https://truthout.org/…/bernie-sanders-touts-antiwar-record-…
News Analysis
War & Peace
News Analysis
War & Peace
Bernie Sanders Touts Antiwar Record as Trump Barrels Toward War With Iran
by Mike Ludwig
January 4, 2020
Truthout
January 4, 2020
Truthout
PHOTO: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at
a town hall at the National Motorcycle Museum on January 3, 2020, in
Anamosa, Iowa. Stephen Maturen / Getty Images
As Democratic presidential hopefuls scrambled to respond after
President Trump ordered the assassination on Thursday of a top Iranian
military commander, Sen. Bernie Sanders touted his antiwar voting record
on the campaign trail and laid out a vague but bold vision for removing
U.S. troops from the Middle East while redirecting overseas military
spending to programs that improve life for people back home.
The
United States and Iran appear to be at the brink of war, or at least a
proxy war, which could sow bloody chaos in Iraq and further conflict in
the region. After supporters of an Iran-backed Shia militia besieged the
U.S. embassy in Baghdad this week in protest of deadly U.S. airstrikes
against the group, Trump ordered a drone strike near Baghdad on Thursday
that killed up to 10 people and assassinated Maj. Gen. Qassim
Suleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds
Force and one of the most powerful men in Iran. Iran has vowed to seek
“severe revenge.”
The strike has raised fears of war across the
globe and divided lawmakers largely along party lines. Republicans
generally applauded the killing of a commander accused of targeting U.S.
forces during the Iraq war while leading Democrats characterized the
move as a dangerous escalation made without approval from Congress.
While presidential contenders Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden and Elizabeth
Warren referred to Suleimani as an enemy of the U.S., they questioned
whether Trump had considered the consequences of the strike and the
president’s long-term plan for dealing with Iran.
“Now we must
deal with the consequences of this action, beginning with the immediate
and very real dangers to American citizens in and out of uniform in the
Middle East,” said Buttigieg, a former military intelligence officer, in
said in a statement. “We must prepare for the impact on regional
stability, complex forms of retaliation, and the potential for
escalation into war.”
However, the airstrike also exposed
divisions among Democrats, whose progressive wing in the House rose in
protest just three weeks ago when language that would have prevented
Trump from attacking Iran without congressional approval was dropped
from a massive, $738 billion military spending authorization package.
Republicans were able to win major concessions on the package due to
their majority in the Senate, and most House Democrats voted for the
package as a year-end deadline loomed.
Sen. Sanders voted against
the package, as he has several times in the past. Sen. Elizabeth
Warren, who is jockeying with Sanders for support from progressive
voters in the Democratic presidential primaries, came out later against
the military spending legislation.
Speaking at a town hall in
Iowa on Friday, Sanders reminded voters that he voted against going to
war with Iraq in 2002. At the time, he warned that the war would become a
bloody and expensive quagmire that would further destabilize the Middle
East. Unfortunately, his prediction turned out to be true. Today, Iraq
suffers from rampant corruption, unrest, poverty and Iranian
interference that spurred riotous protests in recent weeks. War, Sanders
said, must be “our last recourse in international relations.”
“All of that suffering, all of that death, all of those huge expenditure
of money for what?” Sanders said. “It gives me no pleasure to tell you,
that at this moment, we face a similar crossroads fraught with danger.
Once again, we must worry about unintended consequences and the impact
of unilateral decision making.”
Sanders also laid out a vision
for U.S. foreign policy centered around peace and diplomacy, in stark
contrast to nearly two decades of military adventurism and endless
conflict in the Middle East sparked by the War on Terror under the Bush
administration and expanded under the Obama administration. In a world
where authoritarianism is rising and nuclear weapons continue to
proliferate, Sanders said the U.S. must chart a very different course.
“I believe, in the midst of all that, the role of the United States, as
difficult though it may be, must be to work with the international
community to end conflicts, to end the threat of war, not to promote
war, as President Trump is doing,” Sanders said. “This is how the true
power of the United States is shown, and that is how I will use American
power as president.”
Responses from rival Democratic candidates
were more tempered, reflecting a shrewd political calculation of how
centrist voters will respond to news that Trump killed a commander
portrayed as the violent mastermind behind Iran’s “expansionist agenda.”
Robert C. O’Brien, Trump’s national security adviser, said on Friday
that Suleimani was plotting attacks against U.S. service members in Iraq
but would not provide any further details about the alleged plans when
pressed by reporters.
While Sanders focused on his vote against
the Iraq war, Warren called Suleimani a “murderer” responsible for
thousands of deaths, including U.S. casualties. However, Warren also
called the assassination a “reckless” act that could lead to greater
violence, arguing that avoiding another costly war should be the top
priority. Sen. Cory Booker, another presidential hopeful, said Trump has
“no strategic plan for Iran and has only made the region less stable.”
Biden voted for the 2002 invasion of Iraq and served as vice president
in the Obama administration, which signed off on deadly drone strikes,
supported the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, intervened
in the Syrian civil war and launched the war against ISIS. Biden claimed
Suleimani “supported terror and sowed chaos” and “deserved to be
brought to justice for his crimes.” But he also said Trump “just tossed a
stick of dynamite into a tinderbox.”
“I hope the administration
has thought through the second- and third-order consequences of the path
they have chosen,” Biden said in a statement. “But I fear this
administration has not demonstrated at any turn the discipline or
long-term vision necessary — and the stakes could not be higher.”
Democrats are largely united in their criticism of Trump’s “maximum
pressure” campaign against Iran. Since taking office, Trump has pulled
out of the Iranian nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration
that would have placed strict limits on the country’s nuclear weapons
program. The Trump administration has withdrawn from the agreement,
slammed Iran with devastating economic sanctions that harm the Iranian
population and designated the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group.
As Trump has taunted Iranian leaders on Twitter, a series of
tit-for-tat strikes and escalations has taken police, often involving
various proxies throughout the region. Earlier this week, the U.S.
launched deadly airstrikes against a militia with ties to Iran in Iraq
and Syria after accusing the group of rocket attacks against U.S. and
coalition forces, including one that killed an American security
contractor last week. Supporters of the Shia militia in Iraq responded
by besieging the U.S. embassy, and the latest U.S. drone strike killed
the militia’s commander along with Suleimani.
The Constitution
gives Congress — not the president — the ability to declare war, and the
Trump administration has not yet revealed its legal justification for
the assassination of a foreign military commander, which Iran clearly
views as an act of war. O’Brien said the attack on Suleimani was
consistent with the 2002 Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF)
that allowed President Bush to invade Iraq int the first place —
legislation Biden infamously supported. Observers expect the
administration to use a controversial interpretation of the AUMF to
justify the assassination to Congress.
Language that would have
repealed the 2002 AUMF and required Trump to get permission from
Congress before attacking Iran were among the progressive provisions
stripped from the military spending authorization bill passed by
Congress last month. Democrats used their majority in the House to put
these provisions on the table, only to have them dropped after
negotiations with the GOP-controlled Senate. A bloc of 41 progressive
Democrats and a handful of isolationist Republicans in the House voted
against the package in protest.
Biden, Warren, Buttigieg and
other Democrats are attempting to draw a contrast between themselves and
Trump’s blundering, shoot-from-the-hip approach to foreign policy as
the conflict with Iran looms over the 2020 elections. But their
statements on the assassination of Suleimani and the very real threat of
war with Iran were eerily similar.
Sanders was an original
opponent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and has spoken for decades against
massive military budgets, and he recently championed an effort in
Congress to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in
Yemen’s brutal civil war. As the conflict with Iran continues, expect to
hear him tout this record on the campaign trail. (It should be noted
that Sanders has also been criticized by antiwar activists for
supporting President Clinton’s intervention in the 1999 war in Kosovo
and other U.S. overseas operations.)
Sanders is betting that
voters want the violence to end and for their tax dollars funding
overseas military operations to be spent on rebuilding infrastructure,
fixing the health care system and addressing climate change.
“We must invest in the needs of the American people, not spend trillions more on endless wars,” Sander said.
He is also betting that voters want to see a brand of foreign
policymaking that is different than the status-quo, which only the
progressive wing of the Democratic party has consistently challenged.
“We must end our involvement in the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen,
which is now one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes on Earth,”
Sanders said on Friday. “And we must bring our troops home from
Afghanistan. Instead of provoking more volatility in the region, the
United States must use its power, its wealth, and its influence to bring
the regional powers to the table to resolve conflicts.”
Sanders
did not elaborate on how exactly he would end U.S. military options in
the Middle East, though it is clear he favors diplomacy where Trump
favors aggression when it comes to Iran — and he is prepared to use his
record to set himself apart from Biden and rival Democrats.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mike Ludwig is a staff reporter at Truthout and a contributor to the
Truthout anthology, Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? In 2014 and
2017, Project Censored featured Ludwig’s reporting on its annual list of
the top 25 independent news stories that the corporate media ignored.
Follow him on Twitter: @ludwig_mike.
