The timing of the latest spiral of the Palestine-Israel conflict was very opportune for the Biden administration amid waning support for funding a “losing” Ukraine.
Dr. Linwood Tauheed, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, told Sputnik that the October 7 breakout by Hamas from the Gaza strip, followed by Israel's bombing and ground invasion, presented President Joe Biden with a means of extricating itself from the “Ukraine fiasco.”
“The situation as the Ukrainians lose the war and [President Volodymyr] Zelensky is finally admitting that is what’s happening was seen as an albatross, another Vietnam, if you will." Dr. Tauheed noted. "For Biden, it would be a loss to support a losing Ukraine... And so it became very obvious that the Biden administration wanted to get out of that fiasco and needed to reduce the financial support. The Israeli-Gaza situation comes at a time when that support could be moved from Ukraine onto Gaza. Therefore, not decreasing the military spending and support for the weapons industry.”
Even the latest visit of President Volodymyr Zelensky to Washington earlier this month to lobby lawmakers for more money to fuel NATO's proxy war against Russia failed to make an impression against the backdrop of Kiev’s failed counteroffensive and overall creeping “Ukraine fatigue”.
Michael McCloud, the comptroller for the US Department of Defense, previously revealed that the Pentagon's Ukraine war-chest would run dry come December 30. On December 27, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that Washington would be releasing a "final" military aid package to Ukraine to the tune of up to $250 million via the Foreign Assistance Act, which allows the administration to bypass congressional approval. This aid would include air defense munitions, high mobility artillery rocket systems and anti-armor munitions, plus more than "15 million rounds of ammunition."
Redirecting funds from propping up Ukraine towards the Israel-Hamas conflict was tailored to ensure maintaining support for the US weapons’ industry, explained Dr. Tauheed.
8 December 2023, 20:00 GMT
Ukraine has become a gold mine for the American military-industrial complex, with Kiev coming to rank in the top five of Washington’s arms export destinations, according to data from the Statista portal. Weapon manufacturers have been lining their pockets from arms sales to Ukraine, and ahead of the 2024 Presidential elections the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee Biden would want to avoid alienating them.
As opinion polls indicate that Americans are becoming skeptical of Washington’s aid to Kiev, the White House had reportedly been pitching the need for further aid to Ukraine with the claim that it will boost economic growth in the US and create more jobs.
"If you look at the investments that we've made in Ukraine's defense to deal with this aggression, 90 percent of the security assistance we've provided has actually been spent here in the United States with our manufacturers, with our production, and that's produced more American jobs, more growth in our own economy," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier in December at a press conference with his British counterpart David Cameron.
But no matter where Team Biden may choose to redirect taxpayers’ money, Ukraine or Israel, the popularity rating of the 81-year-old POTUS has been taking a battering, Dr. Linwood Tauheed pointed out. “In fact, Washington’s support for Israel is leading to an even greater decline in Biden's popularity, particularly among the young, but also among some very interesting coalitions in the US against supporting the genocide that's going on in Gaza,” said the pundit.
Biden's polling support has fallen to a record low of 34 percent, with US voters seemingly sceptical of the White House's claims of the success of "Bidenomics", despite the US seeing relatively low unemployment and slower inflation.
The Real Clear Politics aggregator of polls showed Biden has a job approval rating of no more than 40 percent. Some 56 percent disapproved of his leadership, with 67 percent believing that the country was on the wrong track. According to a December Wall Street Journal poll, Republican contender Donald Trump is favored over Joe Biden on the issues of the Ukraine conflict and Israel’s war on Gaza.
But heedless of the dismal poll numbers, the Biden administration will fund external conflicts “because their donors are adamant and stuck on it,” Dr.Tauheed said. Weapons manufacturers are "getting a dividend, whether it's Ukraine or Gaza, and they are big donors to the Democrats,” he pointed out.