Anyone who is honest will concede that the Iraq War was one of the worse disasters ever undertaken by the USA since at least the Vietnam War debacle. And there were plenty of reasons to not believe the Bush/Cheney lies that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Cheney in particular was obsessed with going to war and ultimately through his Halliburton stock holdings made a fortune as Americans died and trillions of dollars were squandered. Yet, Joe Biden voted for war in Iraq, displaying an enormous error in judgment. Now, as Trump/Pence seem obsessed with repeating the Iraq disaster in Iran, Biden's error in his vote is coming back to haunt him. A piece in Vanity Fair looks at the possible reckoning facing Biden which suggests that experience that consists of bad decisions is not a plus on the campaign trail. Here are article highlights:
Sanders, who in 2002 was Vermont’s sole congressman, delivered an impassioned speech against authorizing Bush to use force against Saddam Hussein and then voted no. The ruinous Iraq war that followed—and in some ways continues to unfold—made a strong case that Sanders was right. In 2016, he used Hillary Clinton’s vote in favor of the Iraq war to help mount a surprisingly strong primary bid. Now the killing of Soleimani, and the prospect of widening military action against Iran, have given Sanders an opening, one month before the Iowa caucuses, to hammer at a pillar of Biden’s 2020 rationale: that the former vice president’s vaunted record of experience is in fact malarkey because Biden has too often made the wrong call on big issues.
“We’re in this moment on Iraq where that fundamental flaw—I don’t want to get too soft here—that fundamental error in judgment by Joe Biden and many other establishment politicians has continued to remind people of what a disastrous mistake that 2002 vote was,” Faiz Shakir, Sanders’s campaign manager, told me shortly after the Soleimani news broke. “Bernie Sanders has a proven record of fighting for the right thing at the right time—on the first instance, not on the second, third, fourth, or fifth try, as the case might be with Joe Biden. So yes, you’re going to hear a lot more about his Iraq vote from us.”
The debate around Trump needing authorization to conduct further tit-for-tat with Iran could become a fault line in the primary,” said Brian Fallon, who was a top strategist for Clinton in 2016. “On the left, even insisting on congressional authorization is going to be viewed as, It’s okay to go to war with Iran, you just want Trump to do it the right way. Similar to when people were pussyfooting around on impeachment. Anything less than full-throated opposition to escalation with Iran will be seen as going down the same path as in 2002, and mark you as being part of the Democratic old guard.”
Biden will be facing increasing criticism over his Iraq vote from his Democratic rivals, and not just Sanders. “He supported the worst foreign policy decision made by the United States in my lifetime, which was the decision to invade Iraq,” Pete Buttigieg told an Iowa television interviewer. Next week the South Bend mayor will have the chance to say that to Biden’s face, onstage in Des Moines during the final Democratic debate before the Iowa caucuses. If Sanders doesn’t beat him to the punch, that is.
“Bernie has raised his concerns with Biden’s vote for the Iraq war in at least three debates prior,” Shakir said, “as a matter of distinction between not only their records, but their judgment. It’s nice that people can calibrate and get things right over time. Even better is getting it right the first time.”
For months Biden has largely stayed above the Democratic fray, keeping his focus on Trump. With the Iowa endgame shaping up as a tight five-way scramble, Biden may no longer have the luxury of leaving the sharpest words to his surrogates.
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