A Ridiculous Domino Theory

Biden and The Washington Post are selling us a fantasy worst-case scenario.

The Washington Post editors predictably thought Biden’s speech on Ukraine and Israel was great:

And so it behooved the president to make the links between the two conflicts, as he did in Thursday’s somber address to the nation, and to convince Americans that continued support, for both Ukraine and Israel, is not just a principled stand in defense of democracies under attack — but in the United States’ self-interest. At stake is not only the survival of democracies abroad, however imperfect, but the United States’ long-standing interest in preventing two major regions, Europe and the Middle East, from falling under the sway of hostile hegemons (Russia and Iran, respectively), with the inevitable damage to U.S. security and economic prosperity that would imply. If Russia were to succeed in Ukraine, its next target would probably be a NATO ally, which U.S. troops are committed by treaty to defend. The potential stakes extend to Asia, where successful aggression by Russia or Iran could embolden China to seize Taiwan.

I wrote about the speech in my column for this week, and it won’t surprise anyone to learn that I am not buying any of this. As I said, Biden offered up “little more than a revised domino theory,” and the Post is picking up where he left off. If we stop and think carefully about each of the claims that they make, we will realize that they are selling us a fantasy worst-case scenario.