The Wall Street Journal recently reported Ukraine has struck at least 15 of Russia’s 30 major refineries since January. Despite pinning Ukraine flags on every lapel in Congress, Joe Biden and the Democrats have been reluctant to let Ukraine use donated weapons to strike Russian territory, so Kyiv has relied on its own drones to do it.
Last Tuesday Ukrainian drones targeted Russia’s third-largest oil refinery, as well as a facility that manufactures Shahed drones. And on Friday Ukraine struck Russia’s Morozovsk air base, destroying several military aircraft.
Some of these attacks occurred more than 750 miles from the Ukrainian border, a testament to Ukraine’s military innovation.
However, in keeping with former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s observation, "I think he [Biden] has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,”* last month the Financial Times reported the Biden Administration had urged Ukraine to halt its campaign targeting Russian refineries and warned that “the drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation.”
But this “don’t win, don’t lose” strategy advice should surprise no one given that when Russia attacked Ukraine Joe Biden’s first instinct was to offer Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a flight out of the country – it was never imagined by Biden or his Pentagon that Zelenskyy would want to stand and fight the Russians.
When Zelenskyy did stand and fight, instead of making it clear the United States would support Ukraine to ultimate victory Biden and his team have engaged in a halfhearted negotiation with Zelenskyy over what arms, equipment and training the Ukrainians needed to not lose.
Indeed, the Wall Street Journal reported U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith said that “in terms of actually going after targets inside Russia, that is something that the United States is not particularly supportive of.” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller declined last week “to speak to specific conversations” regarding the Russian refineries. But he said, “it has always been our position since the outset of this war that we do not encourage or support Ukraine taking strikes outside its own territory.”
So, Ukraine has to suffer attacks on its territory, but it can’t hit back at its aggressor?
Striking Russian air bases and drone facilities have obvious military value, and Russia’s refineries obviously help to fuel and finance the Kremlin’s war machine. Between Feb. 24, 2022, and January 2024, Russia has damaged or destroyed some $9 billion in Ukrainian energy infrastructure, according to a report from the Kyiv School of Economics cited by the Wall Street Journal.
It seems that even Joe Biden should recognize that there’s a big difference between not losing and winning, but it appears such is not the case.
The result that Biden is apparently aiming for has been a stalemated meatgrinder in which as many as a half million Ukrainian troops have been killed and wounded – with no end in sight to the carnage – little movement on the front and no realistic plan for victory by the United States, NATO, or Ukraine.
The result has been another apparently endless war in which the United States is being bled of money, military equipment, and international influence – a strategic defeat in fact if not in name.
And if an endless stalemate in Ukraine isn’t bad enough, Democrats are now trying to impose the same restrictions on Israel in its existential war with Hamas.
A group of Senate Democrats led by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) are demanding President Biden interpret the Foreign Assistance Act in a way that woould cut off military aid to Israel.
The senators argued in their letter to Biden that Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act requires the Biden administration halt the sale and transfer of weapons to Israel if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government continues to block U.S. humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
Last week 40 House Democrats, including former Speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi, similarly urged Biden to withhold pending arms transfers to Israel and to place conditions on future weapons transfers.
“In light of the recent strike against aid workers and the ever-worsening humanitarian crisis, we believe it is unjustifiable to approve these weapons transfers,” read the letter signed on Friday by the lawmakers, including former House speaker and Biden ally Nancy Pelosi.
Hamas-sympathizing outlet al Jazeera reported Hassan Barari, a professor at Qatar University’s Department of International Affairs, said the letter represents a “change in the American scene”, adding that “the whole Democratic party is moving to adopt this position, so it has become a mainstream position”.
The United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza, and demanding a halt to all arms sales to the country.
While countries like Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain and Belgium have suspended arms sales to Israel, the United States (at least for now) continues to supply Israel.
In a recent phone call Biden threatened Netanyahu with serious consequences if Israel did not change the way it was waging its war in Gaza. warned the prime minister that if conditions did not rapidly improve for civilians in the strip, he would reconsider how the US was backing Israel in the conflict.
Slowing down the US’ supply of weapons to Israel would be the most likely policy change, one senior administration official told CNN, pointing to a recently released national security memo that lays out standards foreign governments that receive US military aid must adhere to.
Democrats in Congress are now focusing on the looming deadline of May 8, when the administration will have to declare whether Israel is abiding by international humanitarian law and U.S. human rights laws.
Strangely absent from the Democrats’ demands was any mention of the release of American hostages or any demand for Qatar or any other Muslim state to stop supplying Hamas with weapons as part of a cease fire.
The Israelis have an announced plan for a “we win, they lose” campaign to assure the destruction of Hamas. “we have to destroy this terrorist, Nazi army, otherwise there’s no future for anyone,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu.
The response of the Joe Biden and his administration has not been to cheer on and support the destruction of our mutual enemy – the Iranian-supported Hamas terrorist organization – but to do everything in their power to stymie the Israeli effort to defeat them.
From manipulating arms shipments, to withholding diplomatic support, to using the bully pulpit of the presidency, Biden and the Democrats are replaying their Ukraine strategy in Israel – create another endless war by giving the Israelis enough to keep going, but not enough to carry the war through to final victory.
*Given Gates said this in 2014 it is now five decades and counting.
George Rasley is editor of Richard Viguerie's ConservativeHQ.com and is a veteran of over 300 political campaigns. A member of American MENSA, he served on the staff of Vice President Dan Quayle, as Director of Policy and Communication for then-Congressman Adam Putnam (FL-12) then Vice Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, and as spokesman for retired Rep. Mac Thornberry formerly a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
Russia’s Morozovsk air base
oil refineries
Ukraine drones
Zelenskyy
Biden administration
U.S. weapons
Vladimir Putin
peace negotiations
oil prices
targets inside Russia
Russian drone facilities
Israel Hamas war
ceasefire
Foreign Assistance Act
Humanitarian assistance to Gaza
Democrat party
Bibi Netanyahu
American hostages