Is Joe Biden too weak against Iran? In any case, this is what the adversaries of the American president, who is seeking a second term, hammer home on Monday, urging him to respond harshly to the death of three American soldiers in Jordan.
• Read also: American soldiers killed in Jordan: Iran denies any involvement
• Read also: Three American soldiers killed in Jordan
The Democrat “only has blows to take,” analyzes Colin Clarke, research director at the Soufan Center.
The White House attributed the drone attack, aimed at a base in northeastern Jordan near the Syrian border, to pro-Iran groups.
Joe Biden immediately declared that America would “respond”, and the response will be “consequential”, assured Monday a spokesperson for the executive, John Kirby.
He has little choice, according to Colin Clarke, otherwise he would be “overwhelmed in the middle of an election year by the Republicans, who could say that under Biden, soldiers are dying and that there is no strong response, while Trump eliminated (General Qassem) Soleimani”, former architect of Iranian military strategy, targeted by an American strike in January 2020.
The former Republican president, big favorite in his party’s primary and likely rival to Joe Biden in the November election, has already taken up the matter.
- Listen to the American political column with Professor Luc Laliberté via QUB :
“Coward”
He described his 81-year-old Democratic opponent as “weak”, and assured that this attack would “never” have happened under his mandate.
The 77-year-old Republican takes this as an opportunity to support his campaign narrative: he presents himself as a strong providential man, capable of ensuring the security of America through his sole authority, without getting involved in the conflicts that are shaking the world.
Without a strong response against Iran, “Joe Biden would confirm that he is a coward, unworthy of being commander in chief” of the armed forces, raged the Republican senator from Arkansas, Tom Cotton.
But by fighting back, Joe Biden risks alienating the progressive fringe of the Democratic Party, and “he cannot afford to lose too many votes, at a time when he is already struggling with young people and those who criticize him to write a blank check to Israel” in its war against Hamas, underlines Colin Clarke.
Criticisms from the right of Joe Biden’s Iranian policy deemed complacent are not new, but the conflict in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the attack by the Palestinian group supported by Tehran, has relaunched them.
“(The Biden administration’s) deterrence strategy has failed miserably. There have been more than 100 attacks against American troops in the region since October 7, noted an influential Republican senator, Lindsay Graham.
Coffins
But none of these attacks caused any casualties.
This is not the first time that Joe Biden’s mandate has been shaken by the death of American soldiers.
On August 26, 2021, against the backdrop of the chaotic withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, 173 people, including 13 American soldiers, were killed in an attack near Kabul airport.
It was at this moment that for the first time, Joe Biden’s popularity curves were reversed, with unfavorable opinions taking precedence over favorable opinions. Discontent was then confirmed, fueled by very high inflation, and the president today displays an anemic confidence rating.
The Democrat had justified the departure from Afghanistan by the desire to no longer risk the lives of American soldiers.
This was one of the big promises of his previous presidential campaign: in a foreign policy speech in July 2019, candidate Biden promised that, if elected, he would end the “endless wars (of the ‘America) in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
