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Newsmax: US Paying for Approach in Middle East

  |   By Polling+ Staff

(Photo by Hossein Beris / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP) (Photo by HOSSEIN BERIS/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

US Paying for Approach in Middle East

A price for Biden foreign policy? Newsmax reports:

“The Biden administration’s approach to the Middle East has further exposed the U.S. to attacks from Iran and terrorist groups, according to former government officials.

The U.S., which focused resources on perceived greater threats from Russia and China in recent years, pulled back intelligence and military resources from the Middle East.

The results of that strategy have been seen since Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel. About 1,200 people were killed and roughly 240 people were taken hostage. 

But while some officials blamed Israel for the intelligence failure, others admit the U.S. was unprepared for the regional consequences of such an attack.

‘Are we less well-equipped right now to think about how the other terrorist organizations with some form of regional or global footprint may operate in this environment?’ a senior intelligence official said, Politico reported Tuesday. ‘The answer is yes.’

A lack of resources and attention has plagued U.S. offices focusing on global counterterrorism.

Since the Obama administration, officials pushed the U.S. to focus more on China and Russia than the Middle East, Politico said.

‘We started to really tune in to the sheer scale of [Chinese President] Xi Jinping’s ambitions,’ a former senior official told Politico. ‘Not only were they regional, but they were really global. And it became harder and harder to ignore.’

Two former officials told Politico that U.S. intelligence agencies have studied and analyzed Russian and Chinese attempts to expand their influence in Africa, sometimes through proxies.

‘Their whole approach to the region, as their whole approach to foreign policy, is about one main thing: strategic competition with China,’ said Matt Duss, former senior national security adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Politico reported. ‘And to the extent they wanted to focus on the Middle East, it was that they didn’t want to focus on it.’”

The price to be paid is still very much undetermined. Stay tuned.