Slew of vexing international crises confront Biden a year out from Election Day

Presidential campaigns after the Cold War era have largely been decided on domestic issues rather than international affairs. President Joe Biden, however, won’t have the luxury of focusing mostly on the homefront as he prepares for a likely rematch against former President Donald Trump in November 2024.

The latest and most urgent conflagration stems from Israel’s defensive fight against Hamas terrorists. The Jewish state is just beginning to retaliate for the Oct. 7 attacks so brutal and barbaric they invoke grisly memories of Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust epic Schindler’s List.

ISRAEL WAR: BIDEN FACES HIS LATEST INTERNATIONAL AND POLITICAL CRISIS

With more than 1,200 killed in Israel and 2,600 wounded in the deadliest incursion on Israeli territory in its history, support for the Middle East’s only democracy runs deep in Congress. The only real sentiment against Israel in its time of grave peril comes from the Democratic Party’s far-left fringe figures like Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Cori Bush (D-MO) — both describe it as “an apartheid state” and call for the end of U.S. funding.

Biden, a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman during his 36 years in the chamber as a Delaware Democrat, also had a considerable foreign policy portfolio as vice president for eight years under President Barack Obama. And since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Biden and his administration have steered U.S. foreign policy toward the beleaguered Eastern European nation.

To be sure, these international crises have strong domestic components. With the Israel situation, there’s a direct U.S. tie, with American citizens among those being held hostage. And up to 25 Hamas attack casualties are dual Israeli-American citizens.

Convincing the American public of a direct interest in the U.S. to support Ukraine amid its defensive war against Russia is a tougher sell. Though military aid to Ukraine commands majority support in Congress, a deep isolationist streak runs through Hill Republicans. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and a vocal minority of their GOP colleagues, fervent Trump supporters, contend Ukraine aid saps financial resources needed for domestic concerns.

The Biden administration may try a workaround by including in its Israel military aid funding request materials for Ukraine as well as Taiwan, which is facing a military threat from China. Funding to strengthen security of the U.S.-Mexico border could also be included.

Border funding was a casualty of wrangling between the Republican majority House, Democratic Senate, and Biden White House during the final days of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) nine-month tenure in his chamber’s top job. McCarthy brought to the House floor a “clean” funding bill, minus aid for Ukraine and the border. The measure passed but enraged some of the most conservative House Republicans, who wanted much broader budget cuts. McCarthy soon was ousted, likely to be succeeded by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), who is a big Israel supporter but has been coy on Ukraine aid.

Biden, in a Tuesday speech, promised to ask Congress “to take urgent action to fund the national security requirements of our critical partners.”

Biden noted the cause’s bipartisan support.

“This is not about party or politics,” he said. “This is about the security of our world, the security of the United States of America.”

Israel’s Counteroffensive
It’s an open question how these foreign policy crises confronting Biden come together. But it has the potential to be bad news for Biden, just over a year out from Election Day.

Israel’s war with Iran-backed Hamas, coupled with the slow progress of Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia and uncertainty regarding future Ukraine support, “paints a picture of an administration taking backwards steps in foreign and security policy,” said retired Army Col. Rich Outzen, an Atlantic Council senior fellow.

“Our friends remain under threat, Iran and Russia have not been deterred or adequately punished for their aggressive behaviors, and there is little consistent vision or leadership coming from the White House,” Outzen, a former State Department adviser, told the Washington Examiner. “Instead, there are a lot of mixed messages.”

Alexander Hamilton Society Executive Director Gabriel Scheinmann said Biden’s foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, is in “shambles” after he distanced himself from Israel and Saudi Arabia while he “sought to legitimize or acquiesce Iranian power.”

“From the desire to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal, from the amount of sanctions relief that the administration basically gave the Iranians, not just the hostage money recently, but the oil revenues are really the big one, over the course of two years,” Scheinmann told the Washington Examiner.

Ukraine’s Fight for Survival
While there’s somewhat less overt support for backing Ukraine, tying the two foreign crises together may help achieve financial support for both.

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the Israel-Hamas war will “complicate matters more for those who are opposing funds for Ukraine.”

Goldberg added, “We now have two democracies under assault by anti-American forces, both in need of sustained U.S. military support, both willing to do all the fighting without a single American soldier being put in harm’s way.”

Goldberg, who in the Trump administration was the director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction for the White House National Security Council, said of the Biden administration funding strategy, “If the White House requests a supplemental that combines emergency assistance for Israel with emergency assistance for Ukraine, the pro-Putin caucus in the House will have a difficult time maneuvering.”

For American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Danielle Pletka, Republican opposition to Ukraine funding is “a gift from GOP exotics” to Biden.

“The overall perception is of a United States riven and weak, unable to lead on the world stage, run by old men and young nuts,” Pletka told the Washington Examiner. “That’s why Iran felt empowered to unleash its creatures on Israel.”

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With Biden’s average approval rating at a net negative 14 percentage points and his foreign policy approval at a net negative 16 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics, the longer both wars last, the more political challenges they will pose the president.

“At some point, the images start to play a factor, and American presidents, their support does not stay steadfast all the way through,” Scheinmann said. “That’s the question he’s going have to figure out.”