There are lots of mostly bad things that President Joe Biden can justly take credit for, but the fall of Syria is not one of them. The only real reason this happened is because Israel threw off the shackles and decided to go after Hezbollah after a year of terror. And Biden did everything to prevent that.
At the very end, he used an arms embargo to force Israel into a fake "ceasefire" with Hezbollah. But by then Israel had done enough damage to Hezbollah that Turkey's Jihadists were able to just roll into Syria, and Iran decided to sell them out and pull back.
But now Biden is trying to take credit.
Biden delivered a mumbling teleprompter speech that looked like an Arab Spring leftover, calling it "a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria to build a better future for their proud country," and promised that "the United States will work with our partners and the stakeholders in Syria to help them seize an opportunity to manage the risk."
And promised more "humanitarian relief."
Mostly, though, Joe tried to take credit.
"You know, for years, the main backers of Assad have been Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia. But over the last week, their support collapsed — all three of them — because all three of them are far weaker today than they were when I took office," Biden mumbled. "The upshot for all this is, for the first time ever, neither Russia nor Iran nor Hezbollah could defend this abhorrent regime in Syria. And this is a direct result of the blows that Ukraine, Israel have delivered upon their own self-defense with unflagging support of the United States."
Ukraine certainly had the support of the administration. And that contributed to Assad's fall. But Israel did not have the administration's support. And it was Israel's campaign against Hezbollah that most directly led to this moment.
Biden provided Iran with sanctions relief and bailed out Hezbollah just as it was on the verge of defeat. He's trying to take credit for other people's victories while pretending that this was a desired outcome, rather than Turkey taking the initiative and exploiting a weakened Hezbollah.
Biden gets no credit here for anything except trying to save Hezbollah. And therefore, by extension, Assad.
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Reprinted by kind permission of the author and Front Page Magazine.
