OPINION:
The following analysis is part of The Washington Times’ Voter Guide, which outlines the candidates’ positions on the most important policy topics.
Fans of the status quo will be comfortable with the foreign policy stance of the Democratic nominee. Vice President Kamala Harris has been in the room during every key decision made in the past 3½ years.
President Biden explains: “As vice president, there wasn’t a single thing that I did that she couldn’t do. And so I was able to delegate [to] her responsibility on everything from foreign policy to domestic policy.”
Thanks to the on-the-job training — and to her pledge to maintain the present course in international affairs — 350 foreign policy and national security experts have endorsed her bid for the top job. This includes several of the experts who signed a letter during the 2020 presidential campaign asserting that the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian fake.
The downside to this experience is the Biden-Harris administration’s foreign policy got off to a rocky start. The August 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan cost 13 American service members their lives and left for the Taliban a deadly arsenal of rifles, helicopters, artillery and bombs.
Once the White House was back in Democratic hands, Russia felt it had a free hand to grab more Ukrainian territory. That war has become a deadly stalemate, with casualties estimated at nearly 1 million.
The gurus behind the Biden-Harris administration’s international strategy believe prolonging a conflict that weakens Russia strengthens America. Accordingly, the administration has dissuaded attempts to negotiate peace, sending $175 billion in aid to keep the fighting going.
Ms. Harris wants to restore former President Barack Obama’s Iran deal, which Donald Trump rejected as president in 2018. Since the Biden-Harris administration took charge, it has placated Iran with eased enforcement of sanctions on oil sales and the unfreezing of more than $16 billion in Iranian assets.
Newly flush with cash, Iran rearmed its agents of chaos in the Gaza Strip, Yemen and Lebanon. Those militant forces were reinvigorated for the crisis that erupted when Hamas ventured into Israel in a murderous attack last year.
Israel’s deadly retribution has exposed a rift in the Democratic base. Those who support Israel’s right to self-defense no longer get along with the Muslim faction of the party appalled by what the administration has allowed. In trying to placate both sides, the policy of Ms. Harris appears confused, at times defending Israel, at others demanding a cease-fire.
When asked last week by Fox News host Bret Baier to clarify her stance, Ms. Harris said: “I was there, most recently in the Situation Room in the most recent attack, working with the heads of our military in doing what America must always do to defend and to support Israel in its requirement to defend itself and to give American support, to be able to allow Israel to have the resources to defend itself against attack.”
Mr. Trump worries the administration’s current course makes the world more dangerous. “We could end up in World War Three the way it’s going. Look at Russia with Ukraine — that’s a disaster. Look at the Middle East — it’s exploding all over the place.”
In a Fox News town hall, Mr. Trump set forth the vision he implemented as commander in chief: “I was bringing troops back home. I got out of Syria. I defeated ISIS. I started no new wars, as you know. In 79 years, this has not happened. … It’s got to be America first. We’re going to help people, but there’s no reason for us to have 60,000 soldiers in this country, 40,000 soldiers [in that country].”
Mr. Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” breaks from the foreign policy establishment by evaluating every decision by its impact on U.S. citizens, rather than what’s popular at cocktail parties in Davos.
In his 2016 presidential run, Mr. Trump outlined his intention to end the misguided overseas adventurism promoted by both Democratic and Republican leaders. “It all began with a dangerous idea that we could make Western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interests in becoming a Western democracy.”
As president, Mr. Trump projected strength and unpredictability on the global stage. He’d call dictators and make threats. Those strongmen — particularly the leaders of China, North Korea and Russia — wondered whether he really would launch nuclear weapons if they stepped out of line. So they didn’t.
Add to that the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab nations, and the world was a calmer place for four years.
It’s up to voters to choose between these distinct visions of America’s role on the world stage.
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