Biden in farewell UN address says peace still possible in Mideast, Ukraine

UNITED NATIONS (AP):

President Joe Biden declared in his final address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that the US must not retreat from the world, as Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon edged toward all-out war and Israel’s bloody operation against Hamas in Gaza neared the one-year mark.

Biden used his wide-ranging address to speak to a need to end the Middle East conflict and the 17-month-old civil war in Sudan and to highlight US and Western allies’ support for Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. He also raised concern over artificial intelligence and its potential to be used for repression.

His appearance before the international body offered Biden one of his last high-profile opportunities as president to make the case to keep up robust support for Ukraine, which could be in doubt if former President Donald Trump defeats Vice President Kamala Harris in November. Biden insisted that despite global conflicts, he remains hopeful for the future.

“I’ve seen a remarkable sweep of history,” Biden said. “I know many look at the world today and see difficulties and react with despair but I do not.”

“We are stronger than we think” when the world acts together, he added.

Biden came to office promising to rejuvenate US relations around the world and to extract the US from “forever wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq that consumed American foreign policy over the last 20 years.

“I was determined to end it, and I did,” Biden said of the Afghanistan exit, calling it a “hard decision but the right decision”. He acknowledged that it was “accompanied by tragedy” with the deaths of 13 American troops and hundreds of Afghans in a suicide bombing during the chaotic withdrawal.

But his foreign policy legacy may ultimately be shaped by his administration’s response to two of the biggest conflicts in Europe and the Middle East since World War II.

“There will always be forces that pull our countries apart,” Biden said, rejecting “a desire to retreat from the world and go it alone.” He said, “Our task, our test, is to make sure that the forces holding us together are stronger than the forces pulling us apart.”

The Pentagon announced Monday that it was sending a small number of additional US troops to the Middle East to supplement the roughly 40,000 already in the region. All the while, the White House insists Israel and Hezbollah still have time to step back and de-escalate.

“Full scale war is not in anyone’s interest,” Biden said, and despite escalating violence, a diplomatic solution is the only path to peace.

Biden had a hopeful outlook for the Middle East when he addressed the UN just a year ago. In that speech, Biden spoke of a “sustainable, integrated Middle East” coming into view.

At the time, economic relations between Israel and some of its Arab neighbours were improving with implementation of the Abraham Accords that Israel signed with Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates during the Trump administration.

Biden’s team helped resolve a long-running Israel-Lebanon maritime dispute that had held back gas exploration in the region. And Israel-Saudi normalisation talks were progressing, a game-changing alignment for the region if a deal could be landed.

“I suffer from an oxymoron: Irish optimism,” Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when they met on the sidelines of last year’s UN gathering. He added, “If you and I, 10 years ago, were talking about normalisation with Saudi Arabia ... I think we’d look at each other like, ‘Who’s been drinking what?’”

Eighteen days later, Biden’s Middle East hopes came crashing down. Hamas militants stormed into Israel killing 1,200, taking some 250 hostage, and spurring a bloody war that has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza and led the region into a complicated downward spiral.

Now, the conflict is threatening to metastasize into a multi-front war and leave a lasting scar on Biden’s presidential legacy.

Israel and Hezbollah traded strikes again Tuesday as the death toll from a massive Israeli bombardment climbed to nearly 560 people and thousands fled from southern Lebanon. It’s the deadliest barrage since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

Israel has urged residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate from homes and other buildings where it claimed Hezbollah has stored weapons, saying the military would conduct “extensive strikes” against the militant group.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, has launched dozens of rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in retaliation for strikes last week that killed a top commander and dozens of fighters. Dozens were also killed last week and hundreds more wounded after hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah militants exploded, a sophisticated attack that was widely believed to have been carried out by Israel.