Donald Trump and Kamala Harris not only proved last night that they have no fleshed out foreign policy visions of their own, but that they feel most comfortable pantomiming like they do, using bafflingly cartoonish language about each other, playing so fast and loose with history, facts, and figures so as to make the entire debate over what to do in Ukraine and Gaza absolutely incoherent.
So much for “America First.”
An “America First” answer to the question posed to Harris about what she would do about the more than 40,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza — which the moderator pointed out Harris was “concerned” about nine months ago — would be to say that continuing to fund it directly would ultimately hurt America, put our troops in the region at risk, and doom our integrity as nation of laws and a beacon of moral clarity forever. At the very least, she could point out that Benjamin Netanyahu is a bad faith actor who represents his people but not the American people, and we cannot aid or assist him if he continues to flout the Geneva Conventions in a desperate bid to stay in power. Full stop.
Instead she says:
“What we know is that this war must end it and immediately, and the way it will end is we need a ceasefire deal, and we need the hostages out, and so we will continue to work around the clock on that, also understanding that we must chart a course for a two-state solution, and in that solution, there must be security for the Israeli people and Israel, and an equal measure for the Palestinians. But the one thing I will assure you always, I will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular, as it relates to as it relates to Iran, and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.”
Trump for his part, decided to lay napalm down, but unlike the Trump of 2016 which emphasized that it was not in the best interest of the United States to be sucked into other countries’ wars and conflicts, that we should not be the world’s police, he chose to accuse Kamala of “hating Israel.” When asked how he would negotiate with Netanyahu and Hamas to get the hostages out and to stop civilian suffering — a layup question for the man who loves “to talk” really — he said this:
“(Harris) she hates Israel. She wouldn’t even meet with Netanyahu when he went to Congress to make a very important speech. She refused to be there because she was at a sorority party of hers. She went to go to the sorority party. She hates Israel. If she’s president, I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now, and I’ve been pretty good at predictions, and I hope I’m wrong about that one. She hates Israel at the same time, in her own way, she hates the Arab population because the whole place is going to get blown up, Arabs, Jewish people, Israel will be gone. It would have never happened. Iran was broke under Donald Trump.”
Onto Ukraine. Trump had one of his brighter moments in an otherwise dim evening of missed opportunities (like saying nothing when Harris boasted endorsements from Iraq War architect Dick Cheney and daughter Liz) when he said he wanted to end the war in Ukraine and would do so by bringing Ukrainian President Zelensky and Russian President Putin together in a room to resolve it in order to avoid more death and “World War III.” He then repeated unexplained assertions about “millions” dead (without clarifying who, by whom, or where) and ticked off a few points in his usual jag about NATO members not paying enough into the system.
But his grasp of why that war happened and how it would suddenly “end” began and ended with his concept that Biden was “weak,” and that Harris is “weak.” It was, frankly, weak.
Harris, for her part, acted as though it was still 2022 and would be forever as long as the U.S. kept funding the war. Again, no real explanation as to why this was in anyone’s best interest, even Ukraine’s, to continue on this course, other than, you know, Russian domination of the rest of Europe.
“If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now and understand what that would mean, because Putin’s agenda is not just about Ukraine. Understand why the European allies and our NATO allies are thankful that you are no longer president, and that we understand the importance of the greatest military alliance the world has ever known, which is NATO, and what we have done to preserve the ability of Zelensky and the Ukrainians to fight for their independence. Otherwise, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland.”
On Afghanistan, oh my. It was a good idea to get out, agreed by both. But why? Doesn’t matter. What matters is that according to Harris, Trump, “negotiated directly with a terrorist organization called the Taliban. The negotiation involved the Taliban getting 5000 terrorists, Taliban terrorists, released. And get this. No, get this. And the president at the time, invited the Taliban to Camp David, a place of storied significance for us as Americans, a place where we honor the importance of American diplomacy, where we invite and receive respected world leaders.”
She also pulled the “as of today, there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone,” which is a lie and everyone knows it. Just ask our troops getting droned in Iraq and Syria. And the U.S. Navy might have something to say about what they have been doing stationed in the Red Sea for the last 10 months.
Instead of owning that his negotiations helped to end one of the biggest U.S. foreign policy failures of the last century, Trump boasted that he threatened to blow up the Taliban leader’s house and that is how he got the Taliban to stop shooting our soldiers. He briefly mentioned the negotiations with the Taliban, and how it was right to get out of the war, but then went straight into blaming the Biden administration for the catastrophic withdrawal of August 2021. “And by the way, that’s why Russia attacked Ukraine, because they saw how incompetent she and her boss are.”
China, where’s China? The only mention of Asia in the debate last night was over Trump’s proposed new tariffs and Harris avoiding the question as to why Biden never lifted the ones he imposed during Trump’s presidency. Oh yeah, and Harris accusing Trump of saying nice things about Xi Jinping during COVID. The rest of the foreign policy discussion went like this:
Harris: “It is well known he exchanged love letters with Kim Jong Un and it is absolutely well known that these dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again because they’re so clear, they can manipulate you with flattery and favors, and that is why so many military leaders who you have worked with have told me you are a disgrace.”
Trump: “(Hungary’s president) Victor Orban said you need Trump back as president. They were afraid of him. China was afraid. And I don’t like to use the word afraid, but I’m just quoting him. North Korea was afraid of him. Look at what’s going on with North Korea. By the way, he said Russia was afraid of him. … He said the most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump. We had no problems when Trump was president.”
After this debate, the American voter, the American people, should be afraid. To be sure, they will be voting on a whole host of issues and opinions that likely have nothing to do with Gaza, Ukraine, NATO, or the whims of the world’s strongmen. But to call any of this “America first” is pure gaslighting. On foreign policy, we come in dead last.
Source: Responsible Statecraft
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