No exit?

By Capt. Fogg

Is it another case of Joe's foot and Joe's mouth, together again? This morning, Vice President Joe Biden told ABC that:

[W]e cannot dictate to another sovereign nation... if they make the decision they are existentially threatened.

No, he wasn't discussing Sartre, he was telling George Stephanopoulos that if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decides the international peace efforts concerning Iran are no longer doing anything worth waiting for, we wouldn't get in the way of Israel's actions:

Israel can determine for itself — it's a sovereign nation — what's in their interest, and what they do with Iran or anything else.

Yes, Joe, and we as the sovereign nation that makes their existence possible, can say hell no if we want to and let them ponder whether cutting off US aid is a bigger "existential" threat. Of course, Joe didn't answer the question of whether our hands-off policy extends to an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, and he did say we would continue to do what we thought was in our own best interests.

I'm left with many questions, the first of which is about how well Biden reflects actual US policy. Is he simply proposing not to interfere as a warning to Iran to get serious? Is he trying to avoid looking like the administration disapproves of Netanyahu? Is it just good cop, bad cop?

With Joe, you never know, but sometimes you worry.