1/17/16 Democratic Presidential Debate
Quelling fears that he is not well-versed on the topic, Senator Bernie Sanders displayed a much-improved repertoire on foreign policy, arguably besting frontrunner former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at her own game. Although she did not fail to deliver her normal message of maintaining the status quo, Clinton did not excel.
Noting the success of the Obama administration in securing a nuclear weapon free Iran and the recent release of hostages held by the Islamic Republic, Sanders carefully agreed with the president, stating that “I want to see that relationship [between Iran and the United States] become more positive in the future.” Although Sanders does not believe that America should normalize relations and open an embassy in Iran tomorrow, he does believe that “the goal has got to be as we’ve done with Cuba, to move in warm relations with a very powerful and important country in this world.” On the subject of Iran, Clinton took a more cautious approach, taking partial credit for the nuclear deal yet expressing scepticism of Iran’s intentions, stating that “We’ve had one good day over 36 years and I think we need more good days before we move more rapidly toward any kind of normalization.”
Unable to shake the embarrassment that was her attempt to reset relations with Russia by presenting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a “reset button” in 2009, Secretary Clinton was asked by Lester Holt if she would present Putin with a similar reset button over the escalation of tensions between Russia and the United States over the two countries’ opposing allegiances in the Syrian Civil War and the War in Dombass. Although Clinton handled this question fairly well, stating that she made progress with Russia during her tenure as Secretary of State, she was unprepared to describe her personal relationship with Putin, awkwardly calling their relationship “interesting” before calling the Russian president a bully.
When asked if she would even consider deploying ground troops in Syria under any circumstances, Clinton astoundingly responded “Absolutely not.” Apparently trying to sound more dovish to Democratic primary voters, Clinton went even further than Sanders, who said he would “do everything in my power to avoid” the deployment of ground troops in Syria, but did not explicitly deny the possibility of such an action’s necessity. Should Clinton become president, it will be interesting to see if she will actually stick to this red line or if she will take a lesson from Obama’s playbook.
Although he had been happy to discuss Secretary Clinton’s Iraq War vote in previous debates, Sanders steered clear of the subject Sunday night, refusing to implicate Secretary Clinton and President Obama for creating the power vacuum that allowed the Islamic State to sweep over much of Syria and Iraq in 2013 and 2014. Instead, Sanders took the opportunity to place some blame on the region’s rich Arab nations, calling on countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar (which, as he pointed out, is the richest country in the world by capita) “to start putting in some skin in the game and not just ask the United States to do it.” Still, Sanders did have some praise for Jordan’s monarch over his country’s role in the fight against the Islamic State.
Sanders ended the discussion on foreign policy with a sentiment likely shared by only Senator Rand Paul in the field of 2016 presidential candidates, noting that the United States’ military budget is larger than that of the next eight largest militaries combined and is mostly composed of antiquated Cold War defenses not useful in modern warfare. While nearly every Republican and most Democrats in Washington support increasing the size and scope of the military’s power, Sanders seems to be open to cutting the military budget, a welcome alternative to a country waging a seemingly endless War on Terror.
Although Hillary Clinton entered the debate the frontrunner, Bernie Sanders – that old socialist nobody paid attention to – had her on her toes even when discussing her favorite topic: foreign policy. As the first debate of 2016 and the last before the critical Iowa caucuses, Sunday night’s debate in South Carolina was Clinton’s last chance to stem Sanders’ insurgent campaign as it ascends to possibly eclipse Clinton’s campaign in early voting states and even nationally. Nothing is certain, the planned coronation will be anything but, and a repeat of 2008 may be in store for the embattled Clinton campaign.