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Joe Lieberman Sad Democrats Aren't Supporting Trump's Iran War
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/joe-lieberman-democrats-support-trump-iran-war.html
President Trump’s sudden, massive escalation of the military conflict with Iran has freaked out large segments of the national-security Establishment. But one person who is not worried at all is Joe Lieberman, once the Democrats’ vice-presidential candidate, currently a lobbyist for a Chinese telecommunications firm, and, as always, deeply concerned that “his” party is failing to line up behind the right wing of the Republican Party on a high-risk foreign-policy venture.
Lieberman’s argument, laid out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed today, will only come as a surprise to those laboring under the impression that his “thoughtful” manner implies actual thought. He begins by fretting that the parties disagree on Trump’s Iran strategy. “It’s understandable that the political class should have questions about it,” he concedes, “But it isn’t understandable that all the questions are being raised by Democrats and all the praise is coming from Republicans.”
In fact, it’s hardly true that “all the questions” about Trump’s policy are coming from Democrats — many members of Trump’s own administration have registered their intense dismay in the media at his policy, which has likely only gone through because Republican officials like James Mattis are no longer around to block it. Even if it was true, though, Lieberman doesn’t hold both parties equally responsible for disagreeing with each other. Instead, he proceeds immediately to blaming Democrats for failing to agree with Republicans:
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President Trump’s sudden, massive escalation of the military conflict with Iran has freaked out large segments of the national-security Establishment. But one person who is not worried at all is Joe Lieberman, once the Democrats’ vice-presidential candidate, currently a lobbyist for a Chinese telecommunications firm, and, as always, deeply concerned that “his” party is failing to line up behind the right wing of the Republican Party on a high-risk foreign-policy venture.
Lieberman’s argument, laid out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed today, will only come as a surprise to those laboring under the impression that his “thoughtful” manner implies actual thought. He begins by fretting that the parties disagree on Trump’s Iran strategy. “It’s understandable that the political class should have questions about it,” he concedes, “But it isn’t understandable that all the questions are being raised by Democrats and all the praise is coming from Republicans.”
In fact, it’s hardly true that “all the questions” about Trump’s policy are coming from Democrats — many members of Trump’s own administration have registered their intense dismay in the media at his policy, which has likely only gone through because Republican officials like James Mattis are no longer around to block it. Even if it was true, though, Lieberman doesn’t hold both parties equally responsible for disagreeing with each other. Instead, he proceeds immediately to blaming Democrats for failing to agree with Republicans:
After World War II, Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, a Michigan Republican who was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, formed a bipartisan partnership with President Truman that helped secure the postwar peace and greatly strengthened America’s position in the Cold War. “Politics stops at the water’s edge,” said Vandenberg when asked why he worked so closely with a Democratic president. He added that his fellow Americans undoubtedly had “earnest, honest, even vehement” differences of opinion on foreign policy, but if “we can keep partisan politics out of foreign affairs, it is entirely obvious that we shall speak with infinitely greater authority abroad.”
In their uniformly skeptical or negative reactions to Soleimani’s death, Democrats are falling well below Vandenberg’s standard and, I fear, creating the risk that the U.S. will be seen as acting and speaking with less authority abroad at this important time.
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32 replies
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Pushing for regime change?
