The Biden pier debacle

In an election season when the Democratic Party is all style over substance, it is worth revisiting not the most consequential foreign policy decision of the Biden-Harris administration , but perhaps the most emblematic of their established pattern of placing domestic political priorities over real-world security concerns. Namely, the ill-fated floating pier for aid delivery to Gaza .

Friday was the third anniversary of President Joe Biden’s disastrous decision to ignore the advice of his generals and choose a purely political timeline to remove all troops from Afghanistan in time for the 20th anniversary of 9/11. It was an act of pure political hubris that cost 13 servicemembers their lives and made America look weak throughout the region.

Biden’s decision to appease the Iranian regime, by returning to President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal and easing up on sanctions enforcement, was less about scoring domestic political points and more about an authentic naivete in Democratic foreign policy thinking, but the result nonetheless was an emboldened Iranian regime that flooded proxies in the region with cash and weapons. As a direct result of easing up on the Iranian regime, terrorists now menace shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Hamas has attacked Israel from Gaza.

Israel’s response to the Hamas attack has been measured and thorough. But the methodical nature of the operation has become a major source of domestic political anguish for Biden and the Democrats. A significant portion of the Democratic Party, a segment far larger than thought a year ago, wants Hamas to defeat Israel. Biden and the Democrats have had trouble appeasing this anti-Israel faction.

This was the context for Biden’s State of the Union promise in March of this year to construct a floating pier off the coast of Gaza to deliver food, medicine, and other supplies to Palestinians. The U.S. Agency for International Development considered the idea before Biden’s State of the Union, but it was rejected because of the logistical difficulties and because the agency determined it would be more effective to concentrate its efforts on getting aid through existing land crossing into Gaza from both Israel and Egypt.

But just as Biden ignored his generals in Afghanistan, he ignored his humanitarian aid experts in Gaza. He needed something flashy to give the anti-Israel faction of his party during the State of the Union, and a pier to aid starving Palestinians was what they would get.

The goal set by the Defense Department was to construct a temporary floating pier off the coast of Gaza that would deliver enough food to feed 500,000 Palestinians for three months. Biden insisted that not a single United States military boot was to set foot on the ground during the operation. The USAID made clear to Biden its objections. Its officials told him that security and force protection requirements of operating such a facility in a war zone would substantially impair their ability to deliver aid to Gaza. The well-known rough seas in the region would also make continued operation of the pier difficult.

According to a USAID Office of Inspector General report, Biden disregarded these warnings. The DOD and the USAID then dutifully carried out his orders, but the agencies could not pull off the impossible. Just one month’s worth of food was delivered to Gaza, and most of that was looted. USAID officials told the inspector general that far more aid could have been delivered if resources and efforts had been focused on the “more efficient and proven” land crossings.

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From Taiwan to Iran to Ukraine, the U.S. faces multiple security threats worldwide, threats that have grown only more menacing with Biden in office. Stunts such as the Afghanistan withdrawal and the Gaza pier have not helped America’s standing in the world. With the Biden-Harris team in charge, we look both weak and ineffectual.

Vice President Kamala Harris has never criticized any of these decisions, and there is no evidence she would change course in any way. A Harris administration would only deliver many more pier debacles for years to come.