Philosophical Apprentice approaches with doubt and caution!

The first four paragraph’s of Rachman’s essay are a bit overwrought, indeed bordering on the melodramatic. It hasn’t occurred to this self-imagined Political Technocrat, that the World is changing/evolving, at such a speed that ‘it’ has left him, and his newspaper behind?

How many international conflicts can one superpower handle at the same time? The Biden administration is currently trying to deal with wars in the Middle East and Europe, while preparing for a surge in tensions between China and Taiwan.

All this is taking place under the lengthening shadow of Donald Trump. His possible return to the White House poses profound questions about the future of US democracy and the country’s role in the world.

The combination of all these events is creating a palpable sense of tension and foreboding in government offices in Washington. It is not just the sheer number of crises coming at the Biden administration, but the fact that many are heading in the wrong direction — the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, for example. And the polls look bad for Biden.

The foreign crises could come to a head quite fast. “The next three months could determine the next few years,” is how one senior US official puts it. A prominent Democrat worries that “by January, we could be talking about how Joe Biden lost Ukraine”.

https://www.ft.com/content/b42c62f7-57e6-4899-affe-a376cc568d3d

The long blind quote, attributed to ‘one senior US official’ rehearses a worn-out journalistic feint. The next three paragraphs are devoted the War in Ukraine, that appears to be lost to the experts, not employed by Corporate Newspapers, Think Tank Careerists, Network Television/Internet Hybrid employees.

New funding for the Ukrainian military and its civilian institutions is stuck in Congress…

The War in The Middle East, Rachman lacks the moral honesty to call this not War, but Genocide!

The precariousness of Ukraine’s situation is getting less attention than it should because of the Middle East. The Biden administration is paying a heavy political price, at home and abroad, for its support for Israel. The US is now putting public pressure on Israel to change its military tactics in Gaza and to kill fewer Palestinian civilians…

Four more paragraphs devoted to ‘The Middle East’:

But American concerns extend well beyond Gaza….

For consideration next, is the China/Taiwan…

The current expectation in Washington is that the Taiwanese presidential election on January 13 will be won by Lai Ching-te, who is regarded in Beijing as a dangerous separatist…

The two final paragraphs of this ‘essay’ offers an recapitulation of what has come before, that reifies the perceived ‘impression of US weakness and decline’. The Rachman essay ends in a vexing quandary, the self-serving position of a Political Thinker, who demonstrates his pretense of modesty/fallibility ?

With the US presidential election less than a year away, all these international crises feed into American politics. Trump will take every opportunity to accuse Biden of presiding over an era of weakness and retreat, citing Afghanistan, Ukraine, Gaza and the Taiwan Strait.

A chaotic and divisive US election — with Trump as the central figure — will contribute powerfully to that impression of US weakness and decline. China, Russia and Iran will relish asking how America can promise to defend democracies overseas, when its own democracy is in so much trouble at home. Unfortunately, it is a good question.

Philosophical Apprentice