Rubin: What will Biden’s legacy be on foreign policy?

Let me state up front that Biden’s foreign policy flaws pale beside those of Donald Trump on both issues. Trump’s unswerving support for Israel seems less tied to its security than to the evangelical votes it brings him — as well as to the Jewish votes he grossly demands (with antisemitic language) as a matter of gratitude. And were Trump reelected, he’d quickly hand Ukraine over to Vladimir Putin.

But back to Biden at the United Nations.

There must be a way that combines a humane solution in Gaza with Arab support to rein in Hezbollah and Tehran. But that would require Biden to finally exert far more U.S. pressure on Netanyahu, including U.S. arms cuts for Israel if needed. It would also require strong U.N. and Western pressure on Iran.

No sign of such a policy shift was heard from Biden on Tuesday.

Similarly, a Biden shift is vital to obtaining a just peace for Ukraine. So is a significant U.N. role.

The most basic principle of the world body, enshrined in its charter, prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity or sovereignty of any state.

Russia, which sits on the Security Council, has defied that principle by invading a peaceful neighbor and committing heinous war crimes. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rightly insists that any peace talks be based on the principles of the charter, not on Putin’s claim that Ukraine bows to his imperial right to take Ukrainian land as a basis for peace.

Here again, the relevance of the U.N. will be defined by whether it defends the principle on which it was created — the post-World War II effort to prevent dictators from expanding their territory by force. In a just world, the U.N. General Assembly would suspend Russia.

In his speech, Biden asked the right questions: “Will we apply and strengthen the core tenets of the international system, including the U.N. charter . . . as we seek to . . . deter new threats? Or will we allow those universal principles to be trampled?

“How we answer these questions in this moment will reverberate for generations.”

Yet, his foreign policy legacy will be defined by how he defends the principle of no gains through force. The immediate test: whether he gives Zelenskyy a green light to use U.S. long-range missiles to hit aerodromes and weapons depots inside Russia. This moment is critical for Ukraine.

If Biden refuses, he will have permitted a dictator to violate the basic principle required to maintain world order. And his U.N. speech will be recalled as a coda for a president who possessed all the right foreign policy instincts but failed to nail down the outcomes.