the Biden foreign policy for successfully maintaining peace in the Middle East, protecting U.S. troops in the region, and keeping Iran contained.
According to an editor's note that appears with the online version, "Before this article was posted online, a passage in it about the Middle East was updated to address Hamas's attack on Israel, which occurred after the print version of the article went to press."
But it's not just that an acknowledgment of the terror attack on Israel was added. Some of Sullivan's words, rather conveniently, disappeared. By comparing the print version with the online version, just how outrageously braggadocios Sullivan was about the Biden administration's efforts in the Middle East, and how entirely wrong he and Biden have been in that arena, become glaringly clear.
Jake Sullivan wrote an essay for Foreign Affairs that went to print before Oct 7. For the online version that came out yesterday, they let him not just add new material but scrub the sections embarrassed by events. Some deleted gems from the original, not available online (1/6): pic.twitter.com/53e7E2Di9g
— Jeremy Stern (@JeremySternLA) October 25, 2023
For example, Sullivan wrote — then had removed — a passage stating the "Israeli-Palestinian situation is tense, particularly in the West Bank, but in the face of serious frictions, we have de-escalated crises in Gaza and restored direct diplomacy between the parties after years of its absence."
Team Biden "de-escalated crises in Gaza," you say? How exactly did that precipitate the Iran-backed Hamas terrorists' slaughter of more than 1,300 Israelis?
Sullivan's original essay also claimed that Biden took office with American troops being under attack in Iraq and Syria but, supposedly thanks to Biden, "[s]uch attacks, at least for now, have largely stopped."
Another misfire for Sullivan and the Biden admin, as the last several days have seen U.S. forces in the Middle East attacked at least 14 times, injuring dozens of American soldiers.
Other deleted portions of Sullivan's original underserved victory lap on behalf of the Biden administration included the claim that the president's "disciplined approach frees up resources for other global priorities, reduces the risk of new Middle Eastern conflicts, and ensures that US interests are protected on a far more sustainable basis."
Just how much did Biden's approach to foreign policy reduce the risk of new conflicts in the Middle East, Jake? It's almost as through handing Afghanistan to the Taliban and empowering Iran — the world's leading state sponsor of terror — was not the right approach, after all.
"We have acted militarily to protect US personnel, and we have enhanced deterrence, combined with diplomacy, to discourage further aggression [from Iran]," Sullivan also argued, apparently failing to predict that easing restrictions on Iran and unfreezing billions of dollars for Tehran would lead to more funding for Iranian proxy terrorists which would then attack Israel and American troops in the region.
Contrary to what Sullivan wrote before war erupted in the Middle East courtesy of Iran-backed terrorists, Biden's agenda is not "return[ing] discipline to U.S. policy," and the administration's emphasis on "deterring aggression, de-escalating conflicts, and integrating the region" actually failed to do any of that. No wonder Sullivan removed such claims from the edited online version.
Biden's foreign policy — toward the Middle East especially — did not and has not deterred aggression, de-escalated the conflict between bloodthirsty terrorists and Israel, or meaningfully integrated the region. The Trump administration's Abraham Accords did that, but Biden has sown distrust and projected an image of weakness to America's enemies in the Middle East.
Sure, the timing of the terrorist assault against Israel and U.S. forces in the Middle East couldn't have been worse for Sullivan. But the fact that the Biden administration apparently believed its track record on the world stage — even as things grew increasingly dangerous around the world — was worth celebrating as successful is brutally embarrassing.
Sullivan thought he had an opportunity to praise the good "fruits" of Biden's Middle East policy. Well, now the world is watching with equal horror and fear as the Biden foreign policy bears its fruit.