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For Your Consideration
Mike Lowry
Historians like to play the “what if” game — what if D-Day had failed or Kennedy survived?
This is only the second time in history with two presidents running against each other, the first being Grover Cleveland against Benjamin Harrison in 1888.
What if Vice President Joe Biden ran for president instead of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and defeated Donald Trump, how would things have been different? B iden, with the VP office and less baggage than Clinton, might have been a stronger candidate.
At inauguration time, international news featured nuclear threats from North Korea and Obama predicting North Korea would be a major issue for the new administration.
Trump responded when Kim Jong Un fired off rockets and claimed to have a nuclear button by calling him “Little Rocket Man” and commented that he had a much larger nuclear button. He then did the unexpected: he invited the North Korean leader to have a one-on-one meeting with him.
The press and State Department cringed at the thought of such a meeting but Trump arrived on Air Force One and Kim on a borrowed Chinese airliner. Trump reacted politely and actually helped Kim through the initial meeting protocol. Kim was also presented with an audio-visual program showing how friendship with the U.S. could benefit the people of North Korea.
The meeting did not end the threat of North Korea but it did dramatically tone it down and Kim demonstrated a new respect for the U.S. and the president. The major threat moved to a “concern” level.
How would Biden have handled the situation? Based on his term in office, Biden would have left all negotiations to the State Department and consultations with our allies Australia, Japan and South Korea, and reacted in response to Korean threats and demands. Would it have worked as well?
During the Trump administration, Iran proxies were attacking American forces in the Middle East. The Iranian leader behind these attacks was secretly going to Iraq. Trump authorized the military to use a Hellfire missile as a welcome that blew him up and his carload of assistants. The attacks on American forces ended.
Another concern was Syria. President Obama warned the Syrian leader if he used poison gas or chemical weapons, he would cross a U.S. “red line.” Bashar Assad did and nothing happened so he did it again under Trump. Trump at the time was hosting a dinner for the leader of Communist China. During the dinner, Trump excused himself and when he came back, he apologized to the Chinese leader for having to leave, asked him how his dessert was and informed him he had authorized the use of 18 missiles to take out a Syrian air base that had dropped the chemical weapons on Syrian rebels.
How would a Biden administration have handled the situations? After some 200 attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East resulting in over 30 injuries, Biden did nothing. After three American soldiers were killed and Iranian proxies were firing Iranian-provided missiles at American and foreign ships, Biden authorized air strikes on the missile sites (but not against the terrorist sponsor).
Based on how Biden has responded to these situations and his objection to taking out bin Ladin in the Pakistan raid probably not as forceful.
American went into Afghanistan after 9-11 to get Osama bin Laden and remove his forces allied with the Taliban controlled government. The Taliban were removed but continued to fight back. Trump authorized a hard press against the Taliban forces and as a result the Taliban ceased major operations. In the year leading up to Biden being elected, no American had died in combat there.
Trump announced plans to withdraw combat forces while maintaining the large Bagram air base, both as deterrent against the Taliban and as a key intelligence base watching both China and Russia. Would Biden have maintained forces in Afghanistan or authorized the disastrous withdrawal that he actually did under his administration?
Trump, faced with massive caravans of illegal migrants convinced Mexico to accept a remain in Mexico policy, convinced countries to take back unqualified migrants, build a wall, and increased support for ICE and the Border Patrol.
A 2016 Biden would probably have, as he has done, stopped restrictions and never started a wall. We probably would have had the over eight million illegal migrants in the country prior to Covid hitting.
Could Biden have gotten industry to convert from making cars and appliances to making ventilators? Would VP Harris, who has failed at “border czar” and other assignments, handle the distribution issues and military coordination as VP Mike Pence did? Could Biden have created an Operation Warped Speed to create even one vaccine or the national distribution of it with an open border policy?
Thinking about the latter, I recall the late Vernon Walters, former Army general, presidential adviser, ambassador to West Germany, and deputy director of the CIA, joking, “God looks out for children, drunks and the United States of America.”
As you play the “what if” game, you might ask yourself “what if” Biden or Trump win the upcoming election, what will our economy, foreign policy, law enforcement, and future look like? For your consideration.
