A former White House official who served under the George W. Bush administration, Marc A. Thiessen, exposed how Joe Biden helped Putin launch a full-scale attack against Ukraine.
Biden reluctant to impose crippling sanctions against Russia
Thiessen wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post that Biden had the power to stop Russia from invading Ukraine, but his poor decisions proved detrimental to global security.
According to Thiessen, Biden’s decision not to cut off Russia from the SWIFT banking network proved consequential in portraying him as a president not actually willing to help Ukraine.
On Thursday, Biden announced for the time being, the US is not looking to exclude Russia from the SWIFT network, a banking system used by all the financial institutions to wire money across the globe.
President Biden says Russia won’t be removed from the SWIFT international banking system for now because European allies — notably Germany and Italy — are not currently in favor.
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) February 24, 2022
Reportedly, had Biden decided to take this action, it could have hit Russia’s oil and natural gas exports.
Even though natural gas exports are the major source of income for Russia, Biden said he is currently aiming to enact sanctions that would not disturb energy payments.
Thus, Thiessen suggested Biden did not want to go that route because it could have increased energy prices in the United States, just ahead of the midterm elections.
This would have further reduced Democrats’ chances of winning in the forthcoming elections.
Putin knew Biden would not hit him hard
As per the former White House official, Putin gambled Biden would not make a politically unpopular decision before elections, which helped him evade severe sanctions.
“As we respond [to Russia’s invasion] my administration is using every tool at our disposal to protect American businesses and consumers from rising prices at the pump,” Biden said.
Banning new domestic oil and gas drilling is a funny way to do it.https://t.co/3euaznMDGx
— Marc Thiessen (@marcthiessen) February 23, 2022
Biden took over the nation which was energy independent just over a year ago; however, his faulty decisions are sending America into chaos, Thiessen continued.
Likewise, he wrote that Trump took unprecedented measures during his administration. Trump helped the country get over 100 million acres of public land for exploration, while approving the Keystone XL pipeline.
This helped the United States surpass Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producers. After assuming office, Biden preferred so-called climate change over energy independence.
Therefore, Biden launched an energy disarmament policy while canceling Keystone XL, Thiessen wrote. Not only this, but the president also suspended oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic and banned all new oil and gas permits on public lands.
Thus, Thiessen believes these policies of Biden weakened the position of the United States against Russia.
He further added Putin continuously saw Biden’s approval rating, which is falling freely. This helped the Russian president in determining Biden would not take further domestic pressure, just to impose crippling sanctions against Russia.
As the Russian president managed to predict Biden’s path correctly, he accumulated almost $630 billion in gold and currency reserves before invading Ukraine.
This was designed to fend off impacts of any smaller sanctions that Biden may impose.
Marc A. Thiessen worked as a director of speechwriting in President Bush’s White House. He is a conservative writer, working with the Washington Post.
