WASHINGTON – Earlier this week, Biden government officials perplexedly spread a few words of praise from an unexpected source: Jared Kushner.
In an opinion essay for The Wall Street Journal, Kushner, son-in-law of former President Donald Trump and adviser on Middle East issues, said that President Joe Biden “did the right thing” and “called Iran’s bluff” to the refuse to make new concessions to lure Iran into negotiations on the restoration of a nuclear deal abandoned by the Trump administration.
Kushner may have meant well, but his seal of approval has aggravated a problem for Biden by inflaming liberal allies already disappointed that his nuclear diplomacy with Iran has not progressed more quickly.
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“I would consider this at the Biden White House as a giant flashing red light that maybe what I’m doing isn’t right because Jared Kushner is finding ways to praise him,” said Benjamin Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to the former President Barack Obama, who worked closely on the 2015 nuclear deal, speaking on Wednesday on the podcast “Pod Save the World”.
Iran is just one of several foreign policy issues that frustrate Biden’s base after two months of his presidency. Although Biden delighted them with several quick actions – including the resumption of the Paris climate deal and the withdrawal of support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen – he unleashed frustration by ordering an air strike in Syria and refusing to punish the crown prince from Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, on the brutal murder of a dissident journalist and resident in the United States, Jamal Khashoggi.
On Wednesday, Biden fueled discontent by admitting in an interview with ABC News that it would be “difficult” to meet the May 1 deadline set by the Trump administration to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, a high priority for liberals impatient for the end what they call “endless” American wars.
And more conflict may arise over military spending, with Biden expected to propose few or no cuts to the Pentagon budget that has swelled under Trump. Fifty House Democrats sent a letter to Biden this week calling for a “significant” reduction.
After seeing Biden deliver a $ 1.9 trillion transformational stimulus project, progressives are wondering why his foreign policy looks so conventional. They fear that Biden and his largely centrist team of national security officials will disappoint the liberal wing’s wishes for a new US foreign policy that depends much less on military power, lessen tensions with rivals like Iran and China and puts more pressure – under threat of colder relations – over allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Biden government officials contest the criticism as unfair and premature.
A senior government official said the Trump era created an unreal appetite for instant action on complex issues and that the longer arc of Biden’s policies would satisfy many frustrated liberals. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss unofficial political considerations.
The official also pointed out several early Biden actions well received by the left, including a return to the climate agreement, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Human Rights Council. Biden also reversed visa restrictions widely known as Trump’s “Muslim ban”, announced the end of US support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen and placed new temporary limits on drone attacks outside combat zones.
Some prominent liberals consider these measures welcome, but also fruitful, and say that on issues that require tougher exchanges and political courage, Biden is very risk-averse. They fear that a 78-year-old president may remember too intensely the days when Republicans routinely enjoyed a political advantage in matters of national security and Democrats gravitated towards more conservative militaristic policies to defend their right flank.
“I think there is a lack of belief that the policy around some of these issues has really changed,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal defense group J Street, with a focus on Israel. “There is much more open political space for this government to pursue a progressive policy than they think.”
The Middle East, which Biden officials hope to shrink as they turn the United States’ attention to China, is the source of many complaints. At the top of the list is Biden’s decision not to unilaterally join the nuclear deal with Iran by reversing the harsh sanctions imposed on Iran by Trump after he abandoned the deal in 2018.
Iran says it will not speak, let alone reduce its advanced nuclear program and comply with the limits of the agreement, until Biden acts.
Supporters of the original agreement, including Obama administration officials who helped draft it, say that the passage of time only allows political opposition to grow at home and that events in the dangerous region trigger an escalation.
They also complain that Biden is maintaining the sanctions that Trump imposed on Iran when it came out of the nuclear deal, although Iran was in compliance at the time. Kushner referred to this with approval as a “strong hand” that Biden had inherited.
“The Biden government bought Trump’s analysis that these sanctions give the United States an advantage, even though the sanctions have not given Trump any influence over Iran,” said Joseph Cirincione, a longtime arms control expert who consulted with close Obama administration officials on the nuclear issue deal.
To further complicate the prospects for nuclear negotiations, Biden’s air strike on February 25 against Iranian-backed militia fighters in Syria took place, in retaliation for militia rocket attacks on US forces in neighboring Iraq. Although the attack was limited, it hindered nascent nuclear diplomacy and is at risk of escalation, Cirincione said.
The strike also angered liberals determined to end what they call America’s “endless” or “eternal” wars – their military and counterterrorism campaigns across the Middle East and parts of Africa that began after the 9/11 attacks. Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Said the strike “puts our country on the path to continuing the Eternal War instead of ending it”, and questioned its legal justification. (The White House says it supports Congressional action to repeal and replace Bush-era laws that provide presidents with broad authority to use force.)
To compound the frustration, there is a feeling among liberals that Biden’s national security team is filled with centrists who supported previous U.S. military interventions, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the president’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan .
Critics of Biden’s early Middle East policy focused on Brett McGurk, coordinator of the National Security Council for the region. McGurk entered the government as an adviser to the White House of former President George W. Bush, but remained during the presidencies of Obama and Trump. He has strong relationships with leaders in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – oil-rich countries labeled as repressive by human rights activists and which liberals consider to have an undesirable influence on US policy.
McGurk helped shape Biden’s decision, condemned by the left, not to directly punish Crown Prince Mohammed, even after the White House released an intelligence report that concluded that he, the de facto Saudi leader, approved the operation that led to the Khashoggi’s assassination in 2018 Many liberals have said that the moral imperative to stop Crown Prince Mohammed from future visits to the United States, at the very least, should overcome the well-known realpolitik of preserving relations with the Saudi kingdom.
Some were encouraged by the prospect that Sanders’ foreign policy advisor, Matthew Duss, another Middle East expert, would join the government. But, after working discussions with the State Department, Duss recently decided to remain on Sanders’ team, telling the publication Jewish Currents that it was “the best place to continue working to support a progressive agenda”.
Even before this disclosure, many liberals complained that “Biden’s foreign policy team does not include anyone who has been a clear and consistent opponent of our disastrous interventions around the world”, such as Katrina vanden Heuvel, former editor of the leftist magazine Nation , he wrote in a Washington Post opinion column.
And while Blinken and Sullivan meet Thursday and Friday with Chinese diplomats, some liberals are also irritated by the aggressive stance of the Biden team towards Beijing, once again warning that there are tones of confrontation influenced by Trump and noting that Chinese cooperation is essential to combat climate change. Among other things, Biden has not reversed the rigid tariffs that Trump has imposed on Chinese imports.
“I was extremely disappointed, though not shocked, that the Biden government leaned towards the confrontational stance defended by the foreign policy establishment,” said Kate Kizer, policy director for an anti-interventionist group, Win Without War. “More militarization and demonization is not the answer. Making deep investments in diplomacy and building resilience here at home is. “
Some Democrats are pushing for a major diplomatic infusion. On Tuesday, a group of Democratic members of the Senate and House asked for a $ 12 billion increase in the US international relations budget to finance diplomacy. And even more Democratic congressmen are calling for deep cuts in the Pentagon’s budget that grew 20% under Trump to $ 740 billion.
“We have so many domestic needs here at home,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif.
Lee is also among those who are tired of extended deadlines for withdrawals from Afghanistan, such as what Biden suggested on Wednesday.
“We have to bring our troops home,” she said, “and we have to do this quickly.”
This article was originally published in The New York Times.
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