Foreign Correspondent: Is Kamala Harris A Hawk? Biden’s Veep Pick Has At Times Embraced Militarism And Even Attacked Trump From The Right

The Challengers by Nancy Ohanian

-by Reese Erlich

Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin hasn’t forgotten a 2017 meeting with members of Senator Kamala Harris’s staff to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The Israeli land and sea blockade was causing massive unemployment as well as shortages of food and electricity. Benjamin and other progressive activists wanted the Senator to criticize Israel’s policies and end the siege.

“You could just see the blank stares from her aides as we spoke,” Benjamin recalls in a phone interview from Washington, D.C. “They argued that Israel has the right to defend itself. There was no sympathy for the Palestinians.”

This week, activists are recirculating a photo of a smiling Kamala Harris standing next to ultra-rightwing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November 2017.

“She’s proud of her ties with Netanyahu and [the] Israeli government,” Benjamin says.

This week, Joe Biden picked the California Senator as his vice presidential running mate. Just as her history as a law-and-order prosecutor is now getting closer scrutiny, so should her foreign policy views.

Harris closely adheres to Democratic Party mainstream policies, which under President Barack Obama brought us wars in Syria, Libya, and Yemen, as well as escalated wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“She has views close to the Obama Administration, nothing that would be an exciting departure from US militarism,” says Benjamin, a contributor to The Progressive. “They are certainly different from Bernie Sanders’s.”

Trump criticized

Harris, like most Democrats, has often been at odds with Trump’s foreign policy.

“The current President,” she wrote in a 2019 candidate questionnaire to the Council on Foreign Relations, “seems intent on inflicting further damage to US credibility by disregarding diplomacy, withdrawing from international agreements and institutions, shunning our allies, siding with dictatorships over democracies, and elevating sheer incompetence in his decision-making processes.”

But instead of offering a progressive alternative, Harris often attacks Trump from the right, criticizing him for cozying up to leaders in North Korea, Russia, and China. For example, she supports sanctions against Russia for meddling in Ukraine and annexing Crimea.

Marco Carnelos, a former Italian ambassador to Iraq, tells me from Rome, “I understand that Russia may be sanctioned over Crimea. Are we sure that the same zeal will be applied to Israel if it should annex the West Bank?"

Carnelos also highlighted Washington’s recent outpouring of sympathy for Uighurs, a Muslim minority in China. “I’ve never seen such concern for this specific Muslim population from the US,” he says. “A few years ago, no one cared. Now that the US is in conflict with China, it’s a little bit suspect.”

Carnelos believes that the US uses human rights and national security issues to protect US business profits from Chinese competition. He notes the ramped-up attacks on Beijing coincide with fierce competition from companies like phone manufacturer Huawei.

“It is absurd that after thirty years,” he says, “the US discovered China is ruled by a Communist Party!”

No plan to end wars

Harris denounces Trump’s “endless wars” but offers no specific plans to end them. During her presidential primary campaign, she failed to commit to withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan, even by the end of a first term in 2024.

On Iran, she told the Council on Foreign Relations, the US must rejoin the nuclear accord “so long as Iran also returned to verifiable compliance.” She would also seek changes in the agreement to “supplement some of the nuclear deal’s existing provisions, and work with our partners to counter Iran’s destabilizing behavior in the region, including with regard to its ballistic missile program.”

Neither Harris nor Biden have specified whether they would immediately lift US sanctions once Iran returns to the agreement, from which the Trump Administration unilaterally withdrew in 2018.

Harris has taken some progressive stances. She co-sponsored bills in 2018 and 2019 with Bernie Sanders calling for an end to US support for the war in Yemen. She criticized the regime in Saudi Arabia for waging that war and for its human rights violations, including the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

“The US and Saudi Arabia still have mutual areas of interest, such as counterterrorism, where the Saudis have been strong partners,” Harris has said. “But we need to fundamentally reevaluate our relationship with Saudi Arabia, using our leverage to stand up for American values and interests.”

Tom Gallagher, a former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and once a progressive challenger to Representative Nancy Pelosi, acknowledges that “Harris is no gem on the Middle East.” But, he adds, “a future Biden Administration won’t be as ridiculously one-sided as Trump.”

Harris opposes the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, commonly known as the CPTPP. She calls for an end to Trump’s “tariff wars” and supports “pro-labor, pro-environment trade deals.”

“That’s a plus,” says Gallagher. “On trade matters, the Democrats have gotten the message. Labor and environmentalists have impacted the mainline leaders.”

Hope for the future?

The activists I interviewed think Harris is a better choice than über-hawk Susan Rice, who was also in the running. Rice pushed for the disastrous Libyan war and praised the air wars in Somalia and Yemen.. They also note that Harris has at times engaged in dialogue with progressives.

“Even though I disagreed with her politics,” says Code Pink’s Benjamin, “I found her accessible and charming. At demonstrations, she would sometimes come out to chat with us.”

Friendly chats won’t be enough, however, to change the foreign policy of a future Biden Administration.

“There’s already been a lot of pressure on Biden,” as progressives fight over the Democratic Party platform, Benjamin says. “We’ve seen a coming together of groups who don’t normally work together.”

In the past, she notes, some liberal and progressive groups were reluctant to criticize the Obama Administration’s militarism. “I don’t think people will make that mistake again.”

Trump's Foreign Policy Has Been Catastrophic-- Which Democrat Is Offering The Strongest Alternative?

Common Defense defines itself as "a diverse, grassroots organization of U.S. veterans and military family members who are fighting to preserve the core values we swore to uphold and defend. Together we vow to protect our communities from hate and violence, to serve on the front lines for social, economic, and global justice, and to champion a truly equitable and representative democracy." Last cycle, notably, they endorsed the 4 women who won congressional seats and went on to be dubbed "the Squad." This cycle they are vetting congressional candidate right now.

Common Defense is the country’s only veteran-led grassroots organization committed to engaging, training and mobilizing veterans to elect accountable leaders and promote progressive values in 2020 and beyond. We empower veterans to stand up for our communities against the rising tide of hate and violence, serve on the front lines for social, economic, and environmental justice, champion a truly equitable and representative democracy, and preserve the core American values we swore to uphold and defend.

Historically, right-wing billionaires and politicians have exploited veterans like us as political props. In order to win in 2020 and build a sustainable progressive movement going forward, we must invest in organizing the country’s 6-8 million progressive veterans-- and not just by helping elite veterans run for office or appear in television ads.

The majority of American veterans are working class, diverse, heavily located in key swing states and districts, and among the most trusted and persuasive organizers, canvassers, and leaders within our communities. Common Defense is the only organization focused on engaging this critical demographic, which could hold the key to the progressive movement’s long-term success.

Common Defense political director, Alex McCoy, wrote that "A progressive foreign policy rejects Trump-esque 'America First' posturing in which alliances are annoyances, international institutions are burdens, and foreign policy is inherently zero-sum, oppositional, and transactional. A progressive foreign policy also avoids “American exceptionalism” framing, which fails to recognize the harm that some of the United States’s policies have done in the world (including policies instituted before Trump), and it does not view either the U.S.’s permanent, global military hegemony as a prerequisite for a peaceful world, or the peaceful rise of other countries as an inherent threat.  We want to see candidates take stock of and prioritize the security challenges facing the United States through a realistic lens that avoids fearmongering and/or inflating the level of actual threat. Candidates should prioritize by looking at physical, social, and economic threats holistically, and put people over power and profits. We want to see a recognition that many security challenges lack military solutions, and are often exacerbated by U.S. militarism. We want to see an acknowledgement that there are limits to U.S. power, and concrete investments in tools for cooperative diplomacy."

As far as I cab tell, they haven't endorsed a candidate for president yet, although reading through their reports on each candidate, they seem to be clearly leaning towards Bernie, who excels in 9 of their 14 criteria. (Elizabeth excels in 6, Castro in 4, Mayo Pete, Status Quo Joe, Andrew Yang and Cory Booker in one each. Klobuchar seems to be offering the shitty end of the stick.

Their bottom line on each of their issues in terms of Bernie:

Sanders is not the isolationist that he is often smeared as. He embraces global engagement and advocates strongly for multilateral cooperation, but he is also willing to directly acknowledge and warn against both the harm that has been caused by US policies and the international institutions the US dominates, and the role that global wealth and power inequality has played in allowing authoritarian nationalism to rise. His vision of America’s role in the world is as a leader, not one of dominance, transactionalism, and coercion.

Sanders does an excellent job prioritizing threats, consistently identifying political, economic, and environmental challenges as the greatest security threats to the U.S. He has rejected
the fearmongering rhetoric of the post-9/11 wars that’s been used to justify disastrous interventions in numerous countries and lopsided federal spending. He also has called out the broken assumptions behind the militarization of US foreign policy. Sanders should go further in identifying what tools the US government needs to develop and/or invest in to address these challenges and make his vision a reality.

Sanders is a reliable supporter of decreasing America’s bloated, wasteful, and unstrategic Pentagon budget, and he has explicitly advocated for reinvesting the money in other priorities, such as diplomacy, domestic prosperity, and protecting against the climate crisis. We want him to be specific, however, about the levels of funding he thinks align with
his vision for the U.S. role in the world, and how he would fortify other foriegn policy tools to achieve the objectives he’s proposed.

Sanders is the unequivocal leader in the 2020 field on the issue of the war in Yemen, and his senatorial work on the matter can be credited with helping to bring the issue to public light. We’d love to see him go further and support ending arms sales to all countries committing these kinds of extreme abuses of human rights.

Sanders has been a firm advocate of democratizing war powers and ending the endless “War on Terror” paradigm. Even better would be his acknowledgment that this must necessarily include an end to targeted strikes and other widespread small-scale combat operations around the world, and articulating a plan to do so.

Sanders clearly views China and Russia’s role in climate change and rising political authoritarianism-- rather than hypothetical military confrontation-- as the primary threat to national and international security. He also appears to view the Chinese and Russian regimes as threats to the cause of democracy itself, but he does not echo Cold War–esque rhetoric or proposals; instead, he focuses on empowering social movements to combat this.

Sanders has taken a principled position on the crisis on the Korean peninsula, condemning the brutality of the North Korean regime and expressing skepticism about the substance of the Kim–Trump talks while also recognizing the importance of sustained diplomacy and a peace agreement instead of leaning on “concession” rhetoric.

Sanders is a firm and reliable supporter of both the JCPOA and preventing a new war with Iran, and he doesn’t echo the false narrative that Iran is the most (or only) destabilizing actor in the region.

Sanders recognizes the malignant nature of the military-industrial complex and the need to rein in excessive profits of defense contractors, but his support for defense-related jobs in his own state underscores even further the need for the next president to enact a robust, comprehensive plan to transition the US economy away from reliance on wasteful Pentagon spending, weapons manufacturing, and fossil fuels, in order to truly address the military-industrial complex.

Sanders has a consistent record on nuclear weapons, with strong support for reducing or eliminating these weapons programs and preventing proliferation.

Though his proposals don’t have the specificity of other 2020 contenders’, Sanders uniquely takes every opportunity to explain positions on modern issues within the context of US foreign policies that helped us get here.

Sanders has staked out a strong progressive position on civil liberties in national security, though he has not unveiled specific plans to fully implement his vision.

Among his competitors in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, Sanders takes a notably strong stance on climate policy. He has a history of leading the conversation in framing the climate crisis as an imminent national security concern, which warrants prioritization and international cooperation.

You can read all of their assessments here but since Status Quo Joe is the biggest threat to a Bernie presidency. I'll go over how Common Defense viewed him as well.

Here are their bottom line assessments on all their top issues:

There’s no question that Biden embraces the process of international diplomatic engagement (though the outcomes are what matter, not merely the process), and that he would turn away from the toxic, coercive nationalism of the Trump administration, but he is overly focused on putting things back in place as they were-- a broken, destructive, and exploitative status quo that is increasingly unsustainable-- rather than acknowledging and repairing the damage that the US did long before Trump, which is essential fora successful and moral US foreign policy moving forward.

Overall, Biden’s current campaign rhetoric on the level of threat posed by our national security challenges is fairly realistic and nonhawkish compared to the kind of campaign he plausibly
could have run—a testament to the shift achieved
by organizers in the progressive movement. However, Biden’s credibility in foreign policy must be assessed against his concrete record and proposals.

Biden’s budget priorities are out of
step with his own threat assessments. He proposes deepened diplomatic engagements and a focus
on challenges like climate change and protecting democracies. Despite that, he has refused to recalibrate foreign policy spending to effectively accomplish those goals, and he appears committed to maintaining sky- high, permanent war-levels of military spending.

Biden’s recent commitment to ending US complicity in Yemen’s suffering is welcome,
but if as the next president he would continue to prioritize the profits of defense corporations over human rights, US-made weapons will continue to be used to massacre civilians and oppress dissent in authoritarian countries like Saudi Arabia.

Unlike several of his opponents, Biden has not signed progressive veterans group Common Defense’s pledge to End the Forever War. In the Senate, he voted in favor of both the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force, authorizing the so-called “Global War on Terror” paradigm and the Iraq war, respectively. These authorizations remain in force today. Biden continues to obfuscate and tell contradictory stories regarding why he originally supported the war and when he turned against it, though both developments are well documented.

Biden hasn’t explicitly stated support for repeal of either authorization-- a necessary step to ending the endless wars and to restoring the constitutional power that Congress has unwisely surrendered to multiple presidential administrations.

So, when does Biden think the use of force is justified, and when does he think the president must seek congressional authorization? He says he will “never hesitate” to protect the American people-- including by force, if necessary-- though believes it should be a “last resort.” He has not clearly elaborated what he means by “protecting the American people,” which leaves significant room for interpretation. He also says that force should be limited to “defending our vital interests”-- a standard that is highly broad, ill- defined, and ripe for exploitation—though he does say the objective should be “clear and achievable.”

When it comes to limiting presidential war powers, he says the use of force should occur with the “informed consent of the American people,” though he does
not expressly commit to seeking congressional authorization before taking the country to war.

He continues to defend the Obama administration’s reliance on Article II of the Constitution and its “commander-in-chief” powers to launch “limited” military operations in service of “important U.S. interests” without congressional authorization, a standard used to justify interventions like the bombing of Libya. This is an expansive reading
of presidential war powers, one well beyond the traditional understanding that it allows unauthorized force only in limited instances of self-defense. Beyond the legal implications, this reading means that Biden believes the president has the right to send US troops to die, and order military combat operations against people in other countries-- all without the permission of Congress-- as long as these operations are relatively small in scale.

While Biden appears to reject calling for an all-out new Cold War, and while he seems
to understand the importance of diplomacy and investing domestically in order to compete in an increasingly globalized economy, he does lean into hawkish rhetoric and proposals that both leave military confrontation on the table and feed into a Cold War-like, zero-sum policy framework. Such a “great-power competition” narrative risks a new Cold War military and diplomatic posture, and a truly progressive foreign policy would avoid it.

Though Biden calls for a peaceful and negotiated settlement to Venezuela’s conflict, his failure to explicitly take a military option off the table and his support for maintaining financial and oil sanctions with no clear path to a solution could make the situation worse for everyday Venezuelans.

Despite lip service for diplomacy, Biden seems poised to continue the failed hawkishness toward North Korea that has driven US policy for decades, maintaining the risk of nuclear war.

Successful diplomacy with Iran starts with immediately reentering the JCPOA and with refraining from military action. It’s not clear that Biden is fully committed to a diplomatic approach when it comes to building on the nuclear deal and resolving regional conflicts, and he has signalled a continued hawkishness and confrontational posture toward Iran.

This is a huge gap in Biden’s foreign policy posture In order to invest in diplomacy, combat the climate crisis, or end endless wars, the powerful financial interests of the military-industrial complex must be defeated.

Biden’s stance on reducing the threat of nuclear weapons is consistent and fairly strong.

There’s a recurring theme with Biden on these issues: His sharpest criticisms are reserved for Trump-era policies, and his solution is primarily to return to Obama-era approaches without confronting harms that existed prior to Trump.

It is unacceptable to merely return to Obama-era practices. The expansive national-security state threatens the rights and liberties of Americans, and further endangers marginalized communities. Biden falls short of advancing a progressive path of reform.

Biden appears to understand the urgency and scope of the climate crisis, but his policies are less serious than those of many of his rivals, and Biden fails to address the militarization of our foreign policy and the contribution that has made to the worsening climate crisis.

Foreign Correspondent-- Where Does Elizabeth Warren Stand On War And Peace?

-by Reese Erlich

In the last few months Senator Elizabeth Warren has gained ground in public opinion polls tracking the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. In some states, she’s ahead of Senator Bernie Sanders and pulling close to former Vice President Joe Biden.

In domestic politics, Warren makes a populist appeal to working people with calls for free college tuition, single-payer health care and breaking up monopolies. In foreign policy, she takes a similar stand, calling for an end to foreign trade pacts such as Trump's renegotiated NAFTA.

She wrote in Foreign Affairs, “While international economic policies and trade deals have worked gloriously well for elites around the world, they have left working people discouraged and disaffected.”

Warren’s main competitor among left-leaning voters is Senator Bernie Sanders, who has developed a generally progressive, anti-interventionist foreign policy. She also competes against former Vice President Joe Biden, a corporate Democrat, who voted for the 2003 Iraq War and supported all of Obama's new wars (Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iraq).

Warren’s foreign policy lies somewhere in between Sanders and Biden. She has a troubling history of uncritical support of Israel, supporting sanctions on Venezuela, and vilifying Russia and China as national security threats. But her views are also evolving.

Israel and Palestine

In 2014, Israel launched a horrific war on Gaza, dropping bombs on densely inhabited cities. The United Nations reported that more than 2,100 Palestinians died, compared to sixty-six Israelis. When challenged by a constituent in 2014 about her support for Israel, Warren responded: “America has a very special relationship with Israel... And we very much need an ally in that part of the world.” She opposed making U.S. aid contingent on prohibiting new Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

But in 2018, Warren condemned the Israeli military violence against Palestinians protesting peacefully at the Israel-Gaza border. The Israel lobby has pushed hard for the U.S. Senate to oppose the movement to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel. To her credit, Warren voted against such a resolution in February 2019. Most recently, she joined with Sanders and others to oppose Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

While Warren is moving in the right direction, I would like to see her make a clear-cut statement opposing Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory, commit to moving the U.S. Embassy back to Tel Aviv, and call for an independent, contiguous Palestinian state, which would live peacefully next to a non-aggressive Israel.

Venezuela

Candidates’ views on Venezuela tell us a lot about how they will react as President when the Washington establishment bleats out that “we have to do something!” Economic conditions in Venezuela are horrific and the political situation tenuous. Trump’s solution? Apply crushing sanctions aimed at overthrowing the government of President Nicolas Maduro and replace it with one more to the U.S. liking.

When it comes to Russia, China, and North Korea, mainstream Democrats have a long history of trying to sound tough. Unfortunately, Warren is no exception.

Warren co-sponsored a Senate bill proposing to bar U.S. military intervention in Venezuela. But in February, she called for economic sanctions on Venezuela along with increased foreign aid. In this context, sanctions are part of the plan to unseat Maduro. I would like to see Warren take a firm stand against all U.S. intervention—- economic, political or military.



Russia, China, N. Korea

When it comes to Russia, China, and North Korea, mainstream Democrats have a long history of trying to sound tough on national defense while attacking Republicans from the right. Unfortunately, Warren is no exception.

Last year, as Trump prepared to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Warren issued a bellicose statement: “A nuclear-armed North Korea is a threat to the security of the United States, our allies, and the world... This administration’s success will be judged on whether it can eliminate Kim’s nuclear weapons and verify they are gone.”

While Trump can be erratic and subject to pressure from his rightwing advisors, at least he is willing to discuss denuclearization of the region. And compare Warren’s view with Sanders’s statement about the same summit: The meeting “represents a positive step in de-escalating tensions between our countries, addressing the threat of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, and moving toward a more peaceful future.”

Warren also falls into the Cold War trap of vilifying Russia and China as a danger to Americans. “China is on the rise,” she wrote in Foreign Affairs, “using its economic might to bludgeon its way onto the world stage... To mask its decline, Russia is provoking the international community with opportunistic harassment and covert attacks.” She goes on to claim that both countries invest heavily in their militaries and seek “to shape spheres of influence in their own image.”

Nowhere does Warren mention that the United States spends more on its military than the next seven largest countries combined. Russia and China have limited military bases outside their borders while the United States has over 800. Unfortunately, Warren helps propagate the myths of cunning and fearsome enemies, which are used to justify ever rising defense budgets and future wars.

So who do you vote for?

Yet Warren is far more progressive than mainstream Democrats like Joe Biden. She calls for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Warren campaigns for the United State to rejoin the nuclear accord with Iran and to end trade pacts that hurt workers.

“Warren’s foreign policy positions have shifted a fair amount in recent years, particularly during the past few months,” says Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, who provides foreign policy advice to the Warren campaign. [Disclosure-- Zunes and I have known each other for many years.] “Warren didn't have a lot of foreign policy background.”

For Zunes, while Bernie Sanders has an overall better foreign policy record, “Warren is the most realistic progressive choice.”

I disagree. Bernie Sanders is running on an anti-interventionist program. I view Sanders as far more likely to resist Pentagon/CIA/State Department pressure once elected because of his strong ideological commitment. And, in terms of electability, he has far greater potential to win African American and other working class voters than the still too upper-middle-class-oriented Warren.

However, if Sanders were not in the race, I would support Warren, who is far better than Biden.

There’s a permanent cadre of bankers, corporate executives, generals, and government bureaucrats lurking in the Washington swamp who profit from war. They will seek to maintain their power no matter who wins the election. Progressives and the American people will have to fight like hell to keep that from happening.

Foreign Correspondent: Biden vs. Bernie-- A Foreign Policy Faceoff

by Reese Erlich

Supporters of former Vice President Joe Biden praise him as a man with extensive foreign policy experience. He’s living proof, however, that extensive doesn’t necessarily mean good.

Biden reflects the mindset of the previous generation of mainstream Democratic leaders who are out of touch with the anti-interventionist sentiments of most Americans.

“We don’t like his experience,” says Karen Bernal, the outgoing chair of the California Democratic Party’s Progressive Caucus and who supports Senator Bernie Sanders for President. “Biden is way too deferential to the military-industrial complex. I don’t see him changing.”

Biden is a liberal interventionist, at least historically, willing to wage wars of aggression in the name of human rights or national security. He actively drummed up support for US bombing in the Balkans, supported the occupation of Afghanistan, voted for the 2003 war in Iraq, publicly backed the bombing of Libya and supported vastly intensified drone wars in Pakistan and Somalia.

Senator Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, is running on an anti-military intervention platform. He offers solid criticism of the U.S. war-making system and calls for a sharp reduction in military spending in order to fund much-needed social spending.

These are hardly abstract points of debate. The U.S. has spent $6 trillion fighting the doomed “war on terror.” Between 480,000 and 507,000 people have been killed in the US post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, including nearly 7,000 U.S. troops.

Biden’s pro-war stand is morally and politically wrong, and I am not alone in my opinion. Biden will have a hard time convincing voters that his policies are all that different from Trump's. A recent poll confirms that a majority of Americans oppose Trump’s foreign policy. But Biden's baggage could actually help Trump win.

Bloody Hands

In the early 1990s, Biden strongly pushed for war against Serbia and favored Bosnian independence, a war that tore apart former Yugoslavia. Some 25 years later, Bosnia, still plagued by ethnic conflict, is governed by a European-appointed high representative, and 7,000 NATO troops remain on the ground.

Similarly, Biden supported the U.S. invasion of Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, further splintering Yugoslavia and placing power in the hands of the Kosovo Liberation Army-- a group that U.S. officials had previously described as terrorist. To this day 4,000 NATO troops, including some 700 Americans, remain stationed in Kosovo.

Biden voted to authorize President George Bush Jr. to wage war against Iraq, despite his false claims of weapons of mass destruction. Well after the anti-war movement and even some establishment politicians denounced the war, Biden still defended it, saying in 2005, “We can call it quits and withdraw from Iraq [but] I think that would be a gigantic mistake, or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out-- equally a mistake.”

Biden later criticized Bush’s handling of the Iraq war. But instead of calling for a total withdrawal of U.S. troops, he called for decentralizing Iraq, splitting it into three parts: Kurdistan, a Shia Muslim east and Sunni west. Far from being a peace plan, Biden sought to establish a U.S. sphere of influence in Kurdistan at a time when the US was badly losing the war.



After September 11, 2001, Biden supported the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. He initially called for maintaining U.S. troops there to rebuild the country. Later he favored keeping a smaller number of troops there to fight a counter insurgency war, supposedly to stop terrorism. In practical terms that means keeping U.S. troops and bases permanently in Afghanistan.

During internal White House meetings, Vice President Biden reportedly objected to various military interventions, including the 2011 bombing of Libya. But publicly, Biden supported the attack and even proclaimed it a model for future interventions.

“NATO got it right,” he said in 2011. “In this case, America spent $2 billion and didn’t lose a single life. This is more the prescription for how to deal with the world as we go forward than it has (been) in the past.”

Biden chose to ignore the thousands of Libyan civilians who were killed and injured as the U.S./NATO war turned Libya into a failed state. And a year later insurgents killed US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in the infamous Benghazi attack. Libya is hardly a “prescription” for anything.

Sanders Foreign Policy

Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, offers a more systemic criticism of U.S. militarism. He calls for a significant reduction in the $700 billion annual military budget. “Do we really need to spend more than the next ten nations combined on the military,” he asks, “when our infrastructure is collapsing and kids can’t afford to go to college?”

Progressive Caucus chair Bernal says she’s seen a lot of progress in his views since the 2016 campaign, when he tended to deemphasize foreign policy. “His base wants him to be much more progressive,” she says, and he responded.

In a 2017 speech on foreign policy, Sanders rejected the “benevolent global hegemony” promoted by some in Washington. “I would argue that the events of the past two decades-- particularly the disastrous Iraq war and the instability and destruction it has brought to the region-- have utterly discredited that vision.”

Sanders has opposed all the recent U.S. wars of aggression and has said the U.S. should take military intervention “off the table” in Venezuela and Iran. Instead, Sanders emphasizes diplomacy and the need to root out the underlying causes of international conflict.

For sure, Sanders, as a democratic socialist, is still a captive of some Cold War myths. For example, in his 2017 speech he praises the Marshall Plan as an example of the U.S. unselfishly helping to rebuild Japan and Germany after World War II. In fact, the Marshall Plan was aimed at tying those countries to U.S. corporate interests and isolating the then-USSR. And it’s not clear how Sanders might react if confronted by liberals calling for military intervention on humanitarian grounds.

Trump And The Presidential Campaign

In 2016, Trump claimed to oppose the Mideast wars. But he kept US troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and vetoed a Congressional resolution to end U.S. support for the disastrous war in Yemen. The drone strikes in Somalia that began under Obama have vastly increased under Trump. He’s moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognized Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan and virtually eliminated the already remote possibility of a two-state solution with Palestine.

Trump also withdrew from the UN Security Council mandated nuclear accord with Iran and unilaterally re-imposed harsh sanctions. His administration declared Iran's Revolutionary Guard to be a terrorist organization. What Democrat will move the U.S. embassy back to Tel Aviv or acknowledge that the Revolutionary Guard is not a terrorist organization? I don’t think Biden would.

During the primaries, when Biden will face sharp criticism from the left, he may try to reinvent himself as a progressive on foreign policy. It’s true that he voted against the 1991 Gulf War and opposed the Reagan administration’s aid to the Nicaraguan contras. And as vice president, Biden established a dovish reputation compared to hawks such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. On May 1 Biden criticized Trump's support for the Yemen War.

But the reality remains that Biden publicly defended each new war initiated by the Obama administration. When Obama and Biden took office, the U.S. was at war in Afghanistan and Iraq. When they left the White House, the U.S. had initiated, backed or vastly expanded additional wars in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia.

Sanders doesn't have Biden’s baggage and will run an issue-oriented campaign. But even if you're not a fan of Sanders, Biden is a poor choice given the wide range of more winnable progressives. It’s time the Democrats nominate someone willing to break with interventionism and reflect the views of the American people.

A Progressive Foreign Policy?

How do you define a progressive foreign policy agenda? It's touchy, when you go beyond peace. Want to step on Jewish toes? Try it if you're a politicians and see how quickly you get turned into Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) or Earl Hilliard (D-AL). How about Armenian toes? There are around half a million Armenian-Americans, almost half of whom are concentrated in California with significant enough populations in Boston and NYC told wield some real political clout. It may be popular among Trump supporters to denigrate Muslim-Americans but there are about 3.5 million of them-- and they're better educated and wealthier than the average non-Muslim American-- and they vote... especially in New York City, Dearborn Michigan, Patterson, New Jersey, Philly, L.A., with significant numbers in Arkansas, Maine, Texas, Virginia, Illinois and Delaware. Politicians-- who are likely more interested in healthcare, education, the economy, climate change, gun violence, equality or other domestic issues-- have to be careful about the minefield around foreign policy. Stumbling can be fatal.

This week at In These Times, Phyllis Bennis, is asking for a bold foreign policy platform for the left, demanding that socialists and other progressives align their domestic programs with a progressive foreign policy vision. There was always grumbling among foreign policy-obsessed folks about Bernie. Bennis, however, starts with Alexandria Ocasio (NY) and Rashida Tlaib (MI), neither of whom is in Congress yet but both whom are guaranteed to be there in January. They are other super-progressives, she asserts, are not showing a clear enough link between domestic issues and... well she starts off with the easy stuff for most progressives-- challenging war and militarism and the war economy. Almost all progressive candidates I talk are passionately for peace and against what Eisenhower warned is the military-industrial complex.

But that isn't really what the complaint is. It's when demands are made about specific issues that divide constituencies that things start to get hairy. "It’s not," wrote Bennis, "that progressive leaders don’t care about international issues, or that our movements are divided. Despite too many common assumptions, it is not political suicide for candidates or elected officials to stake out progressive anti-war, anti-militarism positions. Quite the contrary: Those positions actually have broad support within both our movements and public opinion. It’s just that it’s hard to figure out the strategies that work to connect internationally focused issues, anti-war efforts, or challenges to militarism, with the wide array of activists working on locally grounded issues. Some of those strategies seem like they should be easy-- like talking about slashing the 53 cents of every discretionary federal dollar that now goes to the military as the easiest source to fund Medicare-for-all or free college education. It should be easy, but somehow it’s not: Too often, foreign policy feels remote from the urgency of domestic issues facing such crises. When our movements do figure out those strategies, candidates can easily follow suit." Yep that's the (relatively) easy part. Now comes the less easy stuff, especially what it's not just a principal but an actual policy that touches countries and people.

Candidates coming out of our movements into elected office will need clear positions on foreign policy. Here are several core principles that should shape those positions.

A progressive foreign policy must reject U.S. military and economic domination and instead be grounded in global cooperation, human rights, respect for international law and privileging diplomacy over war. That does not mean isolationism, but instead a strategy of diplomatic engagement rather than-- not as political cover for-- destructive U.S. military interventions that have so often defined the U.S. role in the world.

Looking at the political pretexts for what the U.S. empire is doing around the world today, a principled foreign policy might start by recognizing that there is no military solution to terrorism and that the global war on terror must be ended.

More broadly, the militarization of foreign policy must be reversed and diplomacy must replace military action in every venue, with professional diplomats rather than the White House’s political appointees in charge. Aspiring and elected progressive and socialist office-holders should keep in mind the distinction between the successes and failures of Obama’s foreign policy. The victories were all diplomatic: moving towards normalization with Cuba, the Paris climate accord and especially the Iran nuclear deal. Obama’s greatest failures-- in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen-- all occurred because the administration chose military action over robust diplomacy.

Certainly, diplomacy has been a tool in the arsenal of empires, including the United States. But when we are talking about official policies governing relations between countries, diplomacy-- meaning talking, negotiating and engaging across a table-- is always, always better than engaging across a battlefield.

A principled foreign policy must recognize how the war economy has distorted our society at home-- and commit to reverse it. The $717 billion of the military budget is desperately needed for jobs, healthcare and education here at home-- and for a diplomatic surge and humanitarian and reconstruction assistance to people of countries devastated by U.S. wars and sanctions.

A principled foreign policy must acknowledge how U.S. actions-- military, economic and climate-related-- have been a driving force in displacing people around the world. We therefore have an enormous moral as well as legal obligation to take the lead in providing humanitarian support and refuge for those displaced-- so immigration and refugee rights are central to foreign policy.

For too long the power of the U.S. empire has dominated international relations, led to the privileging of war over diplomacy on a global scale, and created a vast-- and invasive-- network of 800-plus military bases around the world.

Now, overall U.S. global domination is actually shrinking, and not only because of Trump’s actions. China’s economy is rapidly catching up, and its economic clout in Africa and elsewhere eclipses that of the United States. It’s a measure of the United States’ waning power that Europe, Russia and China are resisting U.S. efforts to impose new global sanctions on Iran. But the United States is still the world’s strongest military and economic power: Its military spending vastly surpasses that of the eight next strongest countries, it is sponsoring a dangerous anti-Iran alliance between Israel and the wealthy Gulf Arab states, it remains central to NATO decision-making, and powerful forces in Washington threaten new wars in North Korea and Iran. The United States remains dangerous.

Progressives in Congress have to navigate the tricky task of rejecting American exceptionalism. U.S global military and economic efforts are generally aimed at maintaining domination and control. Without that U.S. domination, the possibility arises of a new kind of internationalism: to prevent and solve crises that arise from current and potential wars, to promote nuclear disarmament, to come up with climate solutions and to protect refugees.

That effort is increasingly important because of the rapid rise of right-wing xenophobic authoritarians seeking and winning power. Trump is now leading and enabling an informal global grouping of such leaders, from Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to Victor Orban in Hungary and others. Progressive elected officials in the United States can pose an important challenge to that authoritarian axis by building ties with their like-minded counterparts in parliaments and governments-- possibilities include Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom and Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, among others. And progressive and leftist members of Congress will need to be able to work together with social movements to build public pressure for diplomatic initiatives not grounded in the interests of U.S. empire.

In addition to these broad principles, candidates and elected officials need critical analyses of current U.S. engagement around the world, as well as nuanced prescriptions for how to de-escalate militarily, and ramp up a new commitment to serious diplomacy.

Russia: Relations with Russia will be a major challenge for the foreseeable future. With 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons in U.S. and Russian hands, and the two powers deploying military forces on opposite sides of active battlefronts in Syria, it is crucial that relations remain open—not least to derail potential escalations and ensure the ability to stand down from any accidental clash.

Progressives and leftists in Congress will need to promote a nuanced, careful approach to Russia policy. And they will face a daunting environment in which to do so. They will have to deal with loud cries from right-wing war-mongers, mainly Republicans, and from neo-con interventionists in both parties, demanding a one-sided anti-Russia policy focused on increased sanctions and potentially even military threats. But many moderate and liberal Democrats-- and much of the media-- are also joining the anti-Russia crusade. Some of those liberals and moderates have likely bought into the idea of American exceptionalism, accepting as legitimate or irrelevant the long history of U.S. election meddling around the world and viewing the Russian efforts as somehow reaching a whole different level of outrageousness. Others see the anti-Russia mobilization solely in the context of undermining Trump.

But at the same time, progressive Congress members should recognize that reports of Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 and 2018 elections cannot be dismissed out of hand. They should continue to demand that more of the evidence be made public, and condemn the Russian meddling that has occurred, even while recognizing that the most serious threats to our elections come from voter suppression campaigns at home more than from Moscow. And they have to make clear that Trump’s opponents cannot be allowed to turn the president’s infatuation with Vladimir Putin into the basis for a new Cold War, simply to oppose Trump.

China: The broad frame of a progressive approach should be to end Washington’s provocative military and economic moves and encourage deeper levels of diplomatic engagement. This means replacing military threats with diplomacy in response to Chinese moves in the South China Sea, as well as significant cuts in the ramped-up military ties with U.S. allies in the region, such as Vietnam. Progressive and socialist members of Congress and other elected officials will no doubt be aware that the rise of China’s economic dominance across Africa, and its increasing influence in parts of Latin America, could endanger the independence of countries in those parts of the Global South. But they will also need to recognize that any U.S. response to what looks like Chinese exploitation must be grounded in humility, acknowledging the long history of U.S. colonial and neocolonial domination throughout those same regions. Efforts to compete with Chinese economic assistance by increasing Washington’s own humanitarian and development aid should mean directing all funds through the UN, rather than through USAID or the Pentagon. That will make U.S. assistance far less likely to be perceived as-- and to be-- an entry point for exploitation.

NATO: A progressive position on NATO flies straight into the face of the partisan component of the anti-Trump resistance-- the idea that if Trump is for it, we should be against it. For a host of bad reasons that have to do with personal enrichment and personal power, Trump sometimes takes positions that large parts of the U.S. and global anti-war and solidarity movements have long supported. One of those is NATO. During the Cold War, NATO was the European military face of U.S.-dominated Western anti-Communism and anti-Sovietism. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, peace activists from around the world called for the dissolution of NATO as an anachronistic relic whose raison d’etre was now gone.

Instead, NATO used its 50th anniversary in 1999 to rebrand itself as defending a set of amorphous, ostensibly “Western” values such as democracy, rather than having any identifiable enemy-- something like a military version of the EU, with the United States on board for clout. Unable to win UN Security Council support for war in Kosovo, the United States and its allies used NATO to provide so-called authorization for a major bombing campaign-- in complete violation of international law-- and began a rapid expansion of the NATO alliance right up to the borders of Russia. Anti-war forces across the world continued to rally around the call “No to NATO”-- a call to dissolve the alliance altogether.

But when Trump, however falsely, claims to call for an end to the alliance, or shows disdain for NATO, anti-Trump politicians and media lead the way in embracing the military alliance as if it really did represent some version of human rights and international law. It doesn’t-- and progressives in elected positions need to be willing to call out NATO as a militarized Cold War relic that shouldn’t be reconfigured to maintain U.S. domination in Europe or to mobilize against Russia or China or anyone else. It should be ended.

In fact, Trump’s claims to oppose NATO are belied by his actions. In his 2019 budget request he almost doubled the 2017 budget for the Pentagon’s “European Deterrence Initiative,” designed explicitly as a response to “threats from Russia.” There is a huge gap between Trump’s partisan base-pleasing condemnation of NATO and his administration’s actual support for strengthening the military alliance. That contradiction should make it easier for progressive candidates and officeholders to move to cut NATO funding and reduce its power-- not because Trump is against NATO but because the military alliance serves as a dangerous provocation toward war.

...Israel-Palestine: The most important thing for candidates to know is that there has been a massive shift in public opinion in recent years. It is no longer political suicide to criticize Israel. Yes, AIPAC and the rest of the right-wing Jewish, pro-Israel lobbies remain influential and have a lot of money to throw around. (The Christian Zionist lobbies are powerful too, but there is less political difficulty for progressives to challenge them.) But there are massive shifts underway in U.S. Jewish public opinion on the conflict, and the lobbies cannot credibly claim to speak for the Jewish community as a whole.

Outside the Jewish community, the shift is even more dramatic, and has become far more partisan: Uncritical support for Israel is now overwhelmingly a Republican position. Among Democrats, particularly young Democrats, support for Israel has fallen dramatically; among Republicans, support for Israel’s far-right government is sky-high. The shift is particularly noticeable among Democrats of color, where recognition of the parallels between Israeli oppression of Palestinians and the legacies of Jim Crow segregation in the United States and apartheid in South Africa is rising rapidly.

U.S. policy, unfortunately, has not kept up with that changing discourse. But modest gains are evident even there. When nearly 60 members of the House and Senate openly skipped Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech when he came to lobby Congress to vote against President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, the sky didn’t fall. The snub to the Israeli prime minister was unprecedented, but no one lost their seat because of it. Rep. Betty McCollum’s bill to protect Palestinian children from Israel’s vicious military juvenile detention system (the only one in the world) now has 29 co-sponsors, and the sky still isn’t falling. Members of Congress are responding more frequently to Israeli assaults on Gaza and the killing of protesters, often because of powerful movements among their constituents. When Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, the Israeli daily Ha’aretz acknowledged the divide: “While members of the Republican Party overwhelmingly expressed support for the move, Democrats were split between those who congratulated Trump for it and those who called it a dangerous and irresponsible action.”

That creates space for candidates and newly elected officials to respond to the growing portion of their constituencies that supports Palestinian rights. Over time, they must establish a rights-based policy. That means acknowledging that the quarter-century-long U.S.-orchestrated “peace process” based on the never-serious pursuit of a solution, has failed. Instead, left and progressive political leaders can advocate for a policy that turns over real control of diplomacy to the UN, ends support for Israeli apartheid and occupation, and instead supports a policy based on international law, human rights and equality for all, without privileging Jews or discriminating against non-Jews.

To progress from cautiously urging that Israel abide by international law, to issuing a full-scale call to end or at least reduce the $3.8 billion per year that Congress sends straight to the Israeli military, might take some time. In the meantime, progressive candidates must prioritize powerful statements condemning the massacre of unarmed protesters in Gaza and massive Israeli settlement expansion, demands for real accountability for Israeli violations of human rights and international law (including reducing U.S. support in response), and calls for an end to the longstanding U.S. protection that keeps Israel from being held accountable in the UN.

The right consistently accuses supporters of Palestinian rights of holding Israel to a double standard. Progressives in Congress should turn that claim around on them and insist that U.S. policy towards Israel-- Washington’s closest ally in the region and the recipient of billions of dollars in military aid every year-- hold Israel to exactly the same standards that we want the United States to apply to every other country: human rights, adherence to international law and equality for all.

Many supporters of the new crop of progressive candidates, and many activists in the movements they come out of, are supporters of the increasingly powerful, Palestinian-led BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement, that aims to bring non-violent economic pressure to bear on Israel until it ends its violations of international law. This movement deserves credit for helping to mainstream key demands-- to end the siege of Gaza and the killing of protesters, to support investigations of Israeli violations by the International Criminal Court, to oppose Israel’s new “nation-state’ law-- that should all be on lawmakers’ immediate agenda.

Iran: With U.S. and Iranian military forces facing each other in Syria, the potential for an unintentional escalation is sky-high. Even a truly accidental clash between a few Iranian and U.S. troops, or an Iranian anti-aircraft system mistakenly locking on to a U.S. warplane plane even if it didn’t fire, could have catastrophic consequences without immediate military-to-military and quick political echelon discussions to defuse the crisis. And with tensions very high, those ties are not routinely available. Relations became very dangerous when Trump withdrew the United States from the multi-lateral nuclear deal in May. (At that time, a strong majority of people in the United States favored the deal, and less than one in three wanted to pull out of it.)

The United States continues to escalate threats against Iran. It is sponsoring a growing regional anti-Iran alliance, with Israel and Saudi Arabia now publicly allied and pushing strongly for military action. And Trump has surrounded himself with war-mongers for his top advisers, including John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, who have both supported regime change in Iran and urged military rather than diplomatic approaches to Iran.

Given all that, what progressive elected officials need to do is to keep fighting for diplomacy over war. That means challenging U.S. support for the anti-Iran alliance and opposing sanctions on Iran. It means developing direct ties with parliamentarians from the European and other signatories to the Iran nuclear deal, with the aim of collective opposition to new sanctions, re-legitimizing the nuclear deal in Washington and reestablishing diplomacy as the basis for U.S. relations with Iran.

It should also mean developing a congressional response to the weakening of international anti-nuclear norms caused by the pull-out from the Iran deal. That means not just supporting the nonproliferation goals of the Iran nuclear deal, but moving further towards real disarmament and ultimately the abolition of nuclear weapons. Progressives in and outside of Congress should make clear that nuclear nonproliferation (meaning no one else gets to have nukes) can’t work in the long run without nuclear disarmament (meaning that the existing nuclear weapons states have to give them up). That could start with a demand for full U.S. compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which calls for negotiations leading to “nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament.”

...Yemen and Saudi Arabia:

The ongoing Saudi-led war against Yemen reflects the most deadly front of Saudi Arabia’s competition with Iran for regional hegemony. The United States is providing indirect and direct support, including U.S. Air Force pilots providing in-air refueling so Saudi and UAE warplanes can bomb Yemen more efficiently, and Green Berets fighting alongside Saudi troops on the border, in what the New York Times called “a continuing escalation of America’s secret wars.”



The U.S.-backed Saudi war against Yemen has also created what the UN has declared the world’s most serious humanitarian crisis. Congress’ first action must be to immediately end all U.S. involvement in the war. Next, Congress must reject all approvals for arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE as long as they continue to bomb and blockade Yemen.

Ending these arms sales may be a serious challenge, given the power of the arms manufacturers’ lobby, Israel’s strong support of Saudi Arabia against Iran and the fact that Saudi Arabia remains the top U.S. arms customer. But recent efforts and relatively close votes in both the House and Senate, while not successful, indicate that challenging the longstanding process of providing the Saudis with whatever weapons they want may be closer to reality than anticipated. The House called the U.S. military involvement in the Saudi war in Yemen “unauthorized.” Reps. Ro Khanna, Marc Pocan and others have introduced numerous House bills in recent months aimed at reducing U.S. arms sales and involvement in the Saudi-led assault. In the Senate, a March resolution to end U.S. military involvement in the Yemen war failed by only 11 votes, a much narrower margin than anticipated. Progressive candidates and new members of Congress should support all those efforts, and move further with a call for ending the longstanding U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia, especially military sales and support for the Saudi-Israeli partnership against Iran.

Tim Canova, the stalwart progressive Democrat, running as an independent for the south Florida seat occupied by-- and, earlier, drawn by-- Debbie Wasserman Schultz, once got on the wrong side of the progressive foreign policy komissariat. I can't remember the exact details but often when I write about his campaign, some commenter comes howling into the comments section to denounce him. I didn't ask Tim about that nonsense. Instead, I asked him about the whole idea of a progressive foreign policy vision. This is what he told me:

I see our foreign policy as inextricably linked to our domestic agenda and political challenges. At home we seek a green and solar New Deal to provide work and meaning to a generation that’s been displaced by technology and hammered by austerity, privatizations and a global race to the bottom. Abroad, we want the same for people all over the world. We should be supporting and promoting democracy movements and progressive economic and social policies.

After World War II, the greatest generation benefitted greatly from the G.I. Bill of Rights that invested in the people. At the same time, U.S. foreign policy promoted New Deals in Western Europe through the Marshall Plan. Today, in the US and abroad, we see democracy losing out to corporate oligarchy. Instead of full employment policies, we see pressures from big banks, international institutions, and market forces to cut public budgets, cut taxes on the rich, privatize all state functions, and liberalize trade to insane degrees. It’s created a massive amount of human suffering throughout much of the world in sky high levels of joblessness and underemployment, and stagnant incomes, however hidden or ignored.

These are the kinds of conditions that contribute to large migration flows, xenophobic backlashes, and mercenary armies for brutal and perpetual Middle East wars and for Central American street gangs. The world that we want restores the balance at home and abroad, puts people first, reins in the corporate oligarchs, ends their huge subsidies and lawlessness, taxes their offshore accounts. A New Deal at home and as good neighbors, New Deals in our foreign policies.

Another progressive Florida candidate, Matt Haggman, running for the open Miami seat that Ileana Ros Lehtinen is abandoning, told us that "it’s imperative we continue to move away from a militaristic approach when it comes to negotiations and more towards a humanitarian solution. The U.S. has always been the beacon in providing support for refuge-- especially when it comes to immigration and refugee rights-- and we must continue to lead globally in this area."