Old man Joe Biden is showing a lack of fresh thinking more than anyone suspected he would, given his campaign promises, and this so soon in his own bizarre presidency. Some of his best promises have turned to dust.

The promised $15 per hour minimum wage has been put on hold and Biden has not come out swinging for it as it seemed he might have last fall before his election although many Democrats in Congress have. (Given inflation in recent years, the true fair number for adjusted hourly wages is actually $24 an hour in the U.S.)

Even worse is the pass he gave to Muhammad bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, whom the CIA with obvious evidence charged with ordering the assassination of Saudi journalist and Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi.

This matter is especially interesting to this writer because the biggest unofficial apologist for Saudi’s medieval kingdom happens to be a former student in 1972 in Beirut at the fancy private school called International College, one ‘Ali Shihabi.

Shihabi was around 12 years old in 1972, the son of a Norwegian mother and Saudi father. He did not look Arab. He was a blonde back then and widely traveled and rich. He even sported an expensive Rolex watch on his diminutive wrist and he wore Western garb. He was a fair student, too, at 12 in an English class but also somewhat full of himself. Later, he went to Princeton and Harvard Business School. And later still after time as a banker, he started something (now defunct) called the “Arabia Foundation”, an alleged “think” tank but really just an operation apologizing for and defending the Saudi state. At any rate, he became and remains a slick, unofficial, and well-known pundit and “ambassador” of sorts speaking out positively for the Saudis in Washington. No doubt this is lucrative.

On the Khashoggi murder, he has been vehemently defending MBS. Right after the event in 2018 he claimed, aw-shucks, everyone makes a mistake from time to time. Lately, he is saying:

“The U.S. government went in and destroyed Iraq” and then he asks rhetorically who was held responsible for that? Shihabi has also just warned that if real pressure is brought to bear on the Saudis and especially MBS by the Biden Administration that Riyadh’s displeasure with the U.S. would push the Saudis under MBS to look beyond the U.S. for support. Slick Shihabi also pointed out that China is already Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner. It’s hard to imagine this is not a threat to the U.S.

Another notable Biden failure so far is his lack of formerly promised immediate movement on the revival of the JCPOA. So far the Biden gang and Iran have been stuck in a standoff, each declaring that the other should make concessions first. Of course, it stands to moral reason that the U.S. act first and drop the sanctions first since it was the U.S. that destroyed the carefully crafted nuclear deal, and not Iran. Of course, the Republicans are as usual saying that Biden must take a harder line and not lift sanctions until Iran agrees to broad concessions on its missile arsenal (Iran’s sole serious defense against attack!) and regional military policies. Also, there are some Democrats in Congress who have aligned with Republicans on the Iranian issue.

The blatant truth is that the Republicans and the handful of Democrats who are bleating like sheep for a harder line against Iran are quite literally in thrall to Israel and the Zionists who don’t want the revival of the JCPOA at all even if the world does. If you have to guess why then you need to be educated. It’s because the Apartheid entity wants to attack Iran eventually and it cannot if the JCPOA has been revived. It does not get any more complicated than this at the bottom.

The absolute truth is that the U.S. does not at all oppose tyranny nor human rights violations. The idea that it does is a complete myth. Yet this myth is believed because the U.S. has used it to justify wars, bombings, sanctions, and chaos for decades, and especially during this century. It’s not difficult to look back since Worth War 2 and see how often the U.S. has propped up or installed dictators in other countries. This included Iran with the former Shah. So, what does the U.S. truly despise?

Countries and people who simply don’t submit to U.S. commands and decrees. And this applies to polities where it does not matter how democratic and generally peaceful they are. All that seems to matter to become an enemy of the U.S. government is a failure to submit to whatever the U.S. demands. And this is quite simply insane. And one huge reason why the U.S. is becoming a failed and reviled country.

It’s a wonder Iran has not said goodbye to the JCPOA and with great energy shored up its relations with Russia and China as a bulwark against attack by the U.S, and its criminal allies such as Saudi Arabia and Israel.