With escalating turmoil on three continents, America and our allies now face arguably the most dangerous period since World War II with outcomes determined in large part by the strategic clarity and strength of our foreign policy leadership.
Presently, it isn't looking very encouraging.
As the war with Russia rages on in Ukraine, we currently witness horrific conflict between Israel and militant terrorist Iran proxies in Gaza which threaten to draw America into even broader Middle East hostilities aided and abetted by a strengthened Moscow and Beijing alliance.
Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden's national security adviser, recently cheered that due to positive developments, "the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades," purportedly enabling the administration to focus on other regions with serious problems.
Sullivan added that "Challenges remain, Iran's nuclear-weapons program, the tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. ... But the amount of time I have to spend on crisis and conflict in the Middle East today, compared to any of my predecessors going back to 9/11, is significantly reduced."
One week later, Iranian-supported Hamas terrorists launched a brutal unprovoked attack on civilian populations in Israel with the current death count of about 1,500 people — including 30 or more Americans.
In addition, about 200 others — including perhaps 20 Americans — were taken hostage as human shields against Israeli counterattacks in Gaza.
This all occurred but a week after the Biden administration released $6 billion in frozen Iranian money to secure a swap of five U.S. prisoners for several of theirs.
The elaborately planned and coordinated air, land, and sea assault on 20 Israeli towns happened almost 50 years to the day after the surprise Arab attack on Israel that marked the opening of the Yom Kippur War.
As for those nuclear weapons Sullivan mentioned, perhaps recall that he is best known for having originally initiated secret talks with Iranian officials that led to the Obama administration's disastrous 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — better known as the Iran Nuclear Deal.
Sullivan was subsequently dispatched to Austria by the Biden White House for negotiations aimed at resurrecting some sort of new understanding with Iran ayatollahs.
Any such notion is delusional given that according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has already achieved near weapons-grade 83.7% uranium enrichment at its Fordow plant south of Tehran — now just days or weeks away from presenting a global nuclear threat.
Add to this senseless incompetence, we are now learning that Robert Malley, the Biden administration's former envoy and top JCPOA negotiator, has reportedly had his security clearance suspended for allegedly mishandling classified information.
Malley is currently under investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, along with members of his negotiating team, for "compromising ties to the Iranian regime."
As noted by the New York Post, Malley grew up with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat as his unofficial godfather and once wrote that the Israeli treatment of Arabs was "shameful."
One might have imagined that an alert Sullivan who shared a key role in JCPOA negotiations might have known and alerted the Biden administration regarding such compromising matters before picking Malley for these sensitive strategic roles.
As reported in early July by the Tehran Times, an English-language outlet linked to the Iranian regime, their implanted sources informed them that two months before the news broke Malley met with Sullivan and CIA Director William Burns in "an attempt to resolve his predicament."
According to the article, Malley as of then, had been unsuccessful in securing a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a former classmate at the elite École Jeannine Manuel, a bilingual school in Paris.
Secretary Blinken has been very busy as of late attempting to deflect political heat over ransoming the release of five U.S. hostages followed by the kidnapping of four-times more prisoners while also apparently attempting to plaintively plead with Qatar officials to temporarily re-freeze the $6 billion they now control.
This after Blinken's State Department which signed off on designating Qatar a major non-NATO ally in 2022 continues to ignore the small oil-rich Persian Gulf sheikdom's open support for Hamas.
Per an arrangement reached in May 2021 after a conflict between Israel and Hamas, Qatar began to send fuel (valued at between $7-$10 million per month) to Gaza via Egypt, freeing funds for Hamas from the proceeds of resale.
Qatar also lavishly hosts Hamas' leader Ismail Haniyeh in Doha, its capital, along with his second-in-command Khalil al-Hayya who had served as deputy of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas' leader in Gaza.
Meanwhile, as the Biden White House has thus far attempted to disclaim direct evidence that Iran is the central bad actor and sponsor behind Hamas' latest atrocities, this denial contradicts a Wall Street Journal report that officers of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had met in Beirut with senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah in August to green light and help plan the attack.
Nor, in a political panic to quietly claw back the $6 billion in Iranian hostage ransom funds, is there any indication that the Biden administration will cut off much larger estimated $80-$90 billion in revenues from their oil exports — mostly to China — in a reversal of Trump sanctions.
No, under present White House leadership, it's not looking encouraging at all.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.