Iran is Likely to Win the Propaganda War

The Biden Administration has bungled into a no-win scenario: appease the terrorists or lose the election.

The Biden Administration is desperate. In order to win re-election in November, the President critically needs to turn around support in much-needed swing states including Michigan and Wisconsin, which he won in 2020. The Real Clear Politics polling average has him behind former President Trump in those states by 1.6% and 1.8% respectively. Remember the Democratic Michigan primary had over 100,000 votes for “uncommitted” in February - a stunning rebuke of the sitting President. Both states have significant immigrant populations which are extremely unhappy with the President’s policies in Israel/Palestine and the broader Middle East, going so far as to name him, “Genocide Joe.”

At the same time, pro-Hamas protests continue to escalate across the nation at college campuses, most famously at Columbia University, where both Democratic and Republican Congresspeople have showed up to condemn the protests. Pictures and video of riot police firing tear gas, pepper spray and engaging in hand-to-hand combat to enforce University policy are proliferating, reminding many of the Civil Rights riots of 1968. The Democratic National Convention that year was plagued with race riots and brutal scenes of protesters being beaten by police, and helped to ensure the victory of law and order candidate Richard Nixon.

Surely, the Biden Administration realizes that if the conflict in Gaza and the subsequent protests in America continue it likely spells doom for their chances to remain in office. With three other center to progressive candidates in the race (RFK Jr, Cornel West, and Jill Stein), protest votes on this issue alone have the possibility of spoiling Biden’s candidacy. RFK Jr’s support is growing with a broad coalition of voters across party lines and two recent national polls showing his support at 16% - enough to be on the debate stage in the fall. The most recent CNN poll was devastating, showing a 5-way race with Trump +9 and Biden only +10 over the total of the 3 other candidates.

And so, the team that did much to foment the current Middle East crisis through ill-constructed policies of detente with Iran is now scrambling to end the violence that ensued. As we have reported previously, the Biden Administration and the Obama-Biden Administration:

…reversed the Trump Administration policy, and restarted aid to Palestine, which no one believes goes anywhere but to Hamas in Gaza. The Obama-Biden Administration lifted sanctions and sent perhaps $50B to Iran in 2015 without addressing Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism at all, in essence allowing Iran’s sponsorship of terror to continue unabated. More recently, Biden clandestinely opened up talks with Iran to restart such a deal and infamously sent Iran $6B in other frozen assets (in essence, lifting previous sanctions).

Since that was written, Biden has continued to not enforce sanctions aimed at Iranian oil exports, presumably to keep the price of oil from skyrocketing past its already inflated price. But the net effect is estimated to have sent Iran a further $32B to $35B since Biden took office and reversed the sanctions, enabling Iran to once again expand its terror campaigns through Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels and others. Once again proving that bad policy leads to worse choices.

Today, Iran has successfully propagandized a significant portion of the global left - the furthest progressives across the globe stand arm in arm with Hamas and their brutal tactics of rape, kidnapping and murder. President Biden has been strategized into a corner by his betters, who have forced the question: will his Administration continue to support Israel and increasingly alienate a significant part of his base, or cut the legs out from under Netanyahu by forcing an end to hostilities. That would leave Hamas in charge in Gaza and Iran emboldened to do more damage across the region, but more importantly for President Biden, it would likewise alienate a different and significant portion of his base, including the warmongers in Congress who profit from war and Jewish Americans.

And so we’ve seen a full court press trying to get a permanent ceasefire agreement with Hamas and Israel. Politico reports in their daily “Playbook” briefing that Biden has been “working the phones” with Prime Mininster of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tami Bin Hamas Al-Thani and Egypt’s Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi, urging them, “to exert all efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Iran.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Riyadh (again from the Playbook) is touring the region to stump for the latest offer to Hamas, calling it “extraordinarily generous.” One perhaps insurmountable obstacle is Netanyahu himself, who today made it clear he does not support the US deal and will attack Raffah (the last major Hamas territory) with or without such an agreement.

And thus the trap has been set and closed. Iran, Hamas and others know that Joe Biden is desperate to get this issue out of the Presidential race. And they know the clock is ticking, with the DNC’s convention scheduled for mid-August in Chicago - the same place the 1968 convention took place in a fantastic irony. Joe Biden’s campaign, struggling and behind in the polls despite Trump’s inability to campaign due to his many court proceedings, must see this threat as existential. President must solve this crisis if he has any hope of being re-elected. All of the players in this conflict know it.

Therefore, we should expect a terrible deal for Israel - that gives Iran and Hamas everything they want - to be force fed by the Biden Administration . And the long term implications will be disastrous - Hamas’ tactics of hiding in civilian centers like hospitals and schools will have shown to deliver the propaganda they need to extract concessions from a paralyzed Administration.

Worse still, with millions of unknown aliens roaming the United States, is it crazy to believe we won’t see similar tactics by Hamas elements in the homeland soon?