The US Abstention – Incipit Parodia

The dangerous case of a superpower becoming a parody of itself

This enigmatic and unsettling development…, can be seen as a manifestation of the fact that the whole world as Nietzsche would soon announce was going back to being a fable again.

Roberto Calasso, Literature and the Gods

Yesterday’s US abstention of a UN Security Council resolution supported by Russia, China, Iran and Hamas is the final proof that the Biden-Blinken foreign policy has turned the US into a parody of a superpower.   While superpowers in general take advantage of their allies in order to mold the global scene to its own interests the fact that the stronger and the weaker are allies means that at the base – they share the same interests.   In the case of the post-WWII Pax Americana where all free countries – and many not free ones – have become victims of brutal, cruel and seemingly random terrorist attacks the base interest is ridding the world of these terror groups – or at the least of limiting their victories.

Ever since entering office the Biden administration foreign policy, led by Anthony Blinken, has propped up and supported terrorist groups and the states that sponsor them while abandoning allies who have sacrificed their sons and daughters fighting them.   In Afghanistan, the Biden-Blinken escape left thousands of individual Afghanis who helped the US navigate that difficult country and who trusted the United States government with the assurance – or at least so they thought – that they would never be abandoned to the Taliban.   Many more thousands of women, who went to school and university and planned for a future of, if not freedom in the Western sense, at least dignity, were abandoned to the burka and the whip of the Taliban.

As Russia was threatening to invade Ukraine the President made sure to tell Vladimir Putin that a small invasion would be acceptable just as the “small” invasion of Crimea and the Donbas were years earlier and the Georgian one before that.   Twice already the US reneged on an agreement with Ukraine to assure its territorial integrity in exchange for giving up nuclear weapons.   In spite of making that clear to Putin, Biden-Blinken again showed that it was a parody of a superpower by abandoning a core aspect of US foreign policy since WWII – non proliferation of nuclear weapons.  Instead of encouraging countries to abandon their quest for nuclear weapons, the administration assured allies and enemies alike that the only way to security was by obtaining their own weapons of mass destruction.

This policy abandonment of non-proliferation was started of course in the Obama years as it signed an agreement with Iran that allowed them – legally – to obtain nuclear weapons in ten years while developing their medium and long range missile program (again legally) and their funding of terror throughout the middle-east, Africa and South America (this with a wink and a nod).  The Biden administration went one step further as they re-started talks to negotiate a new agreement after Trump cancelled the previous one.   But in spite of (or because of?) concession after concession Iran showed the US who was the real regional power and who was, as the Chinese used to call the US – a “paper tiger”.     This is not to speak about the planeloads of cash – yes actual cash! – that Obama delivered to Iran or the more recent freeing up of Iranian assets – up to $10 billion – without so much as a demand to stop their proxies from attacking US troops.

In the Red Sea we might see the greatest example of parody.   While the US and the UK – who together and apart have ruled the seas for the past three centuries were tasked with assuring freedom of passage in a small strait in a small sea, the greatest Navies the world has ever seen were held to task.  Not because of a lack of firepower or technology or bravery by their sailors and officers but by the inability of their political betters to understand the importance of the hour and the importance of the task.  The US Navy and the Marines were created, arguably, in order to defend freedom of the seas when Jefferson sent them to fight the Barbary Pirates and yet, in spite of all the trade upon which the US depends, has shown the Russians the Iranians and most of all the Chinese that while they have the firepower of a superpower they have the will of cowards.

Certainly, the Philippines are looking closely as to what is happening in the Red Sea and what happened in the UN yesterday.   They are fighting off a superpower on their own, their rickety supply boats defenseless against the Chinese navy and coast guard and, in spite of a new security agreement with the US – on their own.    We haven’t even gotten to the cowardice of the administration in the Western hemisphere as Cuba, Venezuela and Haitian gangs look on with smiles on their faces.

Which leads us back to the UN resolution yesterday.   The absurdity of the US abstention, surrendering to and accepting Hamas as a legitimate group worthy of being negotiated with and accepting the Hamas, Iranian, Russian and Chinese “narrative” of the war in Gaza – makes the US a parody of itself, Biden a parody of FDR and Reagan and Blinken a parody of Marshall and Kissinger.    The Hamas/Iran/Russia/China narrative of Gaza has been swallowed wholly by Blinken, Cameron, Macron and others without a hint of irony. 

Although it is not too late for the US to return to being a true superpower, time is certainly not unlimited.   It could start by standing strong against the Axis that is attempting to destroy its power and by acting in its own base interests by supporting its allies instead of parroting the narrative of its enemies. 

Until then, the parody continues.