As Sanders and Warren Vow to Block War With Iran, Biden and Buttigieg Offer
Better-Run Wars
By Robert Mackey, The Intercept
06 January 20
The legacy of the Iraq war, and the prospect of a bloody sequel sparked by
Donald Trump’s assassination of a senior Iranian official in Baghdad this week,
has the potential to transform the Democratic presidential primary, offering
voters radically different visions of how the next commander in chief proposes
to deal with the ongoing chaos caused by the 2003 invasion.
Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren described the drone strike ordered by
Trump as a dangerous escalation and promised to end American wars in the Middle
East. Joe Biden, the former vice president, and Pete Buttigieg, the former
mayor of South Bend, Indiana, offered more muted criticism, suggesting that the
killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani might have been justified if a more
responsible commander in chief was in charge.
“We must do more than just stop war with Iran,” Sanders tweeted on Friday. “We
must firmly commit to ending U.S. military presence in the Middle East in an
orderly manner. We must end our involvement in the Saudi-led intervention in
Yemen. We must bring our troops home from Afghanistan.”
We must do more than just stop war with Iran.
We must firmly commit to ending U.S. military presence in the Middle East in an
orderly manner.
We must end our involvement in the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen.
We must bring our troops home from Afghanistan.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 3, 2020
Warren, who faced criticism from the left for initially prefacing her alarm at
the threat of “another costly war” with the statement that Suleimani was “a
murderer, responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of
Americans,” amplified Sanders’s anti-war message more clearly on Friday.
“Donald Trump is dangerous and reckless,” she wrote. “He’s escalated crises and
betrayed our partners. He’s undermined our diplomatic relationships for his own
personal, political gain. We cannot allow him to drag us back into another war.
We must speak out.”
Biden also criticized the killing of the general as needlessly provocative, but
issued a statement that embraced the Trump administration’s argument that
Suleimani, who orchestrated deadly attacks on U.S. soldiers during the post-war
occupation of Iraq, “deserved to be brought to justice for his crimes against
American troops.” The former vice president — who voted to authorize the use of
military force in Iraq when he was still in the Senate, and later authored a
bizarre plan to partition the country along ethnic and sectarian lines — was
critical mainly of what he called Trump’s failure to explain his “strategy and
plan to keep safe our troops and embassy personnel” and Trump’s lack of a
“long-term vision” for the U.S. military’s role in the region.
(Trump offered a glimpse of his addled vision on Saturday, threatening to
strike 52 targets in Iran, including cultural sites, representing, he tweeted,
“the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago.”)
Buttigieg’s initial statement also endorsed Trump’s claim that killing an
Iranian general who supported Iraqi militias that oppose the ongoing presence
of U.S. troops in their country was in line with the commander in chief’s
responsibility “to protect Americans and our national security interests.”
“There is no question that Qassim Suleimani was a threat to that safety and
security, and that he masterminded threats and attacks on Americans and our
allies, leading to hundreds of deaths,” Buttigieg wrote. “But there are serious
questions about how this decision was made and whether we are prepared for the
consequences.”
Like Biden, and to a lesser extent Warren, Buttigieg seemed to glide past the
contradictions inherent in describing the killing of 603 American troops in
Iraq by Iraqis as a crime akin to terrorism, but of course those soldiers were
only there because of the invasion Sanders has repeatedly called on the
campaign trail “the worst foreign policy blunder in the modern history of the
United States.”
“‘Yeah but what’s your strategy?’ is the safest, lamest, most DC criticism
possible,” Sanders foreign policy adviser Matt Duss observed on Twitter.
“Trump’s Iran policy is foolish, dangerous, and driven by hardline ideologues
who’ve been pushing for war for years. Who cares what the strategy is for
achieving it. The policy needs to change.”
If the ongoing calamity in Iraq does factor into the decisions of Democratic
primary voters, it won’t be the first time.
Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton’s 2002 vote to authorize the invasion played a
pivotal role in the 2008 Democratic primary, contrasting sharply with Barack
Obama’s opposition, as a state senator at the time, to what he called, “A dumb
war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but
on politics.”
Four years earlier, the capture of Saddam Hussein just one month before the
2004 Iowa caucuses had seemed to tilt the Democratic contest in the opposite
direction. That year, as President George W. Bush’s approval rating surged 9
points following Hussein’s arrest, Iowa voters turned away from an insurgent
critic of the war, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, in favor of a more hawkish senator
and decorated veteran, John Kerry, who was seen as more electable in wartime.
In the aftermath of Trump’s strike on Iran’s leading military figure, Biden and
Buttigieg, egged on by conservative commentators, appear to be vying for the
mantle of John Kerry 2.0 as each man argues that his prior experience with
national security makes him the best alternative to Trump in the general
election. On the campaign trail and in social media ads, Biden has stressed his
foreign policy credentials and familiarity with the intricacies of Iran’s
military capabilities.
Biden told voters in Iowa on Friday that he doubts Trump is capable of handling
Iran’s likely retaliation.
The prospect of direct conflict with Iran is greater than ever. Does Donald
Trump have a strategy for what comes next?
Nothing we have seen from this Administration suggests that they are prepared
to deal with the risks we now confront. pic.twitter.com/RF7DD3rcDb
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 4, 2020
His campaign shared an ad on social networks in which Biden described himself
as a prospective commander in chief who would be “ready on day one to pick up
the pieces of Donald Trump’s broken foreign policy and repair the damage he has
caused around the world.”
We need a leader who will be ready on day one to pick up the pieces of Donald
Trump's broken foreign policy and repair the damage he has caused around the
world. pic.twitter.com/mB6i1U2yPv
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 3, 2020
Buttigieg also suggested that he would be better equipped to prosecute American
wars than Trump, telling voters in New Hampshire that “taking out a bad guy is
not a good idea unless you are ready for what comes next, so there’s a lot of
questions that Americans are asking today.”
I'm in New Hampshire where I addressed the events unfolding in the Middle East.
This must not be the beginning of another endless war.
pic.twitter.com/WMzybRgVh4
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) January 3, 2020
In an online ad, Buttigieg stressed his own military service as an intelligence
analyst in Afghanistan to argue that he would be more strategic and responsible
about the use of military power than Trump.
“America deserves a Commander-in-Chief who knows what that sacrifice means and
who will honor the sacred promise we make to our veterans.”
—@PeteButtigieg pic.twitter.com/015fBreDra
— Team Pete HQ (@PeteForAmerica) January 3, 2020
But what makes the 2020 primary campaign fundamentally different from 2004 is
that two leading Democrats have already established themselves as skeptics of
American military power in a way that Howard Dean — who later lobbied for
regime change in Iran — never did.
Speaking in Iowa on Friday, Sanders connected his opposition to a new war with
Iran to his vote against the Iraq war in 2003.
Bernie Sanders addresses Iran tensions after killing of top Iranian military
leader Qassem Soleimani: "This is a dangerous escalation that brings us closer
to another war in the Middle East." https://t.co/WcUzjDHTea ;
pic.twitter.com/R6uYrw4eEE
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 3, 2020
His campaign also resurfaced a video they produced of Sanders laying out his
long record of anti-war activism.
I was right about Vietnam.
I was right about Iraq.
I will do everything in my power to prevent a war with Iran.
I apologize to no one. pic.twitter.com/Lna3oBZMKB
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 3, 2020
The senator’s supporters shared clips from his speech on Friday, in which he
observed that “it is rarely the children of the billionaire class who face the
agony of reckless foreign policy,” and from an interview he did with CBS in
June, when he scoffed at the idea that Trump deserved credit for having not yet
started a catastrophic war with Iran.
"I know that it is rarely the children of the billionaire class who face the
agony of reckless foreign policy, it is the children of working families."
@BernieSanders #NoWarWithIran pic.twitter.com/x0p9qjNxvd
— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) January 3, 2020
Bernie on Iran 6 months ago pic.twitter.com/BKfvkOgycz
— SᴡᴇᴇᴘTʜᴇLᴇɢ (@CobraKeiser) January 3, 2020
After Warren was hammered on social networks by Sanders supporters for not
being outspoken enough in her initial statement, she posted comments on Twitter
making her opposition to a war with Iran much more clear.
“We’re on the brink of yet another war in the Middle East — one that would be
devastating in terms of lives lost and resources wasted,” Warren wrote. “We’re
not here by accident. We’re here because a reckless president, his allies, and
his administration have spent years pushing us here.”
“Donald Trump ripped up an Iran nuclear deal that was working,” she added.
“He’s repeatedly escalated tensions. Now he’s assassinated a senior foreign
military official. He’s been marching toward war with Iran since his first days
in office — but the American people won’t stand for it.”
All three of my brothers served in uniform. I know the sacrifices we ask of
them and their families. Trump’s actions put every service member and diplomat
in the region at risk. This is a moment for vigilance—for Americans to speak up
and speak out. No more Middle East wars.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 3, 2020
Warren has previously been outspoken in her commitment to end the war in
Afghanistan. Asked at a debate in September if she would withdraw American
troops from that country even in the absence of a peace deal with the Taliban,
Warren replied, “Yes.”
.@DavidMuir on the war in Afghanistan: "Would you keep that promise to bring
the troops home, starting right now, with no deal with the Taliban?"
Elizabeth Warren: "Yes." https://t.co/INdRXlIwFs #DemDebate ;
pic.twitter.com/ltdwVF83de
— ABC News (@ABC) September 13, 2019
“And I’ll tell you why,” she added. “What we’re doing right now in Afghanistan
is not helping the safety and security of the United States, it is not helping
the safety and security of the world, it is not helping the safety and security
of Afghanistan. We need to bring our troops home and then we need to make a big
shift: We cannot ask our military to keep solving problems that cannot be
solved militarily. We’re not going to bomb our way to a solution.”
Some Sanders campaign aides and supporters, eager to draw votes from the left,
cast Warren as insufficiently anti-war, even claiming that her proposal, last
May, for the Pentagon to achieve net zero carbon emissions and her vote in
favor of a recent military budgets was evidence that she is a secret warmonger.
While Warren appeared eager to focus on other issues on Saturday, with her
Twitter feed turning to issues like the rights of disabled workers, the threat
of white nationalists emboldened by Trump, and prosecuting bankers, Sanders
stressed his plan to work with Rep. Ro Khanna on a bill that would cut off
funding for any offensive action against Iran or Iranian officials.
Speaking on Saturday in Iowa, Sanders was met with cheers from supporters when
he said that the first course of action when lawmakers return to Washington
next week should be “for the Congress to take immediate steps to restrain
President Trump from plunging our nation into yet another endless war.”
When I return to Washington next week along with the U.S. Senate, I believe the
first course of action is for the Congress to take immediate steps to restrain
President Trump from plunging our nation into yet another endless war.
pic.twitter.com/dSDeFMmEYT
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 4, 2020
“This country needs a whole lot of things, but one thing that we do not need is
another war,” Sanders added. “We’ve got enough of those.”
Warren, unlike Sanders, routinely takes questions from reporters after her
campaign appearances, pausing for a “gaggle” before taking selfies with
supporters. On Saturday in Iowa, she said that, by killing Suleimani, “Donald
Trump has taken us to the brink of war. We don’t need more war in the Middle
East, we need to stop endless war in the Middle East.”
WATCH: @ewarren’s first on-camera reaction to the killing of Soleimani.
@cheyennehaslett follows up by asking why the shift away from calling him a
murderer. Warren pivots to instead talk about where Trump is taking this
country, calling him “reckless”. pic.twitter.com/fqxGcPJDtS
— Tara Prindiville (@taraprindiville) January 4, 2020
“We have been at war in this region for 20 years now, and it has meant
thousands of American lives lost and huge costs imposed on our country,” Warren
added. “It also means millions of people in the Middle East who have lost their
lives, been injured, or displaced. We need to stop this endless war.”
Asked by Daniella Díaz of CNN if she would have given the order to assassinate
the Iranian general, Warren said no and added that she would never have
precipitated the current crisis, as Trump did, by withdrawing from the
multinational nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by Obama’s secretary of
state, John Kerry.
To @DaniellaMicaela’s Q whether she would‘ve ordered the strike, @ewarren
continued: “Even though the Iranians had been certified as adhering to the
terms of the deal, even though our allies all stayed in the deal and wanted us
to stay in the deal...Trump went off on his own...” https://t.co/fSn1mVPiCs ;
pic.twitter.com/x9iajVAyuJ
— Tara Prindiville (@taraprindiville) January 4, 2020
Warren also defended her description of the killing of the Iranian government
official an “assassination,” one day after Mike Bloomberg, the former New York
mayor, described Sanders’s use of the word as “an outrageous thing to say.”
Warren took question after question on Soleimani after not referencing the
killing once during her town hall. When pushed on why she called it an
assassination, @ewarren responds: “Yes, it is...he has ordered the
assassination of a high-ranking gov official in the gov of Iran.”
pic.twitter.com/nYHskBAxi4
— Tara Prindiville (@taraprindiville) January 4, 2020
According to Dave Weigel of the Washington Post, Warren dismissed unsourced
claims from senior State Department officials that they had intelligence of an
imminent threat to American lives posed by Suleimani, saying: “The
administration has no credibility in truth-telling, either at home or around
the world.”
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