The Biden Legacy in Foreign Affairs

As the Biden administration winds down, the mainstream/corporate media is assessing the impact of his presidency and the legacy he leads. Unfortunately, the media is largely whitewashing that legacy - largely concluding that Biden may have made mistakes but was always acting with noble intentions to promote freedom and a "rules based order" around the world.

Substack writer "The Dissident" had a different take and joins Zipcode Zero to discuss the legacy Biden leaves.

"A Retrospective on the Biden Administration's Foreign Policy" https://the307.substack.com/p/a-retrospective-on-the-biden-administrations

Substack
https://the307.substack.com/

Twitter
https://x.com/leftist_news12

Timestamps

00:00
Introduction and Background of The Dissident

01:38
Biden's Foreign Policy Legacy

04:30
The Ukraine War: A Deep Dive

17:29
The Impact of the Ukraine Conflict

24:02
Future Predictions and Trump's Role

28:39
Disillusionment with American Politics

29:14
The Legacy of Cold War Mentality

31:12
NATO Expansion and Its Consequences

32:56
The Ongoing Crisis in Israel and Gaza

37:04
The Role of the Israel Lobby

43:38
Biden's Foreign Policy Legacy

50:39
Future Global Hotspots and Concerns

Show Info
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Twitter
@KevinAMaley
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Email
ZipcodeZeroPodcast@gmail.com
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Music
Urban Deer Hunt: https://linktr.ee/urbandeerhunt

Transcript

Kevin Maley (00:00)
Cool, all right, well, just to kick things off, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, what you're focused on, and we'll take it from there.

The Dissident (00:09)
Yeah, so I write on Substack on the dissident as the outlet I write for. I've also done some stuff for Indie News Network. I'm relatively new. I did some stuff around 2021, 2022. They were kind of rough back then and I've ended up deleting a lot of those because they weren't that good. But I restarted this summer. My first article or my first big article was a...

I live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and our newspaper here, The Globe and Mail, which is kind of like our version of the New York Times, they did a hit piece on Julian Assange when he was freed, where they repeated all the of Russia gate, debunked Russia gate conspiracy theories about him and a bunch of false information about him editing the collateral murder video when he released it. And so I wrote a debunking of that, that took off quite a bit.

The WikiLeaks account actually shared it. His wife Stella-san shared it. I got republished in this outlet here called the Canada Files, which is like an independent sort of like anti-war outlet. so after that did well, I mean, I had a lot more to say about Ukraine and Gaza and the situation in the States and there's probably going to be election here soon in Canada. So I'll start covering that soon, but I think I've published 54 articles or something.

since I started in the summer and I've gotten up to 2.3 thousand subscribers on Substack. So yeah, that's some basic background on me.

Kevin Maley (01:38)
Do you have any expectation that Biden will pardon Assange in the, think he's got 10 days to go.

The Dissident (01:44)
No, there's no way I couldn't see that happening. mean, especially after the whole, you know, sort of DNC smearing of Assange, the Russian asset with the whole sort of Russiagate nonsense. I couldn't see that happening.

Kevin Maley (01:58)
Yeah, I don't either. So, yeah, so I had come across your sub stack. There's a piece I'd read about you focused on Joe Biden's legacy on foreign policy, which I thought was really important. And I think it's important to reflect on that. And that's kind of what I wanted to dig into for a couple of different reasons. And the first is on foreign policy, that's

traditionally where US presidents have the most power and it's kind of where he's been putting the most amount of his attention in the last couple of years. I mean, to the extent that he's completely there, but he's always been kind of a foreign policy person. He led the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the early 2000s. He's just been very much focused on that. And another reason I think it's important focus on his legacy there is

The Dissident (02:25)
Exactly.

Kevin Maley (02:50)
I think that he's been subject to almost uncritical praise from the corporate media here in the United States, especially in regard to Ukraine, a little less so regarding Israel. for the most part, it's, you know, Biden is this well-meaning man who's got these values of democracy and freedom and human rights, trying to do the right thing, standing up to the authoritarianism.

The Dissident (03:01)
Mm.

Kevin Maley (03:18)
tendencies of the world, which is just straight up propaganda that his team put out, but is just really eaten up by the the corporate media. And so I think it's important as he's ending his presidency to really take a better look at what his legacy here actually is. And I wanted to quote how you actually end your piece before jumping right into discussion. You say at the end of this piece, quote,

From Ukraine to the Middle East, the Biden administration's legacy will go down in history as an administration that would do anything, including war, genocide, and the mass murder of civilians to generate profit for the military industrial complex. I have strong doubts that a Trump administration will do any better, but I'm certainly happy that these bloodthirsty neocons are going out the door, which I think is just really well put. So yeah, it's a...

The Dissident (04:12)
Thank you.

Kevin Maley (04:14)
Good way with words. So I'd be curious if you could start us off with just your take on the Ukraine war. I know it's a big topic, but let's talk about Biden's legacy there and where it's going.

The Dissident (04:30)
Well, I mean, it's a good place to start. mean, look, some of the background on this is, mean, Biden's always been very hawkish. Like he was big on bombing Yugoslavia. He was big for the Iraq war, but there's also the aspect and Seymour Hersh has written about this where he's clearly losing his mental faculties. And so the sort of neocon apparatus around him has more influence than they would otherwise because they can sort of isolate him from foreign policy decisions.

He's not with it enough to understand like the fundamental contradictions of American foreign policy. And so the big players are like his secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, for example, who was for the Iraq war. He was for the Saudi led genocide in Yemen. He was for taking out Gaddafi in Libya. He supported the CIA regime change program in Syria. Like there's really never been a war. hasn't, he's never met a war he hasn't liked. And then there's Jake Sullivan is national security advisor who

One of his most infamous moments is when he sent an email to Hillary Clinton when he was her advisor saying Al Qaeda is on our side in Syria, basically saying we need to arm Al Nusra, which the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate, because they're on our geopolitical side in Syria. And then you've got, they did through, well, indirectly through Timber Sycamore, where they said, we're vetting all these moderate rebels and they were going to the Free Syrian Army. But then it came out that-

Kevin Maley (05:39)
Which they did, right?

The Dissident (05:52)
Either the Free Syrian Army members would just join Al Nusra or these other like jihadist groups, or the jihadist groups would just come and take over and take all the weapons from the CIA back moderate rebels. but yeah, so there's,

And then obviously his undersecretary of state for political affairs, Victoria Newland is a really influential neocon. Her husband is Robert Kagan, who was the co-founder of the project for the New American Century, which is the think tank that staffed the Bush administration. That's where Cheney came from. That's where Rumsfeld came from. Like all the original neocons in the Bush administration came out of that think tank that Victoria Newland is involved with.

And so when it comes to Ukraine, mean, I think there's sort of been a neocon plot to regenerate the Cold War since it ended. And Jeffrey Sachs is a really good piece about this in Dropsite News that I'd recommend reading. you know, basically they promised they wouldn't expand NATO Eastward and then they kept expanding under Clinton and under Bush and they were tearing up nuclear treaties. you know, it got to the point in 2008 where

Bill Burns, the Biden CIA head wrote a memo and it's on WikiLeaks called Nyet Means Nyet, where he said, look, if you admit Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, it's going to split Ukraine into civil war and trigger a Russian invasion. They didn't care. kept, not only do they keep, you know, threatening to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia, but Victoria Newland was very involved in supporting the overthrow of

Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, who was a sort of pro-Russia leaning president of Ukraine. They basically funded like these opposition think tanks through USAID and NED that like spurred up protest against Yanukovych. And a lot of the initial protests were like, cause he was very corrupt. So a lot of them were like genuine people that were angry, but eventually they sort of got taken over by these far right elements.

right sector and Sloboda, which is like an openly neo-Nazi party. And the US backed them the whole time. And there's a clip of Chris Murphy who went down to Ukraine on C-SPAN where he admits, yeah, we had state department officials down there. Him and John McCain went down there and even admits this regime change happened because of threat of sanctions against Yanukovych. And then there's also a leak.

a phone call of Victoria Newland, was the Assistant Secretary State at the time, where she says, yeah, Yats is our guy, who was this guy, Artseni Yasenyuk, I think that's how you pronounce his name, who was seen as like the Washington's man in Ukraine. And after Yanukovych got overthrown, he was like the interim president. And a lot of people sort of try to undermine that by saying, well, she was just talking about an EU deal. when you actually look into the EU deal,

it was going to give government positions to Yatsenyuk and this other guy, Olek Tanybook, I think his name is. And in Victoria Newland's call, she says, I want Yats on the inside, Tanybook on the outside. And that's exactly what happened. So they were clearly, you know, at least helping to install a more pro-U.S. government. And then there was the, you know, there was fighting between separatists in Eastern Ukraine who were backed by Russia and the

Ukrainian government who eventually in the Trump administration was backed by the US and including arming the Azoff battalion, which is like an openly neo-nazi battalion that was integrated with the Ukrainian military. so there's sort of been this, and then Trump also pulled out of the INF treaty, which is something Russia was really mad about. And so there was sort of this growing proxy fighting between Russia and Ukraine. It got to the point where Russia threatened to invade in

February and January of 2022, which, you know, as an anti-war person, I think is completely wrong. And it's objectively, you know, illegal. It's an offensive invasion, but I think it's also worth looking at the history that provoked it, not to justify it. And so, you know, Biden had a lot of opportunity to negotiate an end to it. He could have said, you know, Ukraine, Georgia won't be admitted to NATO, which he didn't as late as December of 2021.

He was still saying admit Ukraine to NATO. He could have negotiated on the Minsk Accords, which was a peace deal that was drawn up in 2015, which would have ended the war in the Donbass, which is basically one of the major reasons Russia cited for the invasion of Ukraine. so, know, and that was something where just to go back a little bit under the Trump administration, when Zelensky was elected in Ukraine, he...

campaigned on implementing the Minsk Accords. And then he was threatened by these far right as all forces saying, we'll kill you if you end this war. And the U S backed up the far right forces over him on that. And that was actually under Trump, which I can get into later, which is interesting, but Biden didn't do anything about Minsk Accords. didn't do anything to get back into the INF treaty. He kept saying, you know, Ukraine, can be in Georgia, can be admitted to NATO. And there's a Ukrainian outlet.

sort of like an anti-establishment, like left-leaning outlet that pointed out, basically they played this geopolitical strategy of, we want Russia to invade because then we can use this war to weaken Russia. And that's not me saying that, that's Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary, who openly said, yeah, we can use this war to weaken Russia. They thought Putin would fall and it would weaken the Russian military. And there's a

a really well known, U S diplomat, named Shaz Freeman, who, you know, was sort of like a realist, like, he's very anti interventionist and very critical of modern foreign policy. And he did an interview with, the journalist Aaron Maté of the gray zone very early on in this war where he said, yeah, to me, looks like the U S policy is to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. And I mean, that, that's even better underscored by the

well-documented fact that everyone from Ukrainian negotiators to the Turkish officials to the former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett have confirmed happened, which is that Joe Biden sent Boris Johnson to Ukraine in April of 2022 when Putin and Zelensky were coming close to finalizing a peace deal and blocked it. And there was a report in the outlet Ukraine Pravda

that said he basically convinced them, yeah, no, you're going to be able to get territory back. You're going to be able to win. And Boris Johnson even said, you may be ready to end this war. You may be ready to sign a deal, but we're not meaning the West. And then the Ukrainian negotiators have confirmed that they basically wanted security guarantees from the West and they refused to give it to them and said, this is obviously the Biden administration pushing it. And they said, no, keep fighting. basically convinced them that, you're going to get Crimea back.

They knew it was a lie the whole time. They just wanted to use this war for their own geopolitical outcome. And the other interesting thing about that is there's a Russian journalist who was interviewing Victoria Newland, who really has this tendency to sort of say the quiet part out loud. And he asked her about blocking the peace deal and she didn't even deny it. She basically said, yeah, us and Boris Johnson were mad that

The deal was going to demilitarize Ukraine, so we stopped it. So, you know, this is another thing where the corporate media hasn't covered it, but there's been so many participants that have reported or said it happened that it's just undeniable now. And yeah, I mean, the whole time the Biden administration refused to negotiate, there was a point in May, maybe, where...

A number of progressives, know, Ilhan Omar and Rokana sent a letter saying negotiate peace in Ukraine. And they got so much backlash from the Biden administration that they ended up having to retract it. know, and a lot, yeah, they, and then they blamed it on their interns, which was kind of funny.

Kevin Maley (13:38)
They blamed it on their interns.

They said the

interns accidentally sent it. There was just a random letter advocating for peace lying around.

The Dissident (13:49)
And so, so the interesting thing about this war is looking back, looking at the sort of geopolitical strategy of weakening Russia, is objectively, it's a failure. I mean, that, you know, the counter offensive didn't get territory back. The per goes in a sort of coup, didn't do anything against Putin. The sanctions didn't have the effect the U S wanted them to Russia's now closer with China and the sort of global South countries are now closer because of it. And so a lot of people look at that and they point out correctly that the war was a failure.

But it was not a failure on one important aspect, which is that it was great for the military industrial complex. And it was also great for BlackRock and Goldman Sachs, which want to go in and rebuild Ukraine and basically implement complete neoliberal shock therapy after this war is over. And so it just sort of gets to the point where, you know, with us foreign policy, when a lot of people say it was a failure. Well, I mean, on the geopolitical goals, it often is a failure, but often the sort of neo cons put.

you know, military industrial complex profit and corporate profit, even over their own like imperialist Jew political goals. And so, yeah, I mean, just to add a few more things, Joe Biden lifted the ban on the Azov battalion, which means that U.S. weapons are able to go to an open neo-Nazi battalion. You know, this is the kind of thing that the CIA normally calls blowback, like when they armed the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.

So, I mean, clearly.

Joe Biden was involved in the bombing of Nord Stream pipeline. mean, they even admitted it. Like, you know, before it happened, there was an interview where he said, if Russia invades Ukraine, the Nord Stream pipeline is going to be, is no longer going to be around. And they said, well, isn't that a German pipeline? And he goes, well, trust me, it's not going to be around. And then there was a, after it was blown up, there was a Senate hearing where Ted Cruz was,

questioning Victoria Newland and not putting harsh sanctions on Nord Stream. She basically gave him like a wink and a nod and said, well, like you Senator Cruz, I'm very happy it's a rock at the bottom of the ocean or a hunk of metal at the bottom of the ocean. And even Anthony Blinken came out and said, this is a tremendous opportunity for America because of we can now sell oil to Europe. so, and then there was another great investigative piece by Cy Hirsch where he goes into detail about.

working with, I think it was the Dutch to plant the bombs on Nord Stream. And obviously the mainstream media completely ignored it, but you know, Cy Hirsch is not exactly a guy that makes stuff up. Like he's, you know, this is the guy that broke my lie and, the Abu grave story. This is good. Pulled surprise winning journalists. So, you know, that's, then aside from that, I mean, his story just matched up to the public comments of the Biden administration.

And the stories they put out don't make any sense. Like they blamed Russia originally, and then they blamed the Ukrainian government. And then they put out this ridiculous story that I wrote a piece debunking where they tried to say, no, it was just a group of rogue Ukrainian officials. mean, every investigator said it would have had to have been a state. And I can't imagine Ukraine unilaterally without US approval, because they get weapons from Germany. So I can't imagine them being like,

Yeah, you know what, let's go blow up the one thing that's going to piss off an ally that's arming us without US approval. That was clearly something that Biden administration was involved in. And then.

Kevin Maley (17:01)
Yeah, so

I do want to just kind of pause and take because you're getting at the holistic legacy of the conflict and that's That that's of interest to me. I mean you were mentioning just like the impacts of The the conflict beneficial for the US military I guess for the whole Western military industrial complex I'd add it's also beneficial for Western fossil fuel companies, particularly actually American fossil fuel companies

The Dissident (17:29)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Maley (17:30)
and especially gas companies because they're exporting far more gas in the form of LNG to Western Europe because of the blow up the Nord Stream pipeline. I think, you know, just bringing it back to Joe Biden's legacy, looking at this. So, yes, it's in some ways benefited sectors of the American economy, but it's I mean, it's destroyed Ukraine, especially the the eastern half of Ukraine.

It's repeatedly risked nuclear war. I Biden himself has said it's the closest we've come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is pretty scary. We've had leaks pretty well confirmed from inside the Biden administration saying Russia was close to using nukes on more than one occasion. They had to get on the phone and kind of talk them out of it. It's really weakened Europe. And that might be, I guess, good for the United States, but Germany in particular is

kind of basket case, partially because of the high energy prices. As you mentioned, it's poisoned relations with China as well as Russia that's undermined international climate cooperation. mean, just from a liberal perspective, as Biden purports to be, it's a pretty disastrous record and it's not gained anything for Ukraine. I mean, it's kind of, I think everyone's kind of conceded that they're not going to

get Russia out of the current borders of Ukraine anytime soon, and that it's gonna have to come to some sort of settled agreement, but whatever that agreement is, is gonna be worse than what was offered at Istanbul a couple of years ago. I guess the thing that I kind of struggle with is why Biden is not going down as a complete disaster on this. And maybe that just has to do with the US propaganda system.

especially on the center left. But it seems like this guy just risks nuclear war. Again, really undermined a lot of quote unquote liberal values and got virtually nothing out of it, nothing from the benefit of the perspective of someone in the center.

The Dissident (19:30)
Yeah, I mean, you just nailed it there. And I always find it ironic that the people that purport to be pro-Ukraine are the people that are like, yeah, draft every last Ukrainian to fight Russia. You know, lower the age to, the draft age to 18 to fight Russia. And they basically ended up supporting a war that killed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians for, you say, no real benefit.

for Ukraine and supported blocking a peace deal, which would have allowed Ukraine to keep more of its territorial integrity and wouldn't have destroyed the country. So yeah, I mean, as for your question, you know, why isn't this viewed as more of a failure? I think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about media propaganda. I think there's just been so much propaganda on this and there's been so little dissent within mainstream media circles.

that I think people just don't know the facts on it or they just have some kind of cognitive dissonance. You know, I never really understood the sort of really hawkish position on this because, you know, my position was always, well, I'm against Russia invading, but do you not want to negotiate peace to save lives? Like if you care about Ukraine, why do you want to continue a war that's just going to kill more Ukrainians and harm the country more? And so...

But yeah, no, think, I think a lot of people really fell for the, you know, propaganda. And I think you sort of mentioned the center left. think the center left really despises Russia in a large part because of the sort of Russia gate propaganda campaign that was perpetuated in the first four years of the Trump camp or the Trump presidency. And I think for the ones that really aren't thinking the sort of MSNBC viewers like

They just blame Russia for Hillary's loss and they're angry. And so they ended up supporting this war without really understanding the geopolitical ramifications of it.

Kevin Maley (21:33)
And you mentioned earlier, I think in reference to Victoria Newland, that I think you'd said something like the Americans may not believe what they were telling Zelensky on like, can, can, if we, if you just hold out, if, know, don't take the deal in Istanbul, we can, if you hold out, you can get Crimea back. I'm, I'm not convinced that they.

I feel like some part of the Biden administration thought that they could succeed and where I mean, it's something I struggle with because it seems like they may have thought that they could get Russia like Russia might have been a paper tiger. They could get it fully out of Ukraine. I think some of the more delusional ones thought that they could get it would cause Putin's presidency to collapse and.

I don't know what happens after that. I feel like they were buying their own propaganda there. I can't be sure. one thing I struggle with a bit more is like, why did the Europeans go along with this, especially the Germans who had hurt so much? And I wonder, do you think they actually believed this propaganda that if we don't stop?

Russia and Ukraine, they're gonna march to Berlin and then Paris and I don't know, Lisbon and you know, everything's Munich. Like what's the level of propaganda that people are buying? And I'm talking about the elites, the policymakers and the decision makers.

The Dissident (23:00)
Yeah, it's a great question. mean, look, you know, as someone who lives in a Western country that's sort of under the US umbrella, like it's really hard to, you know, go against what the US says on foreign policy. I mean, we, you know, did, my country, Canada did during Iraq and we really got shit for it. And so did Germany and they got spied on for not going along with it. So, I mean.

You know, I probably know more about American politics than Europe just because I'm closer to it. But I mean, especially, you know, being part of NATO, you know, it's kind of hard for any of these sort of countries in the Western orbit to go against what the U.S. wants on any of these foreign policy decisions. But yeah, I mean, think, I think it elements. I mean, look, I think, I think there's a lot of legitimate resentment towards Russia because of

historical issues in areas in Eastern Europe. And maybe that's why it was easier to sort of push propaganda to support this war. But I don't know, it's all speculation.

Kevin Maley (24:03)
How do you think this gets wrapped up? We've got Trump coming in in 10 days. I think it's on the 20th. I think some of his supporters are convinced that he'll just get a great deal within a week, probably because he says that, that he's just gonna get a great deal right away. But he's got Marco Rubio in there and he gives a lot of conflicting signs. And I think people just kind of take what they want from him because of his.

contradictions, but do have any predictions on how this will wind up?

The Dissident (24:34)
Well, I mean, I think, I don't know exactly, but just to give sort of some background on Trump, like I think some Trump supporters are like 100 % convinced he's going to end the Ukraine war. I mean, I, you look back at his policy in 2016 to 2020, he was a bigger Russia hawk than Obama. Like as hawkish as Obama was with the Ukraine coup, like he didn't send lethal arms to the Ukrainian government. Trump did. Trump put sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Trump pulled out of the INF Treaty and the Open Skies

Kevin Maley (25:11)
Trump insisted

NATO countries spend more money. mean, people say he's so anti-NATO, he expanded NATO with two additional countries and got NATO countries to spend more money on their military.

The Dissident (25:13)
Trump is.

Yeah. Trump,

Trump bombed the Syrian government, which is a Russian ally. He backed a coup in Venezuela, which is another Russian ally. put sanctions on Syria, which is a Russian ally. So there were a lot of ways where he was actually a big Russia hawk and even more than Obama. When you actually look at his policies. And so, and the other thing is, you know, a lot of people are like, well, maybe he's changed now. Well, there's a great article. I'd recommend everyone read it by the independent journalist, Michael Tracy, where he pointed out Trump.

basically privately gave Mike Johnson to go ahead to a vote for arms packages to Ukraine. Mike Johnson met with him in Mar-a-Lago and Lindsey Graham and all these Republicans have said the reason it passed was because Trump gave him the go ahead on it. then, yes, exactly. And so,

Kevin Maley (26:02)
This is the one that passed in the spring, the last big Ukraine aid bill.

The Dissident (26:07)
You know, and then you look at, know, you brought up Rubio. Rubio is now claiming he's against the war, but then you look at his national security advisor, Mike Waltz, who there's an article in the wall street journal in 2023, he was still defending the war. He was saying the counter offense was going to win and we need to arm Ukraine because if we don't then Taiwan's next. And even today he claims he's against it. But in an interview with, I believe it was NPR like very recently.

He actually came out and said, yeah, basically my strategy is to give, let, to take that cuffs off the Ukrainian weapons, meaning allow them to strike further into Russia. and that's going to force Russia to the negotiating table, which is not necessarily going to happen. And so, you know, a lot of people, when Biden allowed, Ukraine to strike further into Russia, some people were saying, well, it's despite the Trump administration. It could have been, but it also could have been just implementing the policy that Trump's going to. There's also.

Sebastian Gorka, who was, I think his advisor on counter-terrorism or something, who's a major Russia hawk. I found he was on a...

Kevin Maley (27:09)
He's

gonna be in the incoming Trump administration? I didn't realize that.

The Dissident (27:12)
Yes, he was. Yeah,

no, Sebastian Gorka was picked as the, he's not like a major figure, but he was the,

He was picked for like the special advisor on counter-terrorism or something like that. I think that's the name of the role, this sort of minor role. He's like a massive Russia hawk. Like I, he was on a Twitter space where he basically said, yeah, Ukraine is willing to fight to the last 12 year old, which is insane. He literally said that word for word, and we should give them all the weapons to fight Russia and that there's no negotiating with Putin because he's a KGB killer. And so, yeah, I mean, it's.

Trump is now, I just published an article I think yesterday where Trump is actually getting into some of the specifics on the Biden administration. know, during the debates, he would just always say, you know, never would have happened under me, know, ended on day one. But he never got into specifics. Now in a speech, he actually brought up Biden not negotiating over NATO expansion and blocking the peace deal.

Kevin Maley (27:57)
Never would have happened if I was president.

Yeah, that was great.

I think that's a really important point to make. Can you touch upon that?

The Dissident (28:13)
Well, I mean, to me, you know, I think in the press conference, I mean, I think what's really interesting and we can get into this later in the middle East, but he also shared a clip of something the Columbia professor, Jeffrey Sachs said about Netanyahu and the middle East, which goes completely against everything he was saying. I don't know. I don't know if this is like genuine or if it's that, you know, this was a guy that promised no new wars.

Kevin Maley (28:15)
You're talking about what he said in the press conference about why Russia invaded.

The Dissident (28:39)
And a lot of people voted for them because they're sick of, funding wars when they can't afford healthcare and you know, can't afford groceries and you know, all the domestic problems in America. And I think people were maybe looking at the Rubios, the Pete Hegsats as defense secretary and realizing that they basically got duped. so, you know, I don't know how much of this is just damage control for his base and how much of it is like genuine.

I if I had to guess, I'd say it's more damage control. You know, just looking at his previous foreign policy record on Russia and on everything else.

Kevin Maley (29:14)
Hey, so as someone who's an astute student of foreign policy, why do you think there is such obsessive hatred of Russia within the upper echelons of especially American policymaking on both the left and the right?

The Dissident (29:30)
Good question. mean, some of it goes back to the legacy of the cold war, like, you know, they didn't always take this view towards Putin. you know, think Ann Applebaum, who's like one of the biggest Russia hawks was writing articles about how, about how he's going to bring in a kinder, gentler leadership to Russia. And, know, Matt Taibbi, the reporter who lived in Russia has done a lot on this. How, you know, originally

Kevin Maley (29:43)
the worst person.

The Dissident (29:55)
the Western press was sort of whitewashing him and saying, he's fine. then, you know, eventually we're at when he sort of, turned on, on us foreign policy. And that's when they really were like, okay, we need, they sort of turned on him. And it's, not to say he's a good guy. Like he's always been corrupt, but that's not what the West cares about. Like they, they were, was, he was a former KGB officer when he came to power. He's, he's always been corrupt, but they didn't really.

They saw him as sort of maybe the way the Saudi royal family could be. They thought he could play ball with American foreign policy. And then when he didn't, they really sort of reignited this Cold War. And then, you know, as for sort of the basis of both parties, I mean, it's weird, you know, it used to be the Republicans, but a lot of the Russia hawkishness I think comes from the Democrats. like, I think a lot of those more partisan Democrats have just been subjected to this insane propaganda.

conspiracy theory that Russia swung the election to Trump and that, you know, Trump is a secret Putin puppet. And I think there's a reason figures like Bill Kristol, like David Fromm would go on MSNBC. And I mean, I don't think they actually believe that ridiculousness, but I think they thought like, this is a good way to sort of get the liberal base to support our sort of hawkish foreign policy views towards Russia.

Kevin Maley (31:13)
Yeah. And I think it's worth noting that in the U S there, the expansion of NATO now occurs without the slightest bit of debate or hesitation. We saw that with Finland and Sweden and basically every expansion that's happened since the early 2000s. But the initial expansion in 1999, there was a lot of debate in the U S Senate. You had George Kennan, who is

The Dissident (31:15)
HH-

Kevin Maley (31:39)
Arguably the architect of the US Cold War policy was against it. John Lewis Gaddis was against it. Bill Clinton's defense secretary was against it. As you mentioned, Bill Burns, who's former ambassador to Russia, was a State Department official in the George W. Bush administration and advocated to Condoleezza Rice in a memo, don't expand NATO to Ukraine. It's going to be disaster.

which I really, I'd love to sit him down and ask like, all right, so you wrote that memo. Now you're the CIA direct, like you're in the administration who's fighting Russia and NATO. Like what, I know, you know, you don't make the ultimate call. It's your boss, but what happened there?

The Dissident (32:22)
Yeah, I think

a functioning press would definitely ask him about that. It would be an interesting question.

Kevin Maley (32:28)
Yeah. And I mean, I encourage everyone to read that memo. Yet means yet. I mean, it's it's well written, it's short and it remarkably predicts everything that kind of happened over the last 10 years. And again, the guy who wrote it is the CIA director now. This is not some just random person. And it was an internal secret memo that we only know about because of Julian Assange, because it came out in WikiLeaks. So it really all comes to the full circle.

The Dissident (32:43)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Maley (32:57)
I do want to pivot to Israel. So I think we can fairly say it's a disaster in Ukraine and that is not not a good part of Joe Biden's legacy. Israel is I don't even know where to begin on that. I'm sure we could talk about that for hours. But to this day, Israel is currently still bombing Gaza, still killing Palestinians.

The Dissident (33:01)
Yeah, absolutely.

Kevin Maley (33:18)
I guess a question start off on this one is there's a debate on whether Biden's support for what is effectively genocide, what most leading human rights organizations have called a genocide in Gaza. The reason Biden supports that is because of the power of the Israel lobby. This is the the Marishimer and maybe Saks perspective. And then there's another perspective, the sort of.

Chomsky Finkelstein perspective that it's just the U.S. acting in their own geostrategic interests. They want a powerful Israel and, you know, it's basically like an offshore U.S. military base. And I think it's fair to say either theory, it's U.S. full complicity in the genocide. But what is your take on why the Biden administration is so wholeheartedly supported? What is not just a genocide and a catastrophe, but

the utter humiliation over and over and over again of Biden himself. mean, Netanyahu just makes him look like, and Anthony Blinken and Jake Sullivan. I mean, they just look like idiots and they're intentionally being humiliated in a very kind of Trumpian way. So what's your take on the reasoning behind the Biden administration?

The Dissident (34:32)
That's a fantastic question. mean, look, I think, you know, there's truth in both theories. You know, so starting on the Israel lobby, there's no denying the power of the Israel lobby in my country too, but especially in the United States. So Thomas Massey, the Libertarian Republican representative, one of the only who is opposed to the funding, the genocide in Gaza. He said every other Republican member of the house has what he described as a personal

babysitter. So they actually meet with an APAC person and discuss their votes. And you look at like the power APAC has in the Democratic Party. know, Ryan Grim, who you've had on this show has done some great work on this. So take Nina Turner, for example, in Ohio, when she was running in the primary against Chantel Brown, Nina Turner is against the genocide in Gaza. Chantel Brown is a Zionist.

The Israel lobby specifically targeted Nina Turner with attack ads that had nothing to do with Israel at all. were about, know, she's not a real Democrat, but these were coming from Israel lobby groups because they wanted to prop up the Zionists. And they did the same thing to Cory Bush and they did the same thing to Jamal Bowman. So at least, you know, within the Democratic party, clearly that has an impact when, you know,

They see, if you go against this genocide, APAC is actively gonna do a propaganda campaign to try to primary you. That's gonna have a huge impact. But I also think there's truth in the sort of geopolitical theory in the sense that, you know, Israel is basically, can also function as sort of, you know, US military base in the Middle East and that.

you know that the israeli supremacy that they want the middle east will also benefit america and also be american regional supremacy and so you know i i think but i mean there's also to sort of go back to the a pack point like this no doubt that netanyahu tries his best influence american foreign policy in the sense that you know he gave a speech to congress trying to block the iran deal he really pushed the the w of the lighted to

get into Iraq. He really pushed the war in the proxy war in Syria. He's really pushing for a war in Iran. he, if you listen to his recent speech to Congress, he kept saying, yeah, Iran's going to attack America. Iran's America's enemy number one. he, so, but then you could also, as you said, like the sort of Finkelstein and Chomsky argument, like they would point out, well, that's also good for, you know, U S supremacy in the region. And so, yeah, I mean, I think both arguments have a lot of legitimacy.

Kevin Maley (37:04)
Yeah, and I find it confusing how it would benefit U.S. interests to for Israel to attack Iran because it's not like you were going to invade Iran. And I mean, this is I'd love to have a maybe I should aim for having some Iran hawk or like a crazy neocon on the show, because I don't actually understand what the objective is. You can go in and bomb.

the nuclear sites, although from what we know, they're deep under mountains and they're not really gonna be destroyed unless you use your own bunker-busting nuclear bombs to attack their nuclear facilities. I don't know, they may be deluded enough because I think they do sometimes believe their own propaganda that if they bomb Tehran, the population will rise up against the Ayatollah or something like that. I mean, it's so far-fetched, but.

You don't hear anyone say like, we're gonna go in and occupy the country like the US did with Iraq, because that's just an impossibility given the size and geography. But so I just don't see what their end game is unless it's to turn it into a kind of Syria where you just introduce, weaken the state by introducing chaos. But then that's gonna have ripple effects in Iraq. So I just, I don't know, I get confused on.

what they're even achieving.

The Dissident (38:29)
Well, that's cause I mean, really in the, in the sense it would really benefit Netanyahu because I mean, he basically doesn't want any opposition to, the genocide in Gaza, which by the way, just getting back to Biden's legacy, I want to bring up a few stats on that. 70 % of the casualties are women and children. Children ages five to nine is the largest, casualty group. Nine out of every 10 person killed in Gaza is a civilian.

Amnesty International has said what Israel's doing constitutes genocide. Human Rights Watch has said what Israel's doing constitutes genocide. You know, the International Criminal Court has brought charges against Netanyahu and the defense minister, what's his name? You have, no. Well, you know, but it is, it is Gallant that they brought charges against you of Gallant for war crimes and intentionally starving civilians and intentionally.

Kevin Maley (39:09)
You live Gala or no was you live Gala and I forget there's the replacement. I forget who the replacement.

yeah.

The Dissident (39:22)
killing civilians. mean, this is Biden's legacy in Gaza is an undeniable genocide. so for his

Kevin Maley (39:30)
Well, and there was that

that Lancet piece in the summer that estimated that the ultimate numbers, not just from like direct bombing, but people buried under the rubble and death like disease and stuff like that, will ultimately reach into the hundreds of thousands scraping 10 percent of the population of Gaza. And that people think that's a conservative estimate.

The Dissident (39:39)
Indirect S.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, Ralph Nader's estimated it's closer to 200,000 when he's looked into the data. But at the very least, it's over 100,000, which as you said was the...

Kevin Maley (40:02)
And the entire strip

is destroyed. there's in something I think I heard Finkelstein on a podcast talking about the amount, the effort that it would take to just clear all the concrete and the rubble on the ground would take decades. It like it is that, you know, there's that effort to make it unlivable. So it's this combination of a genocide and ethnic cleansing, because I think the Israeli preference is not necessarily to kill anyone.

It's just to get all living Palestinians out. And so if they have to kill them, that's great. If they make it unlivable so that they leave, then, you know, that's great too. But the idea is I think no Arab Palestinians in Gaza and, however, that outcome can be carried about.

The Dissident (40:50)
Yeah, exactly. but sort of getting back to at least Netanyahu's motive on the Iran thing. So, I mean, you look at, I mean, a lot of what led to October 7th was the Abraham Accords where he got, uh, Qatar, Bahrain, um, what were the other countries? It was Qatar, Bahrain, Morocco, uh, and the UAE, I believe the UAE to normalize with Israel. and Trump basically, uh, facilitated this using

Kevin Maley (41:08)
Was there Morocco involved?

The Dissident (41:18)
Jared Kushner as his intermediary. And Trump touted it as all peace in the Middle East, but the point was basically, yeah, we want to get Arab states to basically side with us and sideline the Palestinians without doing anything about the blockade on Gaza, the illegal settlements of the West Bank, the consistent massacres in Gaza, whether it's the 2014 massacre or the 2018 massacre against peaceful protesters and the Great March return. so, and now Israel's on their way to normalizing with

Saudi Arabian. they basically need to take out any force that opposes them or opposes the genocide in Gaza in the region. So that was the intervention in Lebanon against Hezbollah, which was also greenlit by Biden. think this is important to point out. the first thing is, I mean, he could end the genocide in Gaza any day. completely, Biden could, Israel completely relies on US weapons and he doesn't.

Kevin Maley (42:04)
Biden.

The Dissident (42:11)
The second important thing is in Lebanon, there was a piece in the New York Times where they pointed out Biden behind the scenes went to the Lebanese government and said, if you, if you can get Hezbollah to this is before, I think it was after the pager attack, but before, before Israel killed Hassan Nasrallah and intervened in Lebanon, they basically said to the Lebanese government, yeah, if you can get a Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire, we'll do the same with Israel. And this is not mentioned in the New York Times piece, but there's another piece in Politico where they point out.

high level Biden administration officials behind the scenes went to Israel and said, yeah, we're publicly saying we want to cease fire, but you have the green light to go into Lebanon. And that's when they killed Hassan Nasrallah and invaded Lebanon. And so, yeah, mean, that's part of both the Biden and the Israeli plan. That's why they intervened in Lebanon. That's why they're bombing the Houthis. That's why they took out Syria's military infrastructure. And that's why they want to take out Iran.

But, know, as your question, like how much of it is in American interest? mean, I think some of it comes down to the Israel lobby and its influence, but some of it also does come down to oil and American corporate interests. So, you know, I don't think it's really one or the other. think it's elements of both. And I mean, I think it's just, it's sort of part of this new Cold War thing too. Like the U.S. wants regional supremacy against

Russia or China or Iran or any of their enemies in the Middle East and they see what Israel is doing as a way to achieve that.

Kevin Maley (43:38)
So I do think that like with Ukraine, think Trump wants this one wrapped up just so it's not a distraction. He said a couple of times it's just bad PR for Israel, which is arguably very true. It's not good PR to commit genocide in of the world. Do you have any predictions on how this one ends?

The Dissident (43:44)
You

Kevin Maley (43:59)
and how quickly is it just, know, I, I think there's still ongoing negotiations with Hamas and there's a few remaining hostages, but, and I should say, think at the, even before Israel attacked Gaza, Hamas had offered all hostages to be released if Israel didn't go into Gaza. So there's been a deal on the table the whole time.

The Dissident (44:20)
Exactly. So there was an

Israeli spokesperson that basically blew the whistle on this. He quit and he said, yeah, on October 9th to 10th Hamas offered to release all the hostages if Israel didn't invade and Netanyahu said no. So that's another thing Biden could have forced Netanyahu to do, say, no, take this deal. We won't arm you. And if he did, it would have prevented this genocide and the hostages would have been free.

So, I'm sorry, I'm forgetting your initial. the Trump administration. I really find it hard to believe that, you know, Trump, because I mean, look at the hundred mil, first of all, I look at his first term. I think he did more for Netanyahu than almost any other president in terms of, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, allowing him to annex the Golan Heights, allowing him to annex illegal settlements in the West bank.

backing the mass, Netanyahu's massacre of, of, peaceful protesters and the great March return, the Abraham Accords, which I just mentioned. And then you look at him this time and he's got a hundred million dollars from Miriam Adelson, the pro Israel mega donor. And I've looked at his cabinet picks, almost every single one of them, their top donors when they were in whether whatever position they were in was APAC. So, well, for Marco Rubio was,

the pro-Israel America PAC, but another pro-Israel lobby group was a top donor. Elise Steffnick, his UN ambassador, her top donor was AIPAC, and Mike Waltz, his national security advisor, top donor was AIPAC. Then you look at Pete Hegseth, who's like this deranged Christian Zionist who says, is defense secretary who says you have to open your Bible to see that we have to support Israel. And he's...

He was a former Fox news host and he's actually interviewed Netanyahu gave him like a complete softball interview where Netanyahu said, yeah, I don't support a Palestinian state and Pete Hegseth agreed. And then even a figure like Tulsi Gabbard, who sort of ran this like anti-war ish campaign in 2020, she's done a complete 180 on this to ingratiate herself in the Trump administration, his DNI head. So back in 2018, she was calling out the massacre of the.

protesters in the Great March return. She was saying Trump wants to go to war with Iran at the behest of Netanyahu in Saudi Arabia. She's done a complete 180 on that. Now she's 100%. She called him genocidal because of Yemen. Yeah. And now she's completely for the genocide in Gaza. so, and then you look at Trump himself, I mean, in the debate, like his issue with the Democrats was that they weren't funding Israel enough. He kept saying they need to finish the job.

Kevin Maley (46:42)
She called Trump genocidal, I believe, because of the support for the attacks on Yemen.

The Dissident (47:01)
They should support Israel more. know, he used Palestinian as a slur. He's like, Joe Biden's like a Palestinian, even though he was funding the genocide. so...

Kevin Maley (47:08)
And Chuck

Schumer is basically a Palestinian.

The Dissident (47:11)
Yes, no, exactly. so, you know, the one thing Trump did say is, is on a truth social, he shared a clip of Jeffrey Sachs saying that, yeah, who's been pushing us towards war and that he's a, I think he called him a, can you curse on here? Yeah. He called him a deep, dark son of a bitch. Trump shared that clip. So again, I was like, that's, that was very recently, like within the last couple of days. And so

Kevin Maley (47:31)
Did he share that recently?

Okay.

The Dissident (47:36)
That gave me like a little bit of hope, I mean, honestly, I.

Kevin Maley (47:39)
That might just be

spite. I think he's got a grudge against Netanyahu for the last election. Netanyahu congratulated Biden a week after the election.

The Dissident (47:48)
Yeah. And also it,

again, a lot of it, I think is damage control. like, you know, there were a lot of Muslim voters in Michigan, for example, that voted for Trump because they were, he said no new wars in the middle East and, and, you know, they were,

Kevin Maley (48:02)
He trashed Harris for campaigning with Liz Cheney. In Michigan, of all places. I don't know what they were thinking.

The Dissident (48:05)
He trashed Harris for campaigning with Liz Cheney and yeah, no, exactly. so,

you know, yeah, no, was in and Bill Clinton going down there to, you know, defend Zionism. It was insane. But anyways, so I think a lot of them are probably looking at his cabinet picks and being like, okay, he's, that's just not true at all. And so again, it could have just been damage control, but I don't know. He's, it can be hard to predict sometimes, but I just think given

Kevin Maley (48:15)
lecturing them. Yep.

The Dissident (48:32)
the corruption of his cabinet and the a hundred million he's received from, you know, Miriam Adelson. And then plus again, his, you know, you have to go by his record and his record on Israel is just doing everything Netanyahu wanted. And not even just on Gaza, like, you know, he pulled out of the Iran deal, which Netanyahu wanted so bad, he tried to block it. He literally went to America to try to block it. You know, he put sanctions on Iran, which Mike Pompeo admitted.

you know, were intended to keep the Iranian population miserable in the hopes that there'd be regime change. He did the same thing in Syria and also kept troops in the Northeast Syria where all the oil and weed is, which Dana Struhl from the Defense Department admitted it was basically to keep Syria in rubble to try to affect regime change, which basically worked. I mean, there were a million other factors. you know, the government, this odd regime was super corrupt.

They weren't paying their soldiers anything. know, people had no freedom of expression. He would give no concessions to anyone. I mean, a lot of it was Assad's fault for falling, but the sanctions and the occupation of the oil and wheat rich areas that left 90 % of the Syrian population below the poverty line certainly didn't help. And so, yeah, I mean, I just thought it was so weird that Trump shared that clip when...

And I mean, you look at like all the sort of APAC tied people in his cabinet, they're equally hawkish on Iran. Like Jeffrey Sachs point was basically Netanyahu is trying to push us into war with Iran, which is correct. But as far back as 2012, Marco Rubio supported a military option on Iran. Pete Hegseth was on Fox News calling for Biden to bomb Iran in 2020. Mike Walz is a major Iran hawk. Even Tulsi Gabbard again, she used to be super reasonable on this issue. And then she started saying like,

the Democrats aren't doing enough to fight the Iranian backed Houthis, even though she correctly called Trump out for genocide for supporting the Saudi war in Yemen. so, I mean, I even look at a figure like her, who's like completely flipped her principles in order to, you know, ingratiate herself with the Trump camp. And I just think like, okay, that's clearly the direction they're going in and that's the line you have to take to be a part of it.

Kevin Maley (50:40)
Yeah, I think people don't appreciate, think Americans in particular don't appreciate how. Violent US policymakers are in both parties. And I just kind of think, you know, I'm not sure how much it's being covered in Canada, but in the US right now, a lot of the media has been focused this week on these fires in Southern California that are just destroying very wealthy enclaves and some working class enclaves as well. But you see these really brutal images of just.

entire neighborhoods laid to waste, fires burning everywhere. And I look at that and I just can't help but think of Gaza. there has been loss of life in California, but nothing like Gaza. And I just kind of would push upon people like picture what's going on in the Pacific Palisades. Picture that your entire country and a tenth of the population killed. And it's because of policymakers dropping bombs on you.

and not the Santa Ana winds blowing up, I don't know, someone who dropped a cigarette on dry brush or something like that. So just to kind of start to wrap things up, I know I opened the conversation with your summation of the legacy of Biden, but where do you kind of put him looking back at, I guess, especially post-war American presidents? Because I think about this in my head.

on who's been the worst on foreign policy. I still like to think it's George W. Bush, but, and I'm talking only about foreign policy here. I think there's separate rankings on domestic policy. think Bush is still bad on that too, but where would you put Biden just again, looking back at kind of the post-war period in terms of his, his legacy and impact on global affairs.

The Dissident (52:25)
I I think Gaza has to put him as one of the worst. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were horrible, there's a higher civilian casualty rate in Gaza than even Yemen and Syria, civilian to combatant. 70 % women and children, nine out of every 10 person killed is a civilian. And obviously, Bush killed many civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they just...

There's been no war in recent memory that where the, there were this many, I mean, it's not a war, it's a genocide, but you know, in recent history, there's just been nothing that has been to that scale. So I think it puts them over the edge. You know, without Gaza, it would be a different conversation, but I really do think it puts them over the edge as absolutely one of the worst.

Kevin Maley (53:20)
Are there any hotspots you're looking out for in the Trump administration? I know we didn't talk about China and East Asia, which is its own story, but as you think about global affairs moving forward, where are you keeping an eye on over the next year?

The Dissident (53:37)
Yeah, mean, it's, you know, with the sort of Rubio figures is really concerning because it's like there's so many areas where they're hawkish, like he's super hawkish on South America, for example. So he's going to get want to get more involved in Venezuela. He's going to get more want to get more involved in in Nicaragua. He's going to get more want to get more involved in even Mexico. You know, any anywhere where there's a government he doesn't like, he's going to want to get more involved in certainly China. You know, he's a massive China hawk.

Hegseth, Mike Waltz, they're all super China hawks. They're all super Iran hawks. They're all super pro-Israel. looking at his cabinet, it's like, I think there's a number of places around the world that you're gonna need to look at.

Kevin Maley (54:18)
Sounds very, very comforting. Where can people follow your work?

The Dissident (54:24)
Yeah, so the 307.substack.com or just look up the dissident on substack. And then I'm also leftist underscore news 12 on Twitter, but I don't really tweet anything except my articles there and like the occasional tweet. mostly a stack is where you'll find everything.

Kevin Maley (54:42)
Great, and we will put that in the show notes and appreciate you coming on. It's been a great discussion and love to have you back.

The Dissident (54:48)
Yeah, it was great. Thanks so

much for having me. Great conversation. I'd love to come on again anytime.

Kevin Maley (54:55)
Yeah, absolutely. All right, take care.

The Dissident (54:57)
Yeah, you too.