Biden’s order to the intelligence agencies was a good thing. But the 90-day deadline smacks of political theater. The U.S. needed two decades to figure out what went wrong at Pearl Harbor. We had trouble tracking Osama bin Laden to a compound he had reportedly occupied for five years. That we will uncover the truth about the origin of the pandemic in three months seems … unlikely.
If the Covid-19 virus does turn out to have escaped from a Wuhan laboratory, even by accident, the world will erupt in fury. The pressure to “do something about it” — to find a way to punish China for its negligence and its coverup — will be intense.
And it should be. Millions are dead and billions of fists are shaking in the air.