Trump's Iran Strike Hands Biden Edge in 2020 Democratic Race

[highplainsdem]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-03/trump-s-iran-strike-gives-edge-to-one-2020-democrat-joe-biden

The drone strike that killed Iran’s top military commander thrust the 2020 presidential campaign Friday into a new focus on foreign policy, a moment that could play to the strengths of Joe Biden in the Democratic primary race.

Biden seized on the killing of Iran’s Qassem Soleimani as a chance to remind Democratic voters of why he believes he’s the best suited to face President Donald Trump on foreign policy in the general election.

Biden told voters in Dubuque, Iowa, on Friday that the U.S. “could be on the brink of a new kind of conflict in the Middle East.”

Calling Soleimani “the architect behind the slaughter of countless lives,” Biden said he doubts the Trump administration has “a strategy for what comes next,” suggesting he would not take action as president without a longer-term plan

“Unfortunately, nothing we’ve seen from this administration” to suggest such a plan has been worked out, Biden said.

-snip-

Biden on Thursday night was among the first candidates to respond to news of the killing, and issued a statement longer than those of his opponents. He warned that Trump may not have considered the “second- and third-order consequences” of the attack.

“The administration’s statement says that its goal is to deter future attacks by Iran, but this action almost certainly will have the opposite effect,” Biden said in his initial statement. “President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox and he owes the American people an explanation of the strategy.”

Democrats by wide margins consistently rate Biden, 77, as best able to handle foreign policy because of his eight years as vice president and his decades of experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

But he rarely focuses on those credentials because foreign policy isn’t typically a top priority for Democratic primary voters, who focus more on social and pocketbook issues. Trump’s escalation with Iran has at least briefly elevated the issue.

Biden’s advisers have said they believe voters are less concerned about any one foreign policy issue with Trump, but instead about an overall sense that he’s a dangerous driver at the wheel should a true crisis erupt. Iran could turn out to be that crisis.

-snip-

[Thekaspervote]

1. Dotard didn't exactly think that one through!! Just like the Ukraine debacle

Joe is the only one with FP experience and is the best candidate to clean his messes

[Kahuna7]

4. No, he did not...

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Cons will use this to tie Biden to Obama's Iran Treaty

Normal people will support Biden, MAGAzi's will think Trump saved the world.

[John Fante]

3. You mean the treaty that Iran was complying with

before Dotard tore it up? Biden WANTS to be tied to the Iran Deal. True patriots (something Trumpers most certainly are not) favor diplomacy over war, and they make up the vast majority of Americans.

[karynnj]

11. If Biden did NOT want to be associated with that deal - would he have praised John Kerry for it

in speaking about why Kerry's endorsement meant a lot to him personally?

Of course the right wing hated it and loves Trump, however the consensus of Trump's own national security experts was that it was working. Not to mention, the agreement was unanimously approved by the entire UN security council.

Objectively, Trump pulling out has increased the likelihood of war between the Shiite and Sunni states in the middle east. His recent actions, betraying the Kurds and striking IRAQI Hezzbollah forces in Iraq without a warning to the Iraqi government, make it more likely that Iran and Russia will become more influential in Iraq and the US less so.

The Obama/Kerry goal was to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but also to avoid the war that seemed imminent with Iran. In fact, Wendy Sherman spoke of how when the deal was made and the principals from the various countries spoke of what it meant to them, Kerry choked up as he spoke of how as a young man who experienced what war was, he had hoped if he ever had power, he could prevent a war.

Some on the right hated that deal because it made war less likely -- and they, having learned nothing from Iraq, thought regime change would be easy and make the world better for them.

[nolabear]

5. Yes he did. It's amazing. On the other hand

it’s going to force the others to foreground their foreign policy platforms, and I seriously want that.

[DCofVA]

6. Men have gotten us into this mess.

There is not one of them I trust to get us out. This is one of the many reasons why I support Elizabeth Warren. She will never turn the military into an extension of her ego.

[highplainsdem]

8. That's very sexist. And I say that as a woman who's been a feminist for 50 years.

[emmaverybo]

13. +1000

[BannonsLiver]

14. +1

It’s also myopic.

[Gothmog]

7. Joe Biden is a foreign policy wonk whose credentials sets him apart from the rest of the field

Link to tweet

[highplainsdem]

9. Exactly.

[karynnj]

12. The best answer for the others is that the Democrats have a deep bench of foreign policy experts and

diplomats. No one, not even Biden, would make all the decisions unilaterally.

Where Biden has an edge is that he knows all the foreign policy players and they know him very very well. I thing this means that they and he would have the courage and intellectual honesty to give him their best assessment of any situation and their view of the best path forward.

Anyone high in the NSC or State Department in the Obama years knows Biden. Many knew him well before he became VP because he spent over 30 years on the SFRC - and spoke to generations of top State Department people, ambassadors serving in troubled places, as well as academics and policy experts. All of saw how that background and his own diplomatic skills made John Kerry an exceptional Secretary of State. While diplomatic skills are less essential for the President, the knowledge and personal relationships are every bit as important.

It is true that Obama himself did not have that long relationship, but he had any number of unique personal qualities that made him succeed -- and he had many good people with strong foreign policy skills.

[Thekaspervote]

16. That maybe but it just isn't the same as having a POTUS who is a FP wonk himself

[karynnj]

17. I somewhat agree, but I don't think anyone would act on his own opinion/experience

I think it may be the most important skill for a President to be informed enough on issues to ask the right questions, listen to various opinions and then make decisions.

President Obama was a good President on foreign policy. Was that his innate judgment? His excellent national security team? His VP, picked both for his PA every man persona and his foreign policy expertise? On foreign policy, his second term was far more successful than his first. Compare the enormous amount of work that lifelong environmentalist Kerry did in preparation to the Paris COP and the completely disappointing Copenhagen one -- for which hopes were high after the Bali interim meeting. Was that due to a more experienced President or having an extraordinary leader (Kerry) working on this?

If the former, you are correct .. if the latter .. it suggests that it is more important that a President have the confidence to pick highly competent people and then give them latitude to create a path to getting the solutions needed. Obviously, the President will have the final say on any decision. Note - this also works in Biden's favor. He was there in the 8 Obama years and before that, as Senator, he was a committee chair for different committees over his years. Although different, some of those Senate skills of someone as senior as Biden are useful to a President - in team building as well as the more obvious being able to get his legislation passed.

[oasis]

10. America wants someone at the helm who knows what hell he's doing.

That would be Joe.

[Gothmog]

15. Nate-To a first approximation a greater focus on foreign policy is liable to help Biden.

Link to tweet