Biden Needs to Bring These Two Wars to an End
by John Lawrence
Whether Biden wins or loses the next election, he still has a chance to bring two wars to an end. This will not only benefit the world situation, it will enhance his chances for reelection. First the war in Ukraine has ground to a stalemate, a war of attrition. This is not salubrious or propitious. The human race can ill afford the kind of enmity that war and the killing of innocents portends. The human race has to be most concerned about climate change, adaptation and mitigation. Instead, we are frittering away our chances to prevent a catastrophic outcome. But for Biden and others peace is not on the agenda, winning is. Taking sides in which we are the good guys and the other side are the bad guys is not helping the situation. Demonizing the heads of government in countries and creating enemies out of them is not productive for combating our common enemy - climate change - nor is it productive for creating world peace. Is world peace even a consideration here? We all have to get along; the world is too small a place. Notwithstanding the war in Ukraine, Russia is a petrochemical producer which is contributing to climate change. We must get away from the production and usage of fossil fuels. Warring countries have no incentive to do that. Only cooperation among major countries has a chance at tamping down the production of fossil fuels.
Biden needs to create a peace conference, a peace initiative, for finding a compromise and solution to the war in Ukraine. Instead he wants to keep pouring money and weapons down the drain to support a war of attrition. This is totally a Cold War mentality with regard to Russia. Instead, there needs to be peace and compromise in that part of the world. Russia seems at least to be amenable to that. So should Ukraine be, but Ukraine will never be amenable to peace as long as the US keeps pouring money and weapons into it. Instead the war will only expand as attacks are starting to take place in a wider arena, something Biden did not contemplate at the outset. Instead of pouring gas on the fires of war, Biden needs to take a different attitude, an attitude of peace and reconciliation. He needs to get his dander down, and instead of insisting on winning, insist instead on creating peace in the world. Use the might of the US military to enforce the peace instead of promoting the war. The US military could be used to enforce the peace instead of winning the war.
The war in Gaza also needs to be brought to an end. Netanyahu is playing Biden for a sucker. Israel is the recipient of billions of dollars from the US. That gives Biden the right not just to suggest a solution, but to insist on a solution. The solution, which most knowledgeable people agree on, is the two state solution. So lets get on with creating it! Instead Biden is an enabler for Israel's war to turn Gaza into a refugee camp. This accomplishes nothing. Biden needs to take Netanyahu and Israel down a peg or two. The Palestinians have every right to a decent and peaceful life as do the Israelis. This needs to be created, and it can't be created as long as Netanyahu has a free hand to continue the war. Revenge is no solution; the two state solution is. Let's get on with it. It has to be an all out effort, one in which Israel cannot be allowed to have the controlling hand or the last word. On the world stage Israel and Ukraine are after all only bit players. Instead they are consuming the world's attention and resources when peaceful solutions of these two wars are not impossible to figure out. It's only hubris which is preventing those peaceful solutions from being manifested and implemented. The principals at least should be trying.
The prevailing mentality of us versus them is self defeating. It's a luxury which the world at large can no longer afford. We are destroying resources and innocent lives when we need to be pulling together to combat our common enemy - climate change. There are enough refugees in the world. There are too many children growing up without the resources necessary for happy and productive lives. Instead they will be candidates for future resentments and hatreds of those responsible for their predicaments. It is a vicious circle. Retribution, resentment and revenge is being created in the younger generation as we speak because war, hatred and recrimination is being allowed to continue. The world's collective foot must be brought down against the continuation of these two wars. Instead each side seems to think that, since they are in the right, the wars must continue. Their hubris and egotism must prevail over the other side's hubris and egotism. They are too dug in. Outsiders must discourage this. Instead the US and the west is encouraging it or at least taking a hands off attitude. They are saying in effect "you guys solve the problem," but they never will as long as each side insists on winning and not compromising.The protagonists of war must not be given a hands off attitude by the noncombatants. Instead, they must be reigned in in such a way that those who are not obsessed with retribution have the last word.
