It didn’t take but a few hours after President Biden was sworn in to completely sew confusion in the Middle East . The Ambassador’s twitter account went through a couple of makeovers. The name changed to “Ambassador to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza” and then quickly changed back to Ambassador to Israel. Not before it was noticed though.

I’m sure Israel took notice. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is hedging his bets. He released a statement congratulating President Biden, even as he prepares for a prickly relationship over Iran.

President Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday held her first exchange with White House reporters and revealed that President Joe Biden wants the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) back – probably not the Obama version, but the deal is will be resurrected.

“The president has made clear that he believes that through diplomacy, the United States should seek to lengthen and strengthen nuclear constraints on Iran and address other issues of concern,” Psaki said. “Iran must resume compliance with significant nuclear constraints under the deal in order for that to proceed.”

To further complicate matters, the first executive orders he signed revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, and halted drilling on federal lands.  Removing our status as a net petroleum exporter will hand power over to the exporting states in the middle east and embolden Russia. This was predicted before the election by Forbes:

At the international level, Biden is committed to immediately re-join the Paris Agreement if elected president. At a stroke, a Biden-Harris administration will advantage key global energy players which have been sorely tested by President Trump’s “energy dominance” and “America First” agendas. A Biden presidency which would relinquish the role of the U.S. as the world’s leading oil and gas producer would no doubt be welcomed by Russia and the OPEC oil and gas exporters struggling with low energy prices. For oil and gas companies such as Russia’s Gazprom and Rosneft or Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, the prospect of a US government-induced degradation of its own country’s prolific shale oil and gas production as part of a climate change commitment would be like music to the ears.

A Biden-Harris administration intent on renewable energy and climate change priorities by constraining US oil and gas production would achieve, at a stroke, the long-sought and common objectives of Russia,  Saudi Arabia and other OPEC oil and gas producers. It would achieve results that Saudi policy since 2014 had consistently failed to attain by engaging in an all-out price war against a resilient and resurgent US oil and gas sector.

And then there is the news of US troops heading into Syria. This region of the world has been in confusion for decades. It doesn’t make a lot of sense that we should stir the pot. It looks like we are though.

US military convoy enters northeast Syria: reporthttps://t.co/Y7c9YZdbiJ

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) January 22, 2021

Taken as a whole, there doesn’t seem to be a cohesive plan. It looks like we are just throwing everything that we have in the kitchen into the stew pot at once. All of these things are linked, and must be considered before making moves. Errors, especially unforced ones like the Ambassador’s Twitter account, need to be avoided.