President Joe Biden‘s half-century of foreign policy experience was once considered a political strength, one of his 2020 campaign arguments against former President Donald Trump.
But four years later, and as the family and friends of the three Army reservists killed during an Iran-backed drone attack in Jordan near Syria grapple with their losses, Biden’s political strength could become a weakness before the 2024 election, and it is one Trump has already sought to leverage amid concerns the Israel–Hamas war will escalate into a wider conflict.
Biden’s foreign policy experience, built up during his membership and then his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was, in part, why former President Barack Obama, then a first-term senator, tapped Biden to be his vice president in 2008 — so Biden could counter Obama’s relative international inexperience.
However, although Biden’s administration was originally preoccupied with the COVID-19 pandemic, since his deadly withdrawal of personnel and equipment from Afghanistan, Biden’s presidency has become defined by his foreign policy regarding China, Russia, and now Iran. His includes liberal Democrats worried about Gaza’s humanitarian crisis and Democratic lawmakers expressing their lack of confidence in his congressional authority to respond to the Iran-sponsored attacks.
Biden’s “abandonment” of Afghanistan, against military advice, has been “a low point” of his administration, according to Elliott Abrams, a national security official for former Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump.
“But equally low has been three years of absorbing the attacks of Iranian proxy groups without ever forcing Iran to pay a price,” Abrams, a Council on Foreign Relations Middle East senior fellow, said of the 100-plus attacks. “That’s why the expansion of the Gaza war is a problem — because Iran, which is behind the expansion, has not at all been deterred and has been helping and urging its proxies to attack the U.S. and our allies in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Israel.”
“Now we see the results: the Hamas assault, the Houthis assault, and dead American service members,” he added, referring to the Iran-funded organizations.
Former Trump Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie was more personal in his criticism, criticizing the “caliber” of Biden’s national security team, from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after his undisclosed cancer diagnosis to “Ivy League faculty lounge denizens” like national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Wilkie also condemned Biden’s response to Yemen-based Houthi attacks on military and commercial vessels in the Red Sea, seemingly emboldened after the Oct. 7 attack.
“A foundational principle of American foreign policy going back to Thomas Jefferson has been freedom of the seas and the right of innocent passage,” Wilkie said. “Yet we’ve allowed Houthi brigands to put a clamp on the second busiest sea lanes in the world, and our Navy does nothing other than basic self-defense. The response should have been overwhelming and devastating [after] the first attacks that took place. And now, as we get farther and farther from the deaths of those soldiers, with each day that goes by, the value of deterrence weakens.”
Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior adviser Richard Goldberg, a fellow Trump national security alumni, agreed that the through-line of Biden’s foreign policy is the “appeasement of American enemies, combined with paralyzing fear of escalation.” Hudson Institute defense senior fellow Rebeccah Heinrichs similarly described Biden’s policy as one of “retrenchment, withdrawal, risk aversion, fear of escalation,” which she contended has contributed to more global instability.
“There are other examples — Venezuela comes to mind where Biden is now appeasing [President Nicolas] Maduro with oil sanctions relief and a pardon to … close Maduro [fixer Alex Saab],” Goldberg said. “The result? Venezuela might soon attack Guyana.”
“Who’s watching all of this and taking copious notes? [Chinese President] Xi Jinping,” he continued. “A confrontational approach with China became too much for Biden to bear last year, so he switched to accommodation instead. Does anyone in the [Chinese Community Party] believe the United States would really defend Taiwan at this point?”
Meanwhile, Brookings Institution foreign policy senior fellow and research director Michael O’Hanlon advocated that Biden exercise proportionality in his response to the Jordan attack, in addition to economic measures, because “as bad as things are now, they could certainly get a lot worse.”
“None of that is to say that Biden’s done great: The withdrawal from Afghanistan did send a signal of disinterest, and that was regrettable and, I think, unnecessary,” O’Hanlon said. “But when I look at all the evidence, I’d say that despite the mistake in Afghanistan, which did cause some problems overall, Biden sustained the essence of a bipartisan Middle East security posture, which is not all that satisfying and doesn’t really ever resolve problems, but it does tend to keep a lid on problems.”
Nevertheless, for Vandenberg Coalition Executive Director Carrie Filipetti, another Trump national security aide, even Biden’s foreign policy that has been “in the right direction,” such as for Ukraine, the president has not explained his “rationale” or provided military assistance that could quickly end the war.
“At the start of his term, Biden was desperate to ‘undo’ everything Trump had done — from Trump designating the Houthis a terrorist organization, to putting pressure on Iran, to ending funding for [United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees], to sanctions related to Nord Stream II, to creating border policies like Remain in Mexico and safe third [country] agreements — rather than considering which policies had actually worked,” Filipetti said. “It was about retaliating against the last administration, not helping shepherd America into the future.”
As Trump warns Republicans at his rallies that Biden could start World War III, Biden supporters, for example, former CIA and Pentagon chief of staff Jeremy Bash, have downplayed complaints about the president before November.
“While it’s early in the cycle and we know that voters are going to care about a lot of different issues at the ballot this November, what is very clear is President Biden has a strong, respected, and sensible foreign policy record to compare to Donald Trump who puts our standing on the world stage in jeopardy,” Bash said. “Trump has promised to pull out of NATO, regularly criticizes our allies, and while in office praised and befriended our adversaries.”
A source familiar with the Biden campaign’s strategy cited polling that underscores approval of the president’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war, particularly compared to what the source called Trump’s unpredictable and divisive foreign policy.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
White House national security spokesman John Kirby, too, stood by Biden as he received repeated questions about whether the president was taking into account politics concerning his response to the Jordan attack. Shortly afterward, the Defense Department released the identities of the soldiers killed at the outpost, the first to be lost in a post-Oct. 7 strike, with reports the drone was confused with a friendly counterpart.
“That’s the pressure he’s under, to make sure that those troops get the support that they need, get the resources they need, and that the mission is able to continue; and that our national security interests in the region, which are wide and varied, are preserved and protected,” Kirby said. “He’s not looking at political calculations or the polling or the electoral calendar as he works to protect our troops ashore and our ships at sea. And any suggestion to the contrary is offensive.”
