Edited by: TJVNews.com

President Joe Biden is ready to warn Vladimir Putin during a video call Tuesday that Russia will face economy-jarring sanctions if it invades neighboring Ukraine as Biden seeks a diplomatic solution to deal with the tens of thousands of Russian troops massed near the Ukraine border, as was reported by the AP.

Biden aims to make clear that his administration stands ready to take actions against the Kremlin that would exact “a very real cost” on the Russian economy, according to White House officials. Putin, for his part, is expected to demand guarantees from Biden that the NATO military alliance will never expand to include Ukraine, which has long sought membership. That’s a non-starter for the Americans and their NATO allies.

“We’ve consulted significantly with our allies and believe we have a path forward that would impose significant and severe harm on the Russian economy,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday in previewing the meeting, as was reported by the AP. “You can call that a threat. You can call that a fact. You can call that preparation. You can call it whatever you want to call it.”

AP reported that the leader-to-leader conversation — Biden speaking from the Situation Room, Putin from his residence in Sochi — is expected to be one of the toughest of Biden’s presidency and comes at a perilous time. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russia has massed 94,000 troops near the Ukraine border and has made preparations for a possible invasion early next year.

It is noteworthy to mention that during Biden’s term as vice president under Barack Obama back in 2014, Putin initially invaded Ukraine, took over Kiev with our the United States only standing by, merely “arming” the Ukrainians with packaged food and warm blankets. Today’s Russia, thanks to Biden’s making us once again dependent on foreign energy supplies by shutting down our Keystone XL pipeline and other sources of energy that we exported, has left Europe leaning on Russia for its gas and petroleum sources. This has crippled Europe’s response to come to Ukraine’s aid. Many think it was no accident that Biden supported the Russian oil pipeline into Germany. If things keep progressing in the way that they are, Putin will rule Europe, according to foreign policy experts.

AP reported that in a statement released just hours before the leaders’ video call, Ukrainian authorities charged that Russia is sending tanks and snipers to war-torn eastern Ukraine to “provoke return fire.” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry alleged that Russia is holding “training camps under the leadership of regular servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces.” The Kremlin hasn’t commented on the allegations.

The eastward expansion of NATO has from the start been a bone of contention not just with Moscow but also in Washington, according to the AP report. In 1996, when President Bill Clinton’s national security team debated the timing of membership invitations to former Soviet allies Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, Defense Secretary William Perry urged delay to keep Russian relations on track. Perry wrote in his memoir that when he lost the internal debate he considered resigning.

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were formally invited in 1997 and joined in 1999, as was reported by the AP. They were followed in 2004 by Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the former Soviet states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Since then, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia have joined, bringing NATO’s total to 30 nations.

In Washington, Republicans are framing this moment as a key test of Biden’s leadership on the global stage, as was reported by the AP.

Biden vowed as a candidate to reassert American leadership after President Donald Trump’s emphasis on an “America first” foreign policy. But Biden has faced fierce criticism from Republicans who say that he’s been ineffective in slowing Iran’s march toward becoming a nuclear power and that the Biden administration has done too little to counter autocratic leaders like China’s Xi Jinping, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Putin.

“Fellow authoritarians in Beijing and Tehran will be watching how the free world responds,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “And President Biden has an opportunity to set the tone when he speaks with Putin.”

Speaking to reporters, Texas Senator Ted Cruz said that President Biden essentially surrendered to Putin by waiving the sanctions on Russia that Congress has passed and that is why we are facing the prospect of a Russian invasion in Ukraine.

According to a New York Times report of December 5th by Anton Troianovski, “to Mr. Putin — and many other Russians — the nearly eight-year-old conflict with Ukraine is not simply about geopolitics; it is about a hurt national psyche, a historical injustice to be set right. One of his former advisers, Gleb O. Pavlovsky, in an interview described the Kremlin’s view of Ukraine as a “trauma wrapped in a trauma” — the dissolution of the Soviet Union coupled with the separation of a nation Russians long viewed as simply an extension of their own.”

According to multiple sources who spoke with CNN, the Biden administration is exploring options for a potential evacuation of US citizens from Ukraine if Russia were to invade the country and create a dire security situation.

In his article entitled, ‘Biden Admin Rejects “Red Lines” for China and Russia Over Invasions.’ Front Page Mag columnist Daniel Greenfield opines that, “On the bright side, they’re at least planning to evacuate Americans before the invasion. Consider that an elementary lesson learned from Afghanistan that no functioning administration should have had to learn. Unfortunately considering past performance, I don’t think the odds of this evacuation going well are good.”

And that brings us to Afghanistan. The Biden administration experienced its own ‘downfall of Saigon” moment when the United States pulled out all US troops from the country this past August. When the Taliban took over the government of Afghanistan, the US cooperated with them and the State Department did all that it could to reassure the American people that US citizens would be safely evacuated.

What happened was quite different. A suicide bombing took place at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 26th during the evacuation from Afghanistan. At least 183 people were killed, including 170 Afghan civilians and 13 members of the United States military. This was the first American military casualties in the War in Afghanistan since February 2020. The Islamic State – Khorasan Province (IS-KP) claimed responsibility for the attack.

On August 27, the United States launched an airstrike which the US Central Command (USCENTCOM) said was against three suspected IS-KP members in Nangarhar Province. On August 29th, the US conducted a second drone strike in Kabul, targeting a vehicle which they suspected was carrying IS-KP members, but actually carried an Afghan aid worker. Ten Afghan civilians were killed in the drone strike, including seven children.

The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan was considered a colossal disaster for the Biden foreign policy team. Foreign affairs experts have opined that the close to two decades that the US had a military presence in Afghanistan brought the US back to square one in terms of defeating ISIS and eliminating radical anti-American and anti-Western forces.

Women in Afghanistan continue to be brutally oppressed and a great deal of Afghanis are fleeing the country.

As was reported by the AP on Tuesday, “Afghans are streaming across the border into Iran in accelerating numbers, driven by desperation. Since the Taliban takeover in mid-August, Afghanistan’s economic collapse has accelerated, robbing millions of work and leaving them unable to feed their families. In the past three months, more than 300,000 people have crossed illegally into Iran, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council, and more are coming at the rate of 4,000 to 5,000 a day.”

The AP reported add that, “The European Union is now bracing for a potential swell in Afghans trying to reach its shores at a time when EU nations are determined to lock down against migrants in general.

So far, a post-Taliban surge of Afghan migrants to Europe hasn’t materialized. Afghan entries into the EU have “remained mostly stable,” according to an EU weekly migration report from Nov. 21. The report noted that some Afghans who arrived in Italy from Turkey in November told authorities they had fled their country after the Taliban takeover.”

As it pertains to China and the Biden approach to increasing tensions between the two nations over China’s clearly stated objective of invading Taiwan, despite the fact that China has flown batteries of its aircraft over Taiwan on multiple occasions, the Biden administration has refused to tackle the problem.

As China keeps expanding its military and economic might, it was recently reported in the Wall Street Journal that US officials have said that American intelligence reports which have been classified suggest China intends to establish its first permanent military presence on the Atlantic Ocean in the tiny Central African country of Equatorial Guinea.

The WSJ reported: “The officials declined to describe details of the secret intelligence findings. But they said the reports raise the prospect that Chinese warships would be able to rearm and refit opposite the East Coast of the U.S.—a threat that is setting off alarm bells at the White House and Pentagon.

Principal deputy U.S. national security adviser Jon Finer visited Equatorial Guinea in October on a mission to persuade President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and his son and heir apparent, Vice President Teodoro “Teodorin” Nguema Obiang Mangue, to reject China’s overtures.

As part of our diplomacy to address maritime-security issues, we have made clear to Equatorial Guinea that certain potential steps involving [Chinese] activity there would raise national-security concerns,” said a senior Biden administration official.”

Experts have noted that it is clear that China is not concerned about US national security concerns nor does it believe that the Biden administration will make any moves to stop it from creating a base of operations in western Africa.

Closer to home, the Biden administration has done virtually nothing to stop Mexican drug cartels from wreaking havoc and no substantive action has been taken against Mexico from allowing their citizens as well as people from central American countries from illegally crossing the border. Many of these illegal aliens have not been vaccinated against Covid and many have long criminal backgrounds.

The Biden “Open Door” policy that is permitting illegal immigrants to flood into our nation. Those millions who defiantly march across our border with Mexico don’t have to be troubled with our normal immigration policy that is applied sternly to those who legally live in, visit or even return to our country.

Among them are Islamists and members of the drug cartels who run Mexico. The “open to all” policy permits drug and juvenile sex traffickers to have open season on us by having their products flow into our country to basically destroy our way of life. Our leaders have even offered nearly one half a million dollars to compensate illegal families who were, based solely on their word, separated at the border for that inconvenience.

Illegals are considered by the Biden administration as special. They are welcomed into our nation without any documentation regarding their background, history, medical records or criminal checks. Many criminals who have entered our country have already made their indelible marks on our people through murder, rape and other crimes. Our own citizens must jump through hoops to even travel within our own country. They must wear masks and have documentation of vaccination. And the children, many with all sorts of illnesses, including diphtheria, measles, mumps and Covid entering illegally will end up in our schools, with our kids, contaminating them.

Turning our eyes to the Middle East, it is clear that the Iranian buildup of uranium is rapidly progressing and the Biden administration has turned a blind eye to it. Rather than groveling to Iran with incessant apologies about how sorry the US is that former President Trump decided to stop supporting international terrorism by pulling out of the JCPOA, President Biden and his team at the State Department would do well to add sanctions against Iran.

President Biden has signaled he wants to rejoin the talks. The last round of talks aimed at bringing Iran back into compliance with the agreement made under Obama and paving the way for the U.S. to rejoin, was held in June.

This effort to rejoin the talks gives Iran the green light to become a weaponized nuclear nation. And when Israel and the other signers of the Abraham Accords become the first victims of the Mullahs’ mushroom cloud, will Biden’s aides awaken him from his afternoon nap to inform him? Iran will undoubtedly have the ability to become a major player in the Middle East, continue their terrorist agenda and focus on conquering the Western world.

“I call on every country negotiating with Iran in Vienna to take a strong line and make it clear to Iran that they cannot enrich uranium and negotiate at the same time,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Sunday. “Iran must begin to pay a price for its violations.”