Biden speaks softly and carries a big diplomatic stick

On Wednesday, the day after the Senate passed the House bill providing $60 billion in aid to Ukraine in its existential battle against Putin’s invasion, CNN reported on the inside story. Over the previous six months, the White House had orchestrated “public pressure and private overtures … to build [congressional] support, including the not-insignificant task of winning over House Speaker Mike Johnson.”

This week’s success for Ukraine follows an equally important victory last week in the world’s other hottest spot, the Middle East. Again it was President Joe Biden’s skillful combination of public and private pressure — this time on Israel — that preserved regional stability; not to mention his successful coordination of allies’ April 13 military interception of 99 percent of Iran’s drone and missiles attacking Israel.

These foreign policy triumphs underscored how the contrasts between presidential candidates could spell the difference between war and peace, between global stability and a dangerous world where strong nations succeed by invading weak ones. When it comes to the delicate touch needed for foreign policy that deters wars and protects Americans, Biden gets things done in the way mature leaders must — without flash.

He knows that loose lips sink ships of state. His difference from Donald Trump is stark. You don’t have to be a Metternich or Machiavelli to know that Trump, were he president, would have America teetering on the brink in one war and courting surrender of an ally in the other.

Let’s start with the Middle East. On April 1, an Israeli air strike killed three Iranian senior military leaders and four officers in Damascus, Syria. Iran immediately vowed revenge, which it carried out in the April 13 drone and missile attack.

The world held its breath awaiting Israel’s next step. An escalation via a massive direct attack on Iranian territory could have achieved Hamas’s Oct. 7 goal: precipitating a regional war with Arab states allied to destroy the Jewish State.

It didn’t happen. Instead, Israel targeted a single site inside Iran, the city of Isfahan, where several of the country’s nuclear sites are located, and another out-of-country attack on Iranian assets in Iraq. Iran correctly read Israel’s response as a de-escalation.

Having made its military statement in response to the killing of its generals, and with Israel turning down the temperature, Iran acted as if nothing much had occurred. The cycle of escalation appears to have ended.

We don’t know the details of how this happened. We do know the outline of behind-the-scenes diplomacy. Biden and his team worked the levers of influence with an Israeli government primed to flex its muscle excessively, even in the face of an angered United Nations accusing it of genocide.

Biden’s continued supply of arms that have supported the killing of innocent Palestinians has infuriated sensible people to the point of shock. Biden has spent enormous political capital defending Israel, alienating his left flank in “blue wall” states key to the coming election, such as Michigan and Wisconsin.

Military support, however, in the form of Biden’s help blocking Iran’s drones and missiles, held his leverage with Israel’s right-wing government. He preserved that leverage for strategic use in moments like last week, to serve his primary goal: avoiding a regional war and a potential global conflagration.

As the New York Times reported, “Israel abandoned plans for a much more extensive counter strike on Iran after concerted diplomatic pressure from the United States and other foreign allies and because the brunt of an Iranian assault on Israel soil had been thwarted, according to three senior Israeli officials.”

This is foreign policy mastery of all the levers, as opposed to the sledgehammer approach that Trump signaled he would use. He told Fox News last month that Biden is bad for Israel and his plan for the war would be to “end it quickly.” He gave no details, but a green light to Israel to bomb Gaza back to the stone age would end the fighting quickly, though surely not for long.

Now take Ukraine aid. According to the NYT story, Biden, with foresight and the use of presidential assets, started his campaign to convince Johnson the day after he became Speaker. The White House immediately accorded him a Situation Room briefing on the national security implications of not providing aid to Ukraine. Affording Johnson “a full intelligence picture” included “warnings of what it would mean” beyond just Ukraine “if Russian President Vladimir Putin were to succeed.”

Even as time wore on without action from Johnson, Biden kept the long term in mind. According to the Times, he directed his team to avoid attacks on Johnson.

It must have been tough to keep the velvet glove on as Trump successfully instructed Republican representatives, including Johnson, to kill the Senate deal that tied Ukraine aid to a conservative border security deal. Sarah Longwell, the never-Trump Republican consultant, explained that “Trump’s always been in love with Putin.”

Still, according to Steve Ricchetti, a White House counselor, Biden “just kept saying, ‘Keep talking [to Johnson].’ … Keep finding ways to resolve differences.” In the end, albeit at a dire moment, Johnson broke the logjam. Ukraine and the future of Western Europe may have been saved by a hair.

You don’t need a crystal ball to tell you that someone in love with Putin would stop all aid to Ukraine on a dime if voters return that someone to the White House.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, critics scoffed when candidate Biden touted his history of bipartisan dealmaking with Republicans, saying he was out of touch with the age of Trumpism and regular congressional obstruction from a Republican majority with a Democratic president. Now look at the surprising successes. Punchbowl News reported last week that Biden has gotten pretty much everything he’s asked for from this Congress — without having to concede much in return.

Trump says the quiet part out loud, offending all perceived and actual foes. Biden, by contrast, knows how to cultivate adversaries and preserve them by keeping mum on his work behind the scenes.

Trust is the coin of the realm for any experienced hand at the helm of world diplomacy and congressional relations. May all of us do something, small or large, to keep trust’s currency alive where it matters, and with it, the safety that comes of world order.

Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor and civil litigator, currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy.