OPINION:
Speaking recently, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe made some key points about how foreign leaders see President Biden in what has become an obvious state of mental decline.
After the president’s disastrous June 27 television debate with former President Donald Trump, the dam broke with both hostile media and medical professionals now willing to talk openly about a condition the White House has covered up or denied for several years.
At present, there appears to be no actual medical data or other information that the White House has to report. Mr. Biden’s White House physician, Kevin O’Connor, a doctor of osteopathic medicine, has refused to make any public appearances or press statements. The one-line letter issued some months ago to the effect that Mr. Biden was in great health is laughable.
After first lying about it, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre acknowledged that Parkinson’s disease experts had visited the White House several times in the past few months to examine Mr. Biden, but still no real data. In his recent news conference following the NATO meeting, Mr. Biden claimed to have taken “three mental examinations,” yet there is no evidence or record of any.
Short of a full neuropsychiatric evaluation, including brain imaging with an fMRI, a standard test of cognitive function is essential — none of which have been done or acknowledged.
It is also clear that his wife, Jill, his son Hunter and the rest of the Praetorian Guard surrounding Mr. Biden will never let this happen or become public knowledge, so the media, outside experts and everybody else is left to guess what is going on based on a few embarrassing public appearances. This is not yet as extreme as the case of President Woodrow Wilson, who spent the last eight months of his presidency locked in his bedroom by his wife, Edith, but it looks bad no matter how it is spun. It is also the case that the decline is progressive and irreversible.
While current media attention has focused on whether Mr. Biden will remain in the race as the Democratic nominee for president, Mr. Ratcliffe and others have been concerned about how foreign leaders, both allied and hostile, see Mr. Biden’s ability to perform his role as president and commander in chief. Videos of Mr. Biden with some allied leaders recently in Europe are embarrassing, and several have privately expressed their concerns about his ongoing ability to lead both the U.S. and NATO.
A matter of great concern is how some hostile foreign leaders, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, and the Iranians and North Koreans, see Mr. Biden’s growing incapacity to perform his duties effectively. Supporting these foreign leaders are their respective intelligence services, which are also carefully watching Mr. Biden and those around him.
As Bill Gertz wrote recently in The Washington Times, “intelligence operatives from China, Russia and Iran are targeting White House secrets on President Biden’s health and likely informed their governments on his apparent declining mental acuity,” citing a former National Security Agency official. These intelligence services also employ medical experts who are doing their own assessments, and see the same videos broadcast widely. They will certainly assist Mr. Putin and others as they make critical decisions and face a declining and incapacitated Mr. Biden.
Such an approach is not new in the intelligence world. During the Cold War, for example, the CIA employed an outstanding team of medical professionals led by Dr. Jerrold Post, an esteemed psychiatrist who was previously at Yale Medical School, who examined all the medical data the agency could collect on Soviet leaders to assess their mental and physical health. Their expert evaluations supported policy decisions taken by several U.S. presidents and their national security staff. They saw when Soviet leaders were weak or ill and acted accordingly.
It is more than likely that Russia’s Federal Security Service and China’s Ministry of State Security are following this path. They will continue to study how Mr. Biden looks and acts, taking the opportunity to move and strike when they see the time is right. Most certainly, they will not be deterred by some unmitigated nonsense from Ms. Jean-Pierre that Mr. Biden was suffering from a cold or needed a nap. The curtain has finally fallen on that one.
Sadly, there is no easy answer.
The current American president is largely incapable of performing the critical functions required of the commander in chief, and the problem is getting worse. At the same time, the vice president and Cabinet are not willing to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him from his post. Nor is the weak and inept staff surrounding him capable of covering for him. One can only hope that the nation will not face the possible outbreak of World War III in the next four months.
While national security issues are seldom at the top of the list for most voters, this is a time when a real crisis is at hand, along with legitimate concerns over a disaster at the border, out-of-control prices and rampant crime.
Foreign leaders and their intelligence services need to see a U.S. president who is capable of performing the duties required now and going forward. For better or worse, the Joe Biden of yesteryear is long gone, and our enemies know it.
• Abraham Wagner has served in several national security positions, including the National Security Council staff under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He is the author of the book “Henry Kissinger: Pragmatic Statesman in Hostile Times.”
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