From White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, writing for the November/December issue of Foreign Affairs:
The passages below, according to the WSJ’s “Notable & Quotable,” were deleted from the online version, published this week:
The president inherited a region that was highly pressurized. . . . U.S. troops were under regular attack in Iraq and Syria. . . . Such attacks, at least for now, have largely stopped. . . .
The Israeli-Palestinian situation is tense, particularly in the West Bank, but in the face of serious frictions, we have de-escalated crises in Gaza and restored direct diplomacy between the parties after years of its absence. . . . We have acted militarily to protect U.S. personnel, and we have enhanced deterrence, combined with diplomacy, to discourage further [Iranian] aggression. . . . The progress is fragile, to be sure. But it is also not an accident.
The region is quieter than it has been for decades.. . . [Mr. Biden’s] approach returns discipline to U.S. policy. It emphasizes deterring aggression, de-escalating conflicts, and integrating the region.
The explosion in interest on federal debt and recent action in the market for U.S. Treasury bonds are warnings about Washington’s recklessness. James Freeman alerts readers in the WSJ:
Even before the arrival of the latest Biden/Sanders domestic spending spree, Steve Moore at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity has been saying that if Congress is going to enact a new supplemental funding bill for overseas assistance, Republicans should demand a slashing of Biden green energy subsidies to pay for it.