Trying to get a foreign regime to intervene in our elections.
Imagine a Republican in the White House and that would have been the lede, there would, by now, have been calls for an investigation, subpoenas, lawsuits and impeachment proposals.
With a Democrat, it’s just subtext.
Days before a major oil-production cut by OPEC and its Russia-led allies, U.S. officials called their counterparts in Saudi Arabia and other big Gulf producers with an urgent appeal—delay the decision for another month, according to people familiar with the talks. The answer: a resounding no.
Saudi officials dismissed the requests, which they viewed as a political gambit by the Biden administration to avoid bad news ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, on which control of Congress hangs. High gas prices and inflation have been central issues in the campaign.
The Saudis are applying pressure to the Biden administration with their usual tool. But the Biden administration was not, despite public posturing by Democrats and the media, concerned with the impact on Americans, but the impact on its ability to hold Congress.
Had the Saudis pulled this after the election, it’s a safe bet that the media and the Democrats would be much less agitated.
But instead of treating the Biden demand as election interference using a foreign regime, you can bet the spin will be that the Saudis are interfering on behalf of Republicans. And then they can cue a retread of Russiagate with the Saudis. What the Saudis want is pretty clear. And they’re playing hardball to get it. The question is why is Biden putting Iran ahead of that?
Biden could jettison the fake deal with Iran, the worthless talks and restore support against the Houthis in Yemen. But that would infuriate the Iran Lobby, Qatar’s Al Jazeera, the various think tanks it backs and the leftist activist base. So, as usual, Biden kept going on autopilot, doing the bidding of the Left and its Iranian allies, with disastrous results, not just economically, but potentially politically.
The Saudis were just as cynical here as the Biden administration and understood that the political impact was all that they cared about. But maybe they weren’t cynical enough. The Dems would love to retain Congress, but the odds of that were a long shot anyway. Getting another country to blame for the gas prices that they want to keep high anyway for the sake of imposing their Green New Deal is a bigger priority. Now they can have their cake and someone to blame for it too. And the Biden regime won’t be held accountable for trying to get a foreign regime to intervene in our elections.
Article posted with permission from Daniel Greenfield
