In the military, our best geopolitical advice was always tied to facts and a dispassionate commitment to the best interests of our great nation. They had to be.
Our decisions were never based on protest chants, celebrity complaints, fundraising opportunities or polling advantages. We weighed the pros and cons carefully and made decisions on the best courses of action based on calculated risks, likely outcomes and whether or not our actions would move our overall objective in the right direction to achieve the mission. Our recommendations were not always perfect, nor popular, but they were carefully designed to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
However, in the eight months since the Oct. 7th attack that claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people and led to the kidnapping of more than 240 hostages amid Hamas’ strategy of genocide and maximized human suffering, we have stepped away from the strategic decision making that bolsters the interests of our great nation by muddying the waters with short-term political calculations.
In the last eight months, we have abandoned our principles of never negotiating with terrorists, never leaving a man or woman behind, protecting our own and resolutely standing with our allies and partners. We have done so in order to try and win elections and to appease radicals.
Celebrities like George Clooney now have the ear of the White House. We have college students, even at my alma mater of MIT, taking over campuses, parroting talking points inspired by terrorists and Nazis, eroding the educational mission and threatening the safety and well-being of Jewish students. We have members of Congress and candidates — on both sides of the aisle —doing the same.
And we have a White House that is increasingly and embarrassingly weak on the world stage and desperately grasping for policies that will give them the electoral edge. In doing so, they are abandoning long-standing principles and beliefs to appease the naysayers.
As they do, American weakness is creating a more dangerous planet that is profoundly harmful to American interests.
As our nation’s senior defense official in Iraq during the changeover of presidential administrations and shortly before the fall of Afghanistan, I saw the results of looming weakness. Iranian-aligned groups were salivating at the idea of American weakness and were enticed by the thought of diminishing American strength.
Our feckless withdrawal from Afghanistan further emboldened our global adversaries — in the Middle East, in Eastern Europe and in the Western Pacific. As we begged Iran to return to the nuclear deal and provided $6 billion in sanctions relief in exchange for a few political prisoners, shamefully offered on Sept. 11th, it was a sign that their malign dreams were coming true.
A month after that sad sign of appeasement to the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, Iranian-supported terrorists from Hamas barbarically attacked Israel.
Let’s be clear: defending the United States and its allies and partners from terrorism should never be turned into leverage to win an election. But in 2024, I see it happening.
Our nation has gone from refusing to negotiate with terrorists to pandering to those who parrot their talking points. For the sake of our nation, our allies and partners, and our interests, it’s time we revert back to the days of viewing strategy with a focused long-term mentality, and not the myopic rose-colored lenses of political pipedreams.
United States Air Force Brigadier General John Teichert (ret) served as Commander of Joint Base Andrews and Edwards Air Force Base, was the U.S. senior defense official to Iraq, and recently retired as the assistant deputy undersecretary of the Air Force, international affairs. Gen. Teichert can be regularly seen on NewsNation, Fox News, and Newsmax.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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