Biden’s now-unmistakable mental weakness is an invitation for America’s enemies to attack, attack, attack

Joe Biden’s disastrous debate is a political🐽 crisis for his campaign and his party.

It’s also a threat to national security.

There are two problem꧅s. One is that Biden, at age 81, isn’🌊t up to the job anymore, if he ever was.

The other is that everybody now knows it.

Our allies know it. Our enemies know it.🅰 And both of them know that American voters know it.

Newspapers around the globe covered the mount𝐆ing calls for Biden to drop out of t🎀he race.

Presidents have a lot of jo🍬bs that they can fob off on other people. Once the president sets the general priorities, allies in Congress can do the heavy lifting on passing laws and a budget.

Speechwriters prepareꦕ remarks and press releases. Executive orders and agency rules can emerge from the bureaucracy.

A number🐎 ▨of these things can be done at a leisurely pace.

Not so with foreign policy.

Decisions and crises can come fast and requir𝔉e swift action.

Remember that Hillary Clinton ad asking whether B🦩arack Obama was ready for the “3 a.m. phone call?”

When Obama sent the SEALs into Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden, he only had a limited window of time to make up his mind. (And even then❀, he had to ignore Biden telling him no🌼t to go).

New circumstances arise that demand t💜hat the president🧜 decide when to stay the course and when to change tactics.

Biden’s p🤪lanned timetable for the Afghanistan wi๊thdrawal fell apart and descended into chaos. His pier to deliver aid to Gaza has collapsed.

If 🌺his foreign policy keeps looking aimless, one reason is that the president can’t provide the sustained focus to adjust to shifting sands.

The American president is uniqu🌺e. We don’t call him the Leader of the ♔Free World for nothing.

Our military and economic might still provide the gravitational force to get🧔 other countries on board with confronting the bad guys instead of appeasing them.

Face-to-face impressions ma🃏tter. When Nikita Khrushchev met John F. Kennedy, he thought Kennedy was a shallow young pretty boy, and the Bay of Pigs disaster confirmed his first impression.

Khrushchev misread his man, but it took until the Cuban Missile💛 Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war to dispel that.

So does the personal touch. Ronald Reagan, even in👍to his mid-70s, spent round-the-clock sessions negotiating with Mikhail Gorbachev. It paid off in enough mutual trust to sign real agreements and help unwind the Cold War.

B♐iden, however, frequently 🍰cancels events with foreign heads of state during overseas visits because he’s worn out.

Weakness is provocative, and public weakness is even mor☂e provocative.

Our European allies began ta💝lking ಞopenly about Biden’s weakness after Afghanistan: how he kept them in the dark and got pushed around by the barbaric Taliban.

After t🐭hat, Xi Jinping didn’t 🥀fear to send spy balloons over American airspace.

Vladimir Putin didn’t fear to invade Ukraine.

Hamas didn’t fear to invade Israel.

And they all know th൲at Joe has only faded further with each passin♉g year.

Politically weak presidents are ♏also provocative. Putin invaded Georgia in August 2008, when George W. Bush’s approval ratings were in the 20s at the end of his term.

When Bush was riding high a few years earlier; he had the clout to get Congress and the American people behind asser𝐆tive steps abroad — even when some lawmakers doubted him.

By 2008, that was gone, and Putin knew it.

It’s a dangerous world. Ukraine is still in deep trouble, and Israel isn’t out of the woods yet. Xi still covets Taiwan. Iran and North Korea are still menaces.

That makes the spectacle of Uncle Sam being paralyzed by an old leade🅺r who has lost his grip a lo🦂t bigger deal than just a campaign story.

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review. 

Twitter: @BaseballCrank