Ohad Zwigenberg/AP Photo
A billboard welcoming President Joe Biden, who traveled to Israel this week, is seen in Tel Aviv, October 18, 2023.
Biden and the Risk of Quagmire. The press has praised the whirlwind mission to Israel as Biden at his most presidential, showing the need for American leadership in the world, offering Israel both solace and counsel of restraint, as well as compassion for Palestinians. He displayed his own prowess and stamina; and he demonstrated a salutary contrast with the Republicans.
What Biden did was virtuous. But operationally, we have no idea what happens next, nor does Biden. A trip expressing solidarity with both Israel and the suffering Palestinian people was the easy part.
Will the Israeli army occupy Gaza? My sources say an invasion has been delayed but will go forward. Israel has no chance of eliminating Hamas without massive and gruesome casualties among both army occupiers and Gazan civilians. What of the Israeli hostages?
The U.S. is more engaged than ever, but the path back to a two-state solution is arduous and improbable. First, Bibi needs to go. How does that come about?
In last night’s speech calling for massive new military aid, Biden pledged that no American would be sent to fight in Israel or Ukraine. As the U.S. gets pulled deeper into both conflicts, maybe Biden can even keep that pledge.
But a prime destroyer of American presidencies and the credibility of America’s influence in the world has been prolonged military quagmires. Exhibit A is Vietnam, and Exhibit B is Iraq. Yes, it’s worse when American troops are getting killed. But a quagmire by proxy can be almost as bad for a president. Both the Mideast and Ukraine show every sign of becoming quagmires by proxy.
In reasserting an expansive conception of Pax Americana, Biden has assumed responsibility for resolving two of the world’s more fraught conflicts. There is near-consensus among foreign-policy experts that the Russia-Ukraine war only ends with a deal where the EU or NATO guarantees Ukraine’s security and in return Ukraine cedes the roughly 20 percent of its territory that is majority Russian-speaking and that Putin already holds. Biden can’t embrace that deal publicly, but his fervor in support of Ukrainian victory suggests that he doesn’t believe in it privately. Permanent warfare is good for neither Israel, Palestine, Ukraine—nor Biden.
The Fed: Relenting but Unrepenting. Fed Chair Jay Powell gave a major speech yesterday signaling that the Fed was ready to stop raising rates. He quietly ditched his long-term benchmark of 2 percent inflation, which was unattainable without a Fed-induced deep recession.
But current high interest rates, which the Fed shows no sign of cutting, are a blunt policy instrument that affects different sectors differently. Very costly home mortgages are killing housing, at a time when the nation suffers from a massive housing shortage.
One thing Powell has mastered, if not monetary policy, is the Delphic art of Fed-speak, allowing opposite interpretations. The Wall Street Journal headline: “Jerome Powell Signals Fed Will Extend Interest-Rate Pause” The New York Times: “Strong Economic Data ‘Could Warrant’ Higher Rates, Fed Chair Says.”
The House: Inevitable Bipartisanship. With the Republicans continuing to destroy each other, we will likely get de facto bipartisanship via Patrick McHenry as provisional Speaker, elected by a majority of Democrats plus maybe 50 Republicans. Or we may get an even more explicit bipartisanship with Democrats selecting a more moderate Republican Speaker backed by perhaps ten Republicans.
I’m betting on McHenry as temporary Speaker and then to ascend to full Speaker. As the French aptly put it, “C’est le provisoire qui dure.” That’s why Jim Jordan is so opposed to the idea.
