‘Things Fall Apart’: Biden, at UN, Reflects on Four Years of Chaos in Foreign Policy

President Joe Biden delivered what might have been his last major international address at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, acknowledging that the world is a more chaotic place but sounding a note of hope.

In his speech, Biden referred to the famous line from Irish poet William Butler Yeats, “Things fall apart.” He acknowledged that the world had unraveled in the past four years, but pushed back against pessimism:

In 1919, the Irish poet William Butler Yeats described a world, and I quote, where “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,” end of quote.

Some may say those words describe the world not just in 1919 but in 2024. But I see a cri- — a critical distinction.

In our time, the center has held. Leaders and people from every region and across the political spectrum have stood together. Turned the page — we turned the page on the worst pandemic in a century. We made sure COVID no longer controls our lives. We defended the U.N. Charter and ensured the survival of Ukraine as a free nation. My country made the largest investment in climate and clean energy ever, anywhere in history.

Biden made do with a short list of achievements, against the backdrop of a long list of problems that have emerged since he took office in 2021: the continued war between Russia and Ukraine; the ongoing wars in the Middle East; the continues rise of a potentially hostile China; the chaos of migration from poor countries to developed ones; and political instability across the Sahel in Africa, as the U.S. has yielded ground to Russia’s and China’s influence.

He closed by stressing the importance of democracy: “I’ve made the preservation of democracy the central cause of my presidency,” he said, on his way out of office thanks to an undemocratic change of power at the top of his party.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.