As of a full twenty-four hours after Salman Rushdie was stabbed at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York, Old Joe Biden has not said word one about the attack. You might think that a violent attack upon a man who is a living symbol of the freedom of expression might elicit some polite words from Old Joe’s writers about how important it is never to bow to violent intimidation and allow ourselves to be bullied into silence. You’d think wrong. However, the Biden administration, as the dumpster fire on Pennsylvania Avenue is generally known, was not entirely silent about the attack on Rushdie. Its statement raises more questions than it answers.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan issued a statement on Friday that is the very definition of perfunctory. “Today,” Sullivan wrote, “the country and the world witnessed a reprehensible attack against the writer Salman Rushdie. This act of violence is appalling.” Thanks for that, Jake! Until you said something, we all that this act of violence was just dandy. Sullivan continued: “All of us in the Biden-Harris Administration are praying for his speedy recovery. We are thankful to good citizens and first responders for helping Mr. Rushdie so quickly after the attack and to law enforcement for its swift and effective work, which is ongoing.”
This dashed-off piece of pro-forma thoughts-and-prayers diplobabble was more notable for what it didn’t say than for what it said. The attack on Rushdie was “reprehensible” and “appalling,” Sullivan informed us, but he gave no hint of why anyone would want to harm Rushdie in the first place. Sullivan gave not even the smallest hint of the fact that Rushdie has lived under threat since February 14, 1989, when the Ayatollah Khomeini wrote that “the author of The Satanic Verses, a text written, edited, and published against Islam, the Prophet of Islam, and the Qur’an, along with all the editors and publishers aware of its contents, are condemned to death. I call on all valiant Muslims wherever they may be in the world to kill them without delay, so that no one will dare insult the sacred beliefs of Muslims henceforth.” 1989 was a long time ago, but Sullivan likewise remained mum about the fact that on the thirtieth anniversary of the fatwa, in 2019, Khamenei wrote, “Imam Khomeini’s verdict regarding Salman Rushdie is based on divine verses and just like divine verses, it is solid and irrevocable.”
Biden’s silence is likewise striking in comparison to his reaction to the recent killings of four Muslim men in New Mexico, when he tweeted, “I am angered and saddened by the horrific killings of four Muslim men in Albuquerque. While we await a full investigation, my prayers are with the victims’ families, and my Administration stands strongly with the Muslim community. These hateful attacks have no place in America.” Biden has not, however, said anything as yet about the fact that these murders turned out not to have been committed by a MAGA-hat-wearing “Islamophobe,” but by a Sunni Muslim who was killing Shi’ites.
Related: UPDATE: Salman Rushdie Reportedly on Ventilator After Stabbing Attack
It appears from the White House’s extraordinarily reserved, wary reaction to the Rushdie stabbing that Biden’s handlers are still consumed with the all-out pursuit of a new nuclear deal with Iran, and are in total appeasement mode, terrified that any remotely negative word might upset the extremely delicate negotiations process. The Biden administration is the epitome of weakness, and so it apparently never occurred to Biden’s handlers that they could use the Iranian mullahs’ desire for sanctions relief as a means to get some leverage. For example, they could have demanded, or demand now, that no sanctions will be removed unless and until the Islamic Republic repudiates the Rushdie fatwa and affirms that Rushdie and any other critic of Islam, Muhammad or the Qur’an must not be harmed. They could have held sanctions relief over the heads of the mullahs in order to secure freedom from persecution for Bahais, Christians, and other religious minorities in Iran. They could have demanded an improvement of the overall human rights situation in the Islamic Republic.
Instead, the Biden administration is tiptoeing around Iran, afraid to say anything that will offend the Ayatollah Khamenei and his colleagues. In doing so, the Biden wonks only reinforce the aura of weakness that has led the Iranian leaders to hold Biden in contempt and mount attacks on American soil against people whom the Iranian regime finds inconvenient. The White House’s reaction to the stabbing of Salman Rushdie is just more of this same wrongheadedness, appeasement, and weakness.
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