The dictator of Venezuela has won Sunday’s presidential election. Although credible opinion polls before the election showed Nicolas Maduro lost by a significant margin, even though all polls on Sunday showed the same thing, and even though millions of anti-Maduro Venezuelans flooded the streets outside the polls, Maduro somehow beat Edmundo Gonzalez 51-44%, according to the National Electoral Council, which controlled by Maduro.

China and Russia have rushed to support Maduro’s victory, lending their votes rather than democratic credentials to electoral theft. Brazil’s socialist president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, also supported this election fiction, pledge that he “would not support any story that there was fraud.”

Most of Latin America and the rest of the world disagree and have reacted with deep skepticism to the results.

But the Biden administration doesn’t seem interested in fighting Maduro’s theft. Foreign Minister Antony Blinken says he has “serious concerns” about the results and “the international community is watching this very closely and will react accordingly.” But these words are already a failure to respond accordingly. If the administration was serious about holding Maduro accountable, it would rally the Organization of American States for sweeping sanctions, convene a UN Security Council meeting that forced China and Russia to explain why they support the dictator, and recognize Gonzalez as Venezuela’s legitimate president . .

President Joe Biden’s weak response is characteristic. Since taking office, he has encouraged Maduro’s duplicity just as he has supported evil regimes everywhere else.

He foolishly waived sanctions on Venezuela’s oil and mineral export industries in 2023. This was part of an agreement designed to ensure fair elections – in other words, to ensure that what happened on Sunday would never happen. After months of apparent Maduro violations of his obligations, the administration finally reimposed sanctions in April, but the damage was already done. Maduro played Biden for a fool – who wouldn’t? — and learned that the United States would not confront him. Shortly after the sanctions were lifted, Maduro began threatening to invade Guyana. If the White House now treats Maduro’s election theft as business as usual, he may decide he has little to lose by going for the Guyanese jugular.

Biden’s folly on Venezuela speaks to a pattern of foreign policy failings.

His Iran policy, for example, mixes modesty in the face of terrorism with myopia in not holding Iran accountable for its nuclear escalation. FBI Director Christopher Wray testified last week that the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has an American presence and is planning terrorist attacks. Iran continues to plot the assassination of former Trump administration officials, including former President Donald Trump himself, in retaliation for the killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.

The list of foreign policy failures is much longer.

Biden’s policy towards Israel mixes up Jerusalem and petulant virtue signaling to the democratic left. As Hezbollah hurls rockets into Israeli children playing soccer, and as Hamas holds dozens of hostages in underground dungeons, Biden calls for a unilateral ceasefire and no Israeli defensive measures.

Russia’s policy oscillates between supporting Ukraine and bowing to it Russian theatrical print over which weapons Ukraine may use against Russian targets.

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China’s politics is obsessed with talk while China attacking ships from Taiwan and the Philippinesa US treaty ally, even in Manila’s exclusive economic zone.

This record shows that the adults are not back in charge as Biden claimed they would be. But weak as Biden is, Kamala Harris seems likely to be no better. The vice president issued a bland statement claiming that “the will of the Venezuelan people must be respected” without acknowledging Gonzalez’s victory or criticizing Maduro’s behavior. America needs a stronger leader than this in the White House.