How Biden Broke NATO – WSJ

No wonder European leaders are apoplectic. U.K. Defense Minister Ben Wallace called the Trump -Biden agreement with the Taliban a rotten deal, in an interview this month after the Taliban started capturing chunks of the country. In Parliament on Wednesday, Tom Tugendhat chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee who served in the British forces in Afghanistan called Mr. Biden shameful for blaming the retreat on a supposedly pusillanimous Afghan military. Former Prime Minister Theresa May criticized Mr. Biden for following President Trump s lead in a unilateral negotiation with the Taliban.

Press reports say German Chancellor Angela Merkel told her conservative party she believed Mr. Biden withdrew for domestic political reasons. Her potential successor, head of the Christian Democratic Union Armin Laschet, called the Afghan withdrawal the biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding, and we re standing before an epochal change.

French President Emmanuel Macron took considerable flak in 2019 for saying NATO is experiencing brain death. He warned that with or without President Trump in office, the U.S. was becoming a less reliable ally and argued that Europe would need to reassess the reality of what NATO is in light of the commitment of the United States. Mr. Biden has made him seem prescient, and the wonder is that Mr. Macron has been too polite this week to point it out. French leaders are now planning for the refugee crisis Paris fears Mr. Biden has unleashed on Europe.

via www.wsj.com

It’s beginning to look like cognitive failure and the responsibilities of being POTUS just don’t mix. Who knew.