“Mark my words, he’s gonna need help!” Parsing Biden’s warning on Obama’s foreign policy

“He’s gonna need help!”  No truer words . . .

On Sunday, Joe Biden warned a group of supporters that if elected Barack Obama would soon be “tested like John Kennedy” by a “generated” international crisis.  Biden’s warning is worrisome on multiple levels.  On the surface, there’s the obvious, “What does Joe Biden really think about Obama’s foreign policy competence?”  But beneath the surface are other disturbing implications.

These, treated in more detail after the jump, should be considered by anyone thinking — as I was ten months ago — of perhaps pulling the lever for Barack Obama.

The recording, above, relays part of Joe Biden’s warning.  ABCNews offers a more comprehensive transcript which I have copied below the analysis.

Analysis

1. Why say it at all? Why would a prospective Vice President want to raise questions, in anyone’s mind, about the foreign-policy chops of his running mate?  As I run through the list of possibilities, I can think of no legitimate reason — except to disclaim personal liability or lower performance expectations in advance of a foreign policy catastrophe — that would explain Biden’s raising this flag at this moment.  What’s at issue here is Joe Biden’s understanding of human nature and his smarts as a negotiator.  If you’re trying to sell voters on Obama or scare off foreign aggressors, the last thing you say is “my guy’s gonna need help!” What motivated Biden to say it?

2. How will Biden’s warning affect America’s friends and foes? It will scare friends and embolden foes.  Consider this array of potential foreign-policy snares, arranged in order of geographical proximity:

Mexico offers a heady combination of (a) illegal immigration that threatens to swamp border-state finances, (b) drug trafficking and related violence, and (c) obnoxious low-rider trucks and mariachi bands (how’d that get in here?);

Russia, in economic distress and therefore as dangerous as a wounded bear, lies a mere 53 miles away, across the Bering Strait;

Cuba, in some kind of transition (and in economic distress), is 70 miles of the coast of Florida;

Hugo Chavez, a few hours further south, in Venezuela, has invited Russian long-range bombers over for tea;

A few clicks away from Chavez, in el Peru, lurks Evo Morales who isn’t much of a direct threat to the U.S. but can be a serious regional menace to U.S. interests in Latin America;

Across the South Atlantic and central Africa, Darfur, Sudan — which Obama has all but promised to occupy with U.S. troops — beckons;

Moving north, we quickly bump into Palestine, Israel, Syria, and . . . Iran which is notoriously developing its nuclear war-making capabilities and openly threatening Israel with destruction; and

Further north, we encounter Russia, again, desperate to annex portions of the Ukraine, Georgia, Moldava and the Baltic states . . .

Not to mention Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and Taiwan — any of which could blow any time, individually or in combination. Biden’s comment — which directly ties Obama to the dreadful foreign policy errors of Jack Kennedy — will make America’s friends think twice in any moment of real crisis about committing to support a President Obama likely to pull his own Bay of Pigs.  If Russia decides to take over the Crimean Peninsula, how will Turkey respond?  If Iran attacks Israel, what then?  If China attacks Taiwan, what of Japan and South Korea?

Which one of these foreign policy Rubik’s cubes becomes easier for a president to solve after his running mate announces to the world — “mark my words, mark my words” — he’s gonna be “challenged” because the world’s tough guys – Putin, Chavez, Wen Jiabao, et al – are going to see him as a pipsqueak?  Answer: None. Biden’s warning strengthens the morale of enemies and weakens the knees of friends around the world.

If Obama is elected, any foreign policy challenge is harder and more costly to resolve because Joe Biden has told the world in essence, “Obama is an inexperienced kid.”  The distressing reality is that Biden’s candid assessment is right. It would be a bewildering array for a modern Solomon.  Jack Kennedy nearly torched the globe — multiple times — over a fraction of this global complexity.  And Barack Obama is no Jack Kennedy.

3. Loose lips sink ships. What does Biden’s careless candor at this stage of the proceedings say about his ability to control his mouth if he gets into the Oval Office?  So much good ink has been spilled over Sarah Palin’s fitness for office.  What about this Biden character?  Isn’t a guy capable of hurting his running mate like this capable of considerably worse verbal mischief in office?  Consider Biden’s warning — with a bit of commentary — one more time.

Biden’s Warning

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,” Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. “And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not financially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.” . . .

What does this mean?  This is the kind of statement that starts a run on a bank.  Is Biden asking for a foreign policy bailout in advance?

“I’ve forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I’m not being falsely humble with you. I think I can be value added, but this guy has it,” the Senate Foreign Relations chairman said of Obama. “This guy has it. But he’s gonna need your help. Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, ‘Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?’ We’re gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I’m asking you now, I’m asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you’re going to have to reinforce us.”

This is just too weird.  Biden is either smoking strong weed or is hiding material information about Barack Obama’s foreign policy plans.  A corporate PR guy who plays this game gets a decades-long prison sentence.  What does Biden know that he should be sharing with the rest of us?

“There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, ‘Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don’t know about that decision’,” Biden continued. “Because if you think the decision is sound when they’re made, which I believe you will when they’re made, they’re not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they’re popular, they’re probably not sound.”

Biden emphasized that the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border is of particular concern, with Osama bin Laden “alive and well” and Pakistan “bristling with nuclear weapons.”

“You literally can see what these kids are up against, our kids in that region,” Biden said in recalling when his helicopter was forced down due to a snowstorm there. “The place is crawling with al Qaeda. And it’s real.”

“We do not have the military capacity, nor have we ever, quite frankly, in the last 20 years, to dictate outcomes,” he cautioned. “It’s so much more important than that. It’s so much more complicated than that. And Barack gets it.”

More disturbing mumbo jumbo coupled with an invitation to America’s enemies to attack, now.  “We do not have the military capacity. . . to dictate outcomes.” So, what, Joe?  In geopolitics what matters isn’t the reality of our “capacity”.  What matters is what our opponents think we can do. Here again is evidence that Joe Biden is either a Benedict Arnold or a negotiation ignoramus with the worst case of loose lips in the U.S. Senate.  His presence in the White House will result in the loss of thousands of American lives.

Barack gets “it”?  What is “it”?  What could possibly be more important to the United States than dictating outcomes to Al Qaeda?  Does Obama intend to sign a treaty with Al Qaeda?  Or has he already?  Maybe an Odinga-style MOU?

After speaking for just over a quarter of an hour, Biden noticed the media presence in the back of the small ballroom.

“I probably shouldn’t have said all this because it dawned on me that the press is here,” he joked. . .

He joked?  What kind of world leader jokes about such things?  This was no joke.  It is an indictment of Joe Biden or Barack Obama or both.

What America and the world need at this moment in history is a tested, experienced President, not a community organizer with big gaps in his resume and zero executive experience.  And we need a VP who knows when to keep his mouth shut.