Judging Freedom - Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Biden's Foreign Failures

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Biden's Foreign FailuresSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, January 17th, excuse me, January 18th, 2024. Professor Jeffrey Sachs joins us now from Thailand. Professor Sachs, thank you very much for taking the time on a very busy trip to spend this time with us. Much appreciated, of course. You have a very interesting piece out just 24 or 48 hours ago about the failures of Joe Biden's foreign policy. Before we get granular into Ukraine and Israel-Gaza, I want to talk big picture. What is the essence of Joe Biden's foreign policy? Is it idealistic, however wrong that might be, that the United States is the essential country? Or is it pugilistic that we can use violence to dominate, to feed the military-industrial complex? It is an approach. The approach is we don't need diplomacy. We just need to decide what we're going to do.

And this is what the Biden administration has done with regard to Ukraine, where we're enmeshed in an ongoing and extraordinarily costly and bloody war. It is the same with the Middle East, where basically Israel is calling the shots and we're providing the munitions. And that is a disaster as well, a disaster for the people of Palestine. It's a disaster for Israel because it's not solving any problems and the war and the violence is spreading in the region. And of course, there's a major disruption of international shipping trade in the Red Sea now in the U.S. is in another battle with the Houthis in Yemen who are shelling ships in the Red Sea. Then we have the rising tensions and controversy again with China over Taiwan and over many issues, but there was an election in Taiwan just last week. And the first thing the administration has done is to send high representatives to Taiwan against the express wishes of China, which says, you, the United States, have a one China policy with us, and we and you have

diplomatic relations, and we ask you again not to interfere in our internal affairs by pretending or acting as if you have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Now, in all of these cases, the point is that there is a tremendous amount of tension, and this administration has not solved any of these crises, not avoided any war. It has called for escalation repeatedly to this very moment. Biden is pushing for another $75 billion of funding, $61 billion for Ukraine, no off-ramps, no effective reduction of tensions. So this is the sense in which I think this is just a debacle. Now, what's the fundamental motivations for this? Right. What is it? I think fundamentally, we have a war machine system in the United States. We have a more than a trillion dollar war machine always revving. And a president of the United States needs to resist that and say that diplomacy has to be the guiding principle of foreign policy. If the president fails to do that, the war machine basically takes over. It takes over in Congress. It takes over in the Pentagon,

the CIA, the White House, the State Department. And Biden not only hasn't resisted any of that constant tendency towards war, he has fed it, and that's been true throughout his political life, unfortunately. Hasn't it also been true for every president since the one who warned us most poignantly about this, Dwight Eisenhower? Every one of his successors has fed that military-industrial complex, whether it was a—and none of them, as far as the law is concerned, were fighting validly congressionally declared wars. Well, you know, in my interpretation of things, a lot goes back to 1947, which is when the National Security Act was put in place after World War II. And that National Security Act created the Central Intelligence Agency,

but it made a mistake that actually Truman sensed right from the start, which was it gave two functions to the CIA. One, the I, the intelligence, and having an intelligence agency is probably inevitable and necessary to know what's going on or to help to understand. But it also created a private army of the president. And this is really the second function, the operations, so-called function. And the CIA since then got us trapped in so many coups, so many wars, so much instability, and built up a system of nonstop conflict. And of course, the Pentagon is also part of that. So I don't want to simplify, but Eisenhower was, of course, he was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces

in World War II. He knew a thing or two about how the military operated. And that's why he warned us in his farewell address in January 1961, beware of this military industrial complex. 1962 or three, but it's before JFK was killed, if it's in 63, he wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post saying exactly what you said. I intended for the CIA just to be eyes and ears. We did not intend for it to be a private army, and that part should go. Now, that appeared in the morning edition of the Washington Post, and those days newspapers had two, the major ones had two editions. It did not appear in the evening edition. That's how upset the Washington Post's masters in Langley were at what Truman, who created the CIA, had come to believe 15 years after its creation. There has essentially been no accountability of that agency and of what has become a cornerstone of American foreign policy, which is covert action. So that not only are destabilizing actions at the center of our policies, but they are not expressed, explained, reviewed, or held accountable.

And there have been dozens and dozens of coups, very fine book called Covert Regime Change by Professor Lindsay O'Rourke counted 64 covert regime change operations between 1947 and 1989. She put a cutoff date because for those older events, you could get some Freedom of these have led to havoc, to unrest that has never been resolved in country after country. And my own view, as we've discussed quite a bit, is that Ukraine is just another one of these. The Syrian conflict is just another one of these. I see a lot of things in diplomatic work that I don't really, I wish were not the case. And it is this secrecy and lack of accountability and lack of clarity. And when it comes to the Biden administration right now, they play into all of this. They support it. To this moment, they're trying to continue these wars. How is it that an agreement had been reached between Russia and Ukraine in March 2022 and the U.S. stopped it? And this is never discussed in our mainstream newspapers, in the Washington Post, in the New York Times.

And we don't have a discussion because this stuff is done secretly. And when you have a foreign policy that's secret, how can it ever be successful? All it does is undermine every form of trust and it foments conflict everywhere. I know you're an economist and not a psychiatrist, but what do you think provokes the sort of anti-Diluvian view of foreign policy? Russia is evil. Israel can do no wrong. Is this Joe Biden stuck in a mentality of his formative years, if he had formative years, when he entered politics 50 years ago? You know, there was a famous moment after 9-11 in the Bush-Cheney days when someone was critiquing the policy as not being realistic. And the retort was, we create our own reality. And what the retort meant was everything is spin.

We define what reality is. So we have dumbed down communication. We have dumbed down any manner of congressional oversight. You and I have discussed many times the inanities that are coming out of Kirby's mouth, the spokesman at the White House, obviously false, lies, but it's all narrative. This is because the discourse is dominated by spin. It is a disdain for the public and it is a disdain for democratic institutions and deliberation to try to avoid disaster. So I don't think they believe, they can't believe what they're saying because they know the truth, but they think that their job is to spin from morning

till night, keep the news cycle filled, give the New York Times something to write because the reporters just write down what they're told by some unnamed senior official. And I think this is what has really happened. We don't have honest discussion about any issue. We can't even carry an idea in public discourse in an intelligent way, two days at a time. And this is very, very serious. I'm sorry to say that I agree with you. This is correct. And it's very serious. I'm smiling because I had a conversation. I'm going to run this clip and I know I'm going to get some pushback for running it. Not from you, but from viewers that are not crazy about this person. The spin

meister himself from Fox News in the era when we were both there, Bill O'Reilly was on. Just listen to what he said. And part of it is his bias. And part of it is what you just discussed is not in the news. disruption of the agreement between Ukraine and Russia that was made in Turkey in 2022. Listen to his response. You know, I got to be real suspicious about this. Not the way the USA does business. We don't send Boris Johnson over to negotiate treaties.

It's just not the way the country does business. Look, Biden's befuddled. He doesn't know what's happening from day to day. He can't grasp complex issues anymore. He's mentally not up for the job. But this whole thing doesn't stack up for me. I'd have to know a lot more about this guy, what his job was, who was at those meetings. Putin wasn't at them. He wasn't there. Fair. No, no, I wasn't there. If I were there.

I mean, come on. I mean, anybody can say anything. Chris, do we have the Ukrainian ambassador? Watch this clip, Jeff. One of the negotiators in Turkey. Eric Hamia, probably. Yes. Chris is still looking for it.

All right. All right. So listen, O'Reilly was mouthing the view that, you know, this isn't on the front pages. I don't know what happened. I don't believe that Boris Johnson disrupted it. But you're right. There is no transparency and there is no accountability. So there are two problems here. One is that we caused this war by disrupting this handshake

agreement that was largely written down and would have satisfied both sides. The other is that we're hiding what we did to cause all of this destruction. Do you think that the Biden administration, the Lindsey Graham's, it's not in the administration, the Victoria Nuland's recognize that their efforts to use the war in Ukraine as a battering ram to drive President Putin from office has been a dismal, catastrophic, monumental failure. Well, let me start with what we do know about the events in March 2022. I personally had extensive discussions with the mediators. I went to Ankara, Turkey, to learn in detail what happened. I've had discussions with other senior officials who were

directly involved. We've had the former prime minister of Israel, Naftali Bennett, explain how the United States came in and broke the agreement. We had the head of Zelensky's party in the Ukrainian parliament, David Arikamia, who was negotiator, explained exactly that the United States stopped this and they stopped it over the clause that Ukraine would agree to neutrality and not joining NATO. So we've had confirmation from many, many different places. What we have not had that I can see is a question to the White House by the mainstream media, what happened? Explain it. Give us a timeline, at least to force them to tell lies so that those lies can then be exposed, if that's the way they're going to do it. Where is our mainstream media? They're in the White House every day. Are they asking Kirby even this question? Aren't they curious? Where's the New York Times? Did it write an

editorial with all of these sources saying that the United States broke this, did the New York Times write an editorial saying we need to get to the bottom of this because world peace actually turns on this question. We need to understand from the administration. They don't even ask because we can't even have an adult conversation in this country now about issues that are so central. Look at what's happening in Gaza. Now, this is a similar point. What is Israel's political plan? I just want to stop you before you get to Gaza. I want to put a bow on what we're talking, on the package we're discussing with Ukraine. Here's the ambassador. This may be one of the folks with whom you spoke. I don't know. And to my mind, very quickly after invasion in 24 of February last year, he very quickly understood his historical mistake.

And I was in that moment in the group of Ukrainian negotiators. We negotiated with Russian delegation practically two months, in March and April, the possible peaceful settlement agreement between Ukraine and Russia. And we, as you remember, remember concluded so called Istanbul communique and we were very close in the middle of April in the end of April to finalize

our war with some peaceful settlement. For some reasons it was postponed but to my mind Putin, this is my personal view Putin in one week after started his aggression in 24 February last year, very quickly understood he did mistake and tried to do everything possible

to conclude agreement with Ukraine. Makes sense to you? Well, I don't know this particular gentleman, but another person in the Ukrainian delegation said specifically that the agreement was stopped by the United States and the UK played its role because of objections from the U.S. side to stopping the fighting. This is the point that they had reached close to an agreement that would have ended this war, and it was the U.S. side, it was us that stopped it, not the Russians. Now, that I've heard from all of the different sources. And by the way, the interpretation of who made what blunder, the big blunder was that in December 2021, President Putin put on the table a draft agreement, in this case between Russia and the United States, based on no NATO enlargement to Ukraine. And as you and I have discussed, I called the White House

and said, my God, this is the opportunity to avoid war because don't try to expand NATO. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. Russia's never going to accept it. And it's not necessary for American security. It's not safe for Ukraine. It makes no sense. But the Biden administration, this is where the military industrial complex comes in. This is where this constant revving of a war machine comes in. They didn't want an exit ramp. They didn't choose any opportunity. And they had these opportunities in December 2021. And again, in March, April 2022, to avoid this bloody conflict, and they didn't do it. And that's the failure. Okay, now take that same mentality and transfer it to what's happening in Gaza. The problem in Gaza and in Israel is a political problem that has been unresolved since 1967. And every observer knows this, which is that Israel, after the 1967 war, was in physical control over millions of Palestinian people who had no political rights. Council resolution 242 and then a raft of dozens of Security Council resolutions and

UN General Assembly votes all said that the solution is the so-called two-state solution that there should be a state of Palestine living in peace alongside the state of Israel. This remains U.S. policy in principle to this day. The problem is Israel has rejected this under this Netanyahu right-wing regime for more than a decade. The pressures have built up continuously. There have been repeated bouts of mass violence. And the worst has come now after the Hamas attack on October 7. This most extremist government in Israel said, we're going to clear this place out. We're going to make Gaza uninhabitable. We're going to destroy Gaza as a place to live. But there are more than 2 million people there. So they have displaced 2 million people. They have killed innocent

civilians in the tens of thousands. Now the count is 28,000 plus without any political end point, except Netanyahu saying, we will keep control, and Biden mumbling once, oh, we believe in the two-state solution. But we're providing the munitions for this war every day, a war that has become so extreme, so massively filled with war crimes, blowing up hospitals, blowing up universities, blowing up schools, blowing up apartment buildings, knowingly doing all of this, that South Africa, now together with many, many other countries, have filed the complaint in the International Court of Justice for the ICJ to stop a genocide. And the United States has no policy. What are we doing? Blinken goes there. It's useless because it's obvious what this issue is. And the Arab countries have said it again just in the last 24 hours.

And the Saudis have said it again. We need a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Then we can have normal relations with Israel. We can have peace. But we need two states. So where is the president of the United States, which in this case is not just a powerful position and a powerful voice, but is actually providing daily the bombs that Israel is using. We have a little bit of leverage here. We could actually say that this cannot go on and need not go on with a political endpoint. And that's the political

endpoint that supposedly we agree to and that the whole world is calling for. But the president is so weak, Blinken is so inconsequential, that all we get is war and violence, and now the spread of war because the violence taking place in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, now spreading over to Pakistan, is all related to the fact that there is no political vision for the war that Israel is waging in Gaza other than the extremist vision that Israel is going to keep control of everything, which is a guarantee of continued violence and destruction. I don't know if you have seen this, and if you have I apologize, but it's worth seeing. This is General Matty Pallad, the father of the well-known activist Miko Pallad. General Pallad was a major general in the IDF. He's speaking at a conference in San Francisco in 1992. 1992 and warning about exactly what's happening today. This is the situation we have to live with.

And I have no doubt that direct consequence of the occupation. Anyone who said occupation corrupts was absolutely right. And we are occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for the last 25 years, and this is corrupting us, maybe even more than the American aid. Well, I would like this to be eliminated altogether i think that we should pay for our arms out of our own money but in any case this is one of the most damaging gifts that we get from the united states occupation corrupts absolute occupation corrupts absolutely you know, I first went to Israel 52 years ago in 1972. That was five years after the 1967 war. And the movement then was to implant settlements, Israeli settlements, into the West Bank. And as it was explained to me, I was a

young, younger student then, this is to put facts on the ground to make sure that we remain in control. And I can recall it, of course, vividly to this moment, this whole idea that Israel was going to control and control permanently, they thought, these occupied lands, despite this being illegal from an international point of view and utterly destructive of any kind of settlement. Well, now there are around 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Security Council of the UN has declared these settlements to be illegal. The UN Security Council has repeatedly called for a two-state solution. Again, just as I said a few moments ago, the Arab countries are saying now, today, each day, look, there is a way to stop this bloodshed. There is a way to get to normalcy, and that is political rights for the Palestinian people. The UN General Assembly, by the way, voted just, I think probably it's three weeks by now, I've lost track of exactly the days, a resolution calling for self-determination for the Palestinian people. You know what that vote was? That vote was all countries voting in favor with four against Israel,

the United States, Micronesia, and Nauru. Who the hell has ever heard of the third and the fourth? Yes, what they are are small islands in the Pacific. Micronesia, by compact, that is by treaty, has to vote with the United States. Nauru, which is a country of 12,000 people, decided to vote with the United States for some reason. But my point is, other than those who abstained or didn't vote, the whole world's united on this. This is so clear. And we don't have a foreign policy in the United States. We have drift. Now we have a shooting war in the Red Sea region. The United States troops throughout the region are being attacked. And the president can't enunciate a political point of view. And this is what is so serious, because it leads to expanded war. Last question, Professor Sachs. Expanded war. Iran is targeting groups in Pakistan. The United States

is targeting groups in Lebanon. For all we know, the U.S. has bombed something inside Iran. Iran is targeting groups in Iraq that are affiliated with MI6, CIA, and Mossad. Okay, you get the picture. How dangerous is this and likely is this? I know you're not a military person, but I want your thoughts anyway, to expand into a regional war, all because Joe Biden can't put a stop to the slaughter in Gaza. I would say that if there isn't active U.S. diplomacy for peace, the war will spread. In other words, the dynamic is a fuse has been lit. And though there's so many unpredictable dynamics, nothing is going to stop this fighting other than diplomacy. And since we don't have it right now, we're not seeing a stop to this. We're seeing a spread to the war. We're seeing hand-wringing by Blinken. I don't even understand the hand-wringing. He does nothing if he doesn't

have actually a vision of how this is going to stop. And that's what we have a president of the United States hired for. That's the job. And in this case, the leverage is complete because Israel cannot fight this war from one day to the next without the United States. I have to show you this clip. I know I said it was the last

question, but this is going to get under your skin. This is blinking, hand wringing at its worst. Tom Friedman is asking him from the New York Times. Tom Friedman is asking him some questions at Davos. This is from the same guy who bypassed the Congress to deliver $150 million in aid, in emergency aid to Israel, by swearing under oath that this was a matter of American national security. Watch this. Cut number 11, Chris. One of the things you hear so often from people, given the high civilian casualties in Gaza, is does the United States, do Jewish lives matter more than Palestinian and Muslim lives, Palestinian Christian lives, given the incredible asymmetry in casualties?

And I've been asked that. I want to give you a chance to respond to that. No. Period. For me, I think for so many of us, what we're seeing every single day in Gaza is gut-wrenching. And the suffering we're seeing among innocent men, women, and children breaks my heart. The question is what is to be done? We've made judgments about how we thought we could be most effective in trying to shape this in ways to get more humanitarian assistance to people, to get better protections and minimize

civilian casualties. And at every step along the way, not only have we impressed upon Israel's responsibilities to do that, we've seen some progress in areas where absent our engagement, I don't believe it would have happened. I mean, this is his hand wringing at its worst. He must know that his boss, the absent-minded president, could stop this with a phone call.

Oh, God, where does one start? Is it humanitarian assistance and then you provide the bombs that give rise to the need for the emergency assistance? Come on. Mr. Secretary, it's your bombs. You signed the order to bypass the Congress, to give the weapons to Israel. Stop the weapons. Then the fighting stops. This is what presidents do. By the way, this is what Kissinger did after the war in 1973, which was a prelude to the peace agreement reached in 1978 between Israel and Egypt. The United States intervened and said, stop the fighting. This is what President Eisenhower did in 1956 after the crazy harebrained scheme of Britain, France, and Israel to invade

Egypt in 1956. Eisenhower told them, hey, stop now. And they stopped because they could not resist the United States. That's what leadership is. We don't need the secretary of state wringing his hands. We need the fighting to stop with the political outcome, which the United States has responsibility to help put in place. Professor Sachs, thank you very much. This is a clip from Washington, D.C. I know you're out of the country. 200,000 people last Sunday. None of mainstream media, none of the mainstream media covered this. Amazing. Amazing. But thank you so much for your time. I know you're in another part of the world. It's a crazy time of day for you. You're so generous. Thank you for your thoughts. I deeply appreciate it. My team

appreciates it. I appreciate being with you and we'll see you next week. You got it. Thank you for your thoughts. I deeply appreciate it. My team appreciates it. I appreciate being with you and we'll see you next week. You got it. Thank you, Professor. All the best. Thanks. And of course, still to come in 25 minutes at 11 o'clock in the morning Eastern time, Scott Ritter live from Moscow about his trip to Ukraine. Or was he really in Russia? Well, he was in Donbass. Scott Horton, Phil Giraldi, Colonel Wilkerson, and ending the day with the tenacious and brilliant Max Rosenthal. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. I'm out.