I’m not a praying man, but if I were, I would be on my hands and knees thanking the Almighty that during the worst crisis in Europe since 1945, the United States is led by Joe Biden, not Donald Trump.

Biden has been as masterful in his handling of the Ukraine war as he was ham-handed in his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. For months he has been warning that Russia would invade and predicting that this would trigger a “swift and severe” response. He even laid out details of Russian plans to stage false flag operations and to install a puppet regime in Kyiv.

There was much skepticism on all counts, with Russia and its apologistsdenying until the last moment that the invasion would occur. But Biden was dead right. This is the opposite of the Iraq War, when U.S. intelligence and leadership was discredited. American credibility has been enhanced by Biden’s deft handling of this crisis. Today it is Moscow, not Washington, that is acting based on bad intelligence: Russian dictator Vladimir Putin massively underestimated Ukrainian resistance.

While publicly calling out Putin, Biden and his aides were working furiously behind the scenes to unite the West behind an agenda meant to support Ukraine, punish the Kremlin — and, implicitly, to deter China from an attack on Taiwan. Their efforts were more successful than anyone could have imagined a few weeks ago, with Western countries uniting to evict some Russian banks from the SWIFT system of inter-bank transfers, to impose sanctions on the Russian central bank and to rush arms to Ukraine.

Admittedly, part of this mobilization is due to factors beyond Biden’s control: Putin’s reckless aggression has shocked the world, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s stout resistance has inspiredit. But there would not have been this degree of unity absent strong American leadership….

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Biden has hardly been flawless. He should have sent more military equipment earlier to Ukraine, particularly Stinger missiles, without worrying about provoking Putin. But he has generally been sure-handed in this crisis, knowing just how far he can go — and no further. The White House, for example, has rightly rejected calls for a no-fly zonethat would bring the United States into direct conflict with another nuclear-armed state. And, in the face of Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling, Biden has wisely de-escalated by not increasing U.S. alert levels. It is a great comfort in this dangerous time to know that, while Russia might be led by an unhinged egomaniac, the United States no longer is.

The one thing missing from Biden’s response has been a prime-time address to explain the stakes to the American people. Biden’s central flaw is that still thinks like the senator he was for so many decades, preferring behind-the-scenes persuasion to stirring oratory. But the State of the Union address on Tuesday night fills that gap.

 

Note…

Looking at Donald Trump while first in office and his gushing comments intially about the Russian President?

Maybe President Trump would asked American troops to help the Russians invade the Uklraine and treaten the Europeans to NOT stand in the way?