Gen. Jack Keane, former Army vice chief of staff, said Sunday it was a “huge missed opportunity” when President Joe Biden didn’t call out China during a speech before the United Nation’s General Assembly.
In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Keane called the omission “quite remarkable.”
“Usually, when we have a new president, and he’s going before the U.N. General Assembly, where all the leaders of the world are present, or at least their representatives are there, it’s an incredible platform that usually most presidents take advantage of,” he said.
“And before that platform, given the debacle that took place in Afghanistan, just such a short while ago and the whole world watched that, and the United States confidence and resolve was brought into question, I think that’s indisputable, and certainly, people had that on their minds. This was an opportunity for the president of the United States.”
Keane noted Biden made the claim the United States was returning to the world stage as a global leader.
But that speech should also have laid out “the strategic framework on how we’re going to deal with adversarial nations who are destabilizing the world order — China, Russia, and Iran,” Keane said.
“Come straight out and deal with Afghanistan in terms of U.S. commitment and U.S. resolve going forward, and admit that there had been some mistakes made,” Keane said. “But the fact that our allies are sitting there, think about our allies in Indo-Pacific … they all look to the United States for security.”
But, Keane lamented, “we didn’t even address that in terms of the strategic significance and what is the United States plans to deal with China’s aggression as well as Russia and Eastern Europe and creating their own sphere of influence and what Iran wants to do in the Middle East.”
“That was huge lost opportunity,” Keane said.
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