Biden’s legacy: Gaza genocide and now possible nuclear war in Europe

US Alternate Ambassador Robert Wood raises his hand to veto a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, during a United Nations Security Council meeting on Wednesday. AFP

Never has the world been so precariously on pins and needles as it is now, with Europe exposed to the threat of nuclear war, the West Asian region facing genocide, and the rest of the world uncertain about what to expect from the leadership change in the United States—a nation teetering on the brink of moral bankruptcy.

Judged by a yardstick of any make, the Joe Biden administration is the most anti-humanitarian US regime in the post-World War order. It shows no pity for thousands of children dying in indiscriminate Israeli attacks, of starvation, and without medicine to treat their life-threatening injuries. On Wednesday, the Biden administration used, heartlessly and shamelessly, once again, its veto power at the United Nations Security Council to kill for the fourth time a Gaza ceasefire resolution that even US allies like France hailed as comprehensive. Killing a resolution on the very day the world marked Universal Children’s Day is further proof that the US regards Israel’s right to defence as more important than saving children in the conflict.

The Biden administration is ideologically Zionist. Its failure to act decisively against Israel’s war crimes implies that it believes there is virtue in the killing of the innocent. The Biden administration’s action or inaction suggests that it is committed to the Zionist ideology of ensuring Israel’s survival even if it means the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from Palestinian lands, carrying out genocide, and expanding Israel’s illegal settlements.

Occasionally, the Biden administration warns Israel, perhaps, to portray itself as concerned about the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But Israel takes no notice of these warnings, leaving the US with an egg on its face. 

Early this year, the US warned Israel not to send troops into Gaza’s Rafah region, where more than a million Palestinians had found refuge, as it could turn the humanitarian crisis into a worse catastrophe. Israel disregarded the warning and did what it wanted. Then last month, the US warned Israel that it risks facing a weapons ban if it did not allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. The deadline passed last week, but there is no punitive measure from the Biden administration for Israel’s noncompliance. 

On the contrary, the US keeps finding excuses to justify Israel’s brutal crimes in Gaza and rewarded Israel with a US veto. Completely isolated at the UNSC, the US fails to be introspective about why it is an outlier and why it has become a global peace killer and even an accomplice in the Gaza genocide. During its four-year tenure, the Biden administration was culpable for not only not using its powers to prevent Israel from going beyond the proportionate military response and launching a total genocide in Gaza in response to a Hamas attack on October 3, 2023, but also spurning every opportunity to address Russia’s security concerns over NATO’s expansion to its western borders.

The Ukraine war was preventable, but the US and NATO, together with their respective military-industrial complexes, wanted it to happen to bleed Russia of its military and economic resources and to test their latest weaponry. For the US and some of its NATO allies, geopolitical objectives are more important than the suffering the Ukrainian people are forced to endure. Russia did not start the war all of a sudden in February 2022. It sent Ukraine proposal after proposal to solve the crisis as Ukraine’s pro-West president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, showed impatience to join NATO.

The move would let the US and its NATO allies place missile systems on the very borders of Russia—one of the thorniest issues in US-Russia relations. But Zelenskyy, on advice from the US, Britain, and other allies, rejected Russian peace proposals and precipitated a Russian invasion, which eventually led to the largest and deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II. All Russia wanted was for Ukraine to remain a neutral country.

This week, the US permitted Ukraine to use US-supplied ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System). These missiles are designed for long-range precision strikes and can be launched from platforms like the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). 

Ukraine used six of these missiles at targets well inside Russia. Five of them were shot down, according to Russia. One missile hit a military facility in Russia’s Bryansk region. The use of ATACMS breached the red line Russia had set. It prompted Russia to update its nuclear doctrine. On Wednesday President Vladimir Putin approved the update, which lowers Russia’s threshold to launch a nuclear strike against its opponents. The doctrine outlines that an attack on Russian soil by a non-nuclear power could be grounds for nuclear retaliation if the opponent was backed by a nuclear-armed state.

Meanwhile, Russia delivered a serious blow to the Ukrainian military, killing up to 400 soldiers this week in the Kursk region, a Russian territory that Ukraine has been holding on to in the hope that the territory could be used as a bargaining chip at peace talks likely to happen after Donald Trump takes over as US president on January 20.

But in the interim, the outgoing Biden administration is taking the war to the dangerous nuclear levels. Ukraine has no nuclear weapons but is backed by the three nuclear powers—the US, Britain, and France. The Americans who approved of Ukraine’s use of ATACMS would have certainly calculated a tough Russian response, including a nuclear strike. If so, isn’t the US provoking Russia for a nuclear war?

This was not the first time that Ukraine had used tactical missiles against a Russian target. On September 22, 2023, Ukraine used Storm Shadow cruise missiles supplied by Britain to attack Russia’s Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol, Crimea. Such missiles were also fired at Russian targets in the Kursk region this week.

The missile attacks come as Russia finds itself in a military tight spot. Russia’s recruitment of North Korean troops indicates a possible military weakness or a determination to wrap up the war early at any cost. Zelenskyy is boasting about a victory plan. But Putin is unlikely to stop the war except as a victor. A defeat will spell a security disaster for Russia, with country after country in its backyard embracing the US and NATO.

Russia is not bluffing. When push comes to shove, Russia will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons. However, it is also pinning its hopes on President Trump’s promise to stop military aid to Ukraine and end the war. Yet, in the interim, Russia feels it needs to be prepared to respond to the Biden administration’s moves to take the war to the Russian heartland.

In Trump, Russia may find hope to end the war on its terms. But the Palestinians dying in Gaza are not so hopeful of a Trump presidency, which is being packed with hardline Zionists who have openly called for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, the annexation of the West Bank, and the destruction of Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque for the Zionist fanatics to build the Third Temple over the ruins of Islam’s third holiest mosque.