Biden’s inflection point and history’s sobering lessons

Historians may come to know US President Joe Biden’s speech to the nation this week as his “Inflection Point Address,” and it was as eloquent and compelling as any he has delivered in his lifetime.

It has the potential to be the most significant of his presidency, and it was choreographed to be seen as such. It was only the second time he has chosen to speak from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, and he did it with the backdrop of wars in Ukraine and Israel and simmering tensions around Taiwan.

Beyond that, the eighty-year-old commander in chief, who had been in Israel just a day earlier, looked sharp and spoke with the vigor of a man who understands the historic moment and his role in it. He connected the dots between Russia’s criminal war in Ukraine and Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel, assisted by Iran.

“We’re facing an inflection point in history,” he said, “one of those moments where the decisions we make today are going to determine the future for decades to come.”

He was also clear about what connects the two, seemingly disparate conflicts. “Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common,” he said. “They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy—completely annihilate it.”

 
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