Joe Biden heads to Middle East amid faltering US sway

Joe Biden might prefer not to have visited the Middle East this week, or any other week for that matter. His agenda is full.

The president's Democratic Party colleagues in the US Congress look to be heading for a bruising result in November's mid-term elections. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has touched off the most serious confrontation between the world's biggest nuclear-armed powers since the height of the Cold War. China is looking keenly for signs of American decline, as its own inexorable rise to global power moves forward.

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