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Biden's Israel policy hurts his 2024 reelection chances from all angles
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Why is Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war hurting his reelection bid?
Well, look, there is virtually no position he can take on Israel and not alienate a significant piece of his own support base in the United States. He is presently stapled to the Netanyahu government and policy, which is really antagonizing more than 50% of committed Democrats, people who say they're going to vote for Biden. On the other hand, strongly pro-Israel Biden, Israel being America's most important ally in the Middle East, is seen as soft on that policy vis-a-vis the Republicans. The only way this is a winning issue for Biden is if it's no longer anywhere close to the headlines when the election hits.
Does France have a terrorism problem?
Well, sure they do, and they also have a radical Islamic extremist problem, and we've seen most recently that someone, a French national but is sworn allegiance with ISIS, knifed and killed one tourist next to the Eiffel Tower, injured a couple others. What they don't have is a major gun violence problem. If this guy had an assault weapon, probably would've killed a couple dozen.
Are Venezuela and Guyana on the brink of war?
I think the answer to that is no, but certainly we're going to hear a lot about major tensions. And the reason for that is because President Nicolás Maduro, who is very far from being a Democrat, his economy has been driven by him and his predecessor, Chávez, into a ditch. He has virtually no support domestically, and the opposition really, really wants to take power. And there has been a lot of pressure, including from the United States, carrots and sticks economically, to move forward on an election. Problem being that Maduro doesn't want to have a free and fair election, and he needs to find a way to rally support. And one thing he can do is Guyana, piece of Guyana, which the Venezuelans claim as their own, is one of the very few things that the Venezuelan people actually agree with Maduro on. So he decided to host a referendum, which the people strongly support, and they say, "We want to take that piece of territory." Now, supporting it and actually taking it are two very different things. First, because the Americans would strongly oppose. The Brazilians would strongly oppose, and you'd see a lot of sticks as a consequence of that against an economy that can't really afford them. But also, China is a partial owner of the massive oil find that is just offshore this territory in Guyana, and they are the only friend that spends real money with the Venezuelans right now. So I think this is a lot of bluff and a lot of bluster, but nonetheless, it's going to drive some headlines as maybe, maybe people worry about violence and another war in another part of the world.
- Israel-Hamas war: Biden's second foreign policy crisis ›
- Venezuela and Guyana border dispute ›
- Maduro’s weapon of mass distraction ›
- Venezuelan vote puts the neighbors on edge ›
- The Democrats post some wins – but continue to worry about 2024 ›
- Biden's 2024 prospects slip even as Democrats make gains ›
- Biden's 2024 election vulnerabilities and strengths ›
- Biden and Israeli war cabinet go public over disagreement in Gaza war - GZERO Media ›
- AI explosion, elections, and wars: What to expect in 2024 - GZERO Media ›
- US inching away from Israel on Gaza war - GZERO Media ›
- How the US election will change the world - GZERO Media ›
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro shows his ballot during a referendum over Venezuela's rights to the potentially oil-rich region of Esequiba in Guyana, in Caracas, Venezuela, on Dec. 3, 2023.
Maduro’s weapon of mass distraction
Venezuela held a referendum Sunday on proposed statehood for the oil-rich region of Essequibo, currently governed by neighboring Guyana, with more than 95% reportedly voting to approve the proposed takeover.
At 61,600 square miles, Essequibo comprises two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. An international arbitral tribunal awarded the area to Britain in 1899 when the latter controlled British Guiana, but Venezuela has never recognized the ruling. Its contestation took on new life after ExxonMobil discovered oil in Essequibo's offshore waters in 2015, leading to a case before the International Court of Justice at the Hague that remains unresolved.
Venezuela’s referendum asked its citizens five questions, including whether they agreed with creating a new state called Guayana Esequiba, granting its population Venezuelan citizenship and identity cards, and including the new state in the map of Venezuelan territory. While the ICJ urged Venezuela to refrain from “taking any action” on the proposals, it did not ban the holding of the referendum.
Guyana fears the referendum is the first step to a takeover. “This is a textbook example of annexation,” Paul Reichler, an American lawyer representing Guyana, told the ICJ. But Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro disagreed, saying, “We are solving through constitutional, peaceful, and democratic means an imperial dispossession of 150 years.”
Before the vote, his government poured considerable resources into Essequibo-themed music, nationally televised history lessons, murals, events, and social media content to bolster the "Yes" vote. Observers see the referendum as a means of distracting the nation from calls for free and fair conditions in next year’s presidential election, as well as from the US government’s demand that Maduro release political prisoners and wrongfully detained Americans. Analysts say the creation of a Venezuelan state in Essequibo is highly unlikely.
Knowing the referendum would pass, Ian Bremmer tweeted that he was "deeply skeptical we are on the brink of war," especially since China, Venezuela’s close friend, owns a piece of the massive oil find Maduro claims.
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro delivers his annual state of the nation speech during a special session of the National Constituent Assembly, in Caracas, Venezuela January 12, 2021.
Venezuelan vote puts the neighbors on edge
The dispute over the Essequibo region – which is larger than North Korea and inhabited mostly by indigenous communities – stretches back more than 150 years (see our explainer here for more). But Venezuela’s strongman President Nicolas Maduro has ramped up tensions recently.
In part, he’s eyeing massive oil deposits that have been discovered there. But he may also be stoking nationalist feelings ahead of what will be a highly controversial – and not necessarily “free” – presidential election next year. Even prominent opposition figures have long supported Caracas’ claims on the territory (shades of the way that many dissidents in Putin’s Russia supported the annexation of Crimea.)
That means the referendum will almost certainly result in a resounding ¡Sí! But then what?
Rattling Essequibo could flare into a wider conflict. US forces regularly do joint patrols with the Guyanese military to protect local oil fields that US firms are developing. Pentagon officials reportedly visited the capital, Georgetown, this week to reassure the Guyanese, and Brazil put its local forces on high alert.
The risks are immense. But by asking the Venezuelan people to weigh in like this, Maduro may be uncorking nationalist passions that he will struggle to control.
FILE PHOTO: Guyanese Military members line up before Britain's Prince Harry laughs arrives for an official visit of Georgetown, Guyana December 2, 2016.
Venezuela and Guyana border dispute
As if Europe’s colonial-era mapmakers haven’t already bequeathed us enough wars. Now the long-running border dispute between Venezuela and its eastern neighbor Guyana is heating up again.
Guyana says Venezuela is sending troops to the frontier, while Caracas says Venezuelan voters will get to decide unilaterally whether to annex Guyanese territory.
At issue: The western two-thirds of Guyana, known as Essequibo, is a jungle terrain inhabited by 250,000 people. The dispute began with a 19th century map that gave the region to Guyana — at the time a British colonial possession — rather than to Venezuela, which maintained earlier Spanish claims to the area. Several international efforts to resolve the dispute since then have failed, and the issue is currently before the International Court of Justice.
But Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro rejects the court’s jurisdiction. He plans instead to put the question of annexation to Venezuelan voters in a plebiscite on Dec. 3.
Why now? Because there’s oil there, lots of it, following massive discoveries by ExxonMobil over the past decade. Maduro has his eye on those reserves, which would bring Guyana’s 800,000 citizens one of the swiftest windfalls of oil wealth in history.
But he may also be playing domestic politics. He recently tried to tar the Venezuelan opposition as national traitors for supposedly advancing a US-backed plan to scuttle the vote — an assertion the opposition vociferously denied.
Los Yanquis are in the area. Any forceful attempts to seize Guyanese territory could spark a crisis that quickly draws in the United States — since 2020, Washington has run joint naval patrols with Guyana.
The “bad guys” at COP26
Everyone understands that burning fossil fuels contributes directly to global warming. We all know that we have to reduce oil and gas consumption to avert the worst effects of climate change. And we're well aware that this is a major focus at COP26 right now.
But spare a thought for those who are often portrayed as the bad guys in all of this: the countries that pump and export hydrocarbons like mad. And they do it not because they hate polar bears, but rather because oil and gas exports are crucial for their economies, their geopolitical power, or in some cases their very survival.
Let's have a look at the tradeoffs that a few exemplary exporters are dealing with.
Saudi Arabia: "We need the black (gold) in order to go green!" The world's leading oil exporter relies on selling petroleum for half of GDP, and almost three-quarters of export earnings. In other words, you will pry the energy industry away from Riyadh's cold dead hands.
What the Saudis have proposed, by way of a climate action plan to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2060, is to massively reduce emissions within their borders by investing in renewable energy, carbon capture, and tree-planting schemes. What Riyadh has not pledged to do is cut oil production. In fact, the Kingdom envisions increasing output in the coming years.
Critics say that Riyadh's promises are a dodge, a kind of country-level greenwashing that ignores the global impact of the local energy industry. The Saudis' argument is: well, where do you expect us to get the cash to diversify our economy if not from the one thing — just about the only thing — that actually earns us money?
Russia: the Arctic Amazon? The Kremlin's most important tool of geopolitical influence is its control over the Russian gas pipelines that keep Europe warm. No wonder the world's fourth largest polluter hasn't historically been a cheerleader for cutting emissions.
Plus, as the Arctic ice melts, it's opening up lucrative maritime shipping lanes that Moscow can control. But recently Vladimir Putin has started to sound more urgent about global warming, calling it a "serious danger" for Russia and the world. Russia plans to get to Net Zero before 2060by boosting renewable energy, phasing out coal use, and even (very) gradually reducing oil exports after 2030.
A big twist here is that Putin spies an opportunity for Russia to be a green superpower in its own right. Its sprawling and largely untouched forests can absorb billions of tons of carbon every year, provided they don't burn down. Critics say Putin is just hiding behind those trees in order to avoid cutting more emissions.
Iraq: "We'll get back to you on the climate stuff." Iraq this year suffered an unprecedented wave of deadly heat, which scientists ascribed in part to climate change. The heatwave caused blackouts, which in turn contributed to mass protests about corruption and unemployment. Then, almost no one voted in the recent election, and the government that took power afterwards remains fractious, weak, and mistrusted.
A government like that is hardly in a position to lead a sustained drive to diversify the economy. Nor to massively adopt renewables in a country that derives 90 percent of its income from oil, and is the world's third largest oil exporter.
Climate policy requires a credible and functioning state. Some major oil-producing countries (Venezuela comes to mind as well) simply have more pressing needs right now, like holding the country together.
Guyana: "Don't keep us from getting rich!" A few years ago, the small, coastal South American country of Guyana made an astounding discovery. Oil. Gargantuan amounts of it. Enough to transform one of the Western Hemisphere's poorest nations into one of the world's richest in a matter of years.
And you want them to give that up? That's a tough sell. But it's not just about getting rich: some 80 percent of Guyana's population lives below sea level, meaning climate change poses a huge risk to the country.
Where else, ask Guyana's leaders, are we going to get the money to mitigate that damage, if not from selling oil?
What We're Watching: Tick Tock for TikTok, Netanyahu loses support, Guyana's new president
TikTok, ya don't stop: The wildly popular video app TikTok has been in the crosshairs of American lawmakers for many months now. Why? Because the app is owned by a Chinese company, raising national security concerns that it could funnel personal data on its 100 million American users to the Chinese government. The plot thickened in recent days after President Trump abruptly threatened to ban the app altogether, risking a backlash among its users and imperiling US tech giant Microsoft's efforts to buy the company's operations in the US. Canada, Australia and New Zealand. After a weekend conversation between Microsoft and the White House, the sale negotiations are back on but US lawmakers say any deal must strictly prevent American users' data from winding up in Chinese Communist Party servers. And Trump says that unless a deal is reached by September 15th, he'll go ahead with the ban. The broader fate of TikTok — which has now been banned in India, formerly its largest market, and may be broken up under US pressure — nicely illustrates the new "tech Cold War" that is emerging between China and the United States.
Guyana finally swears in a new leader: After months of political wrangling, an election recount and a series of court challenges, the small South American nation of Guyana has sworn in opposition candidate Mohamed Irfaan Ali as president. Although Ali edged out the incumbent, David Granger, by just 15,000 votes, Granger's governing party says the vote was rigged and that it will continue to challenge the outcome. The new president will now be responsible for guiding this nation through what is set to be one of the of the world's most dramatic increases in national wealth, after large reserves of crude oil were discovered in the country in 2015. Ali will have to figure out how to spend the new oil revenue to combat the country's pandemic-induced economic downturn, as well as try to tamp down rising tensions between his own supporters who are mostly of South Asian origin, and the defeated incumbent's mostly Black voter base.
Anti-Netanyahu movement swells: Ever since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was indicted in January on a host of corruption charges there have been frequent protests calling for his resignation. But Saturday saw the most massive demonstrations yet, as thousands gathered near the PM's Jerusalem residence. The protesters — hailing from across the political spectrum and including some former Bibi supporters — took aim at the government's poor handling of the twin public health and economic crises. Despite early success in containing the virus, the country's unwieldy unity government has botched its pandemic response in recent months. A hasty reopening has allowed the coronavirus to begin spreading again like wildfire, and a whopping 21 percent of the population is now unemployed. The government has failed to provide economic relief and Israel's GDP is expected to contract by at least 6 percent this year. Netanyahu, for his part, has lashed out at the "North Korean" style media for fueling the "distorted" protests, a sign, observers say, of his growing panic as the leaderless protest movement gains momentum. Particularly ominous for Netanyahu is that security hawks and right wing voters typically aligned with Netanyahu's Likud party are increasingly losing faith in him, and are now joining left-wing activists calling for the PM's resignation. Is "King Bibi's" throne finally creaking?