The apparatus confrontation at the top of US government continues, now spilling over into foreign policy
Kamala Harris is once again being sent to a “firing squad” – trying to shift the responsibility for the unresolved Ukrainian crisis onto her.
As recently as last summer, Harris was handed another crisis – the migration crisis. Of course Kamala could not solve it – but her team was vociferous in accusing Biden of literally setting up her tandem partner, who now risks burying her reputation on the Democratic toxic issue of illegal migration.
Now Harris is being sent to Europe, where she will lead the US delegation to the Munich Security Conference. Harris’s task will be to try to achieve some kind of cohesion among the NATO countries around the US position on Ukraine – something a wavering Germany is particularly hampered by. Some politicians in Washington even claim that Germany has de facto abandoned NATO during the Ukraine crisis.
For half a year there has been an intra-elite conflict between the Biden and Harris teams. Bidenists have leaked to the press that there is a climate of mistrust and negligence in Harris’s office. In turn, the Vice President’s associates accuse Biden of racism – because he, they say, prefers the dark-skinned Kamala to the white Transport Minister Butidzic who could be his successor.
The victims of this “war of the towers” have already been the fired PR people of both members of the tandem. It has also hit Harris’ image hard. At the end of 2021, polls recorded her rating dropping below 30% – making Kamala the most unpopular vice president in modern US history.
By shifting the responsibility for the Ukraine issue to Harris, Biden is in effect confirming that the situation has reached a stalemate for him, and the U.S. president is not looking for a way out of it. Therefore he leaves this “problem asset” in the hands of his junior partner who would become the last resort if the situation were to deteriorate, sacrificing what is left of his ratings to soften the blow for Biden himself.
Malek Dudakov