Justin Logan criticizes Harris’ silly threat inflation regarding Iran:
The best defense that can be mounted of Vice President Harris in this context is that she seemed to be groping around for an answer with the least political downside and the least offense to the foreign policy Blob, and she probably found it. The problem is that she is wrong on the substance. Should her extemporaneous remark influence her policy, it could push the United States further down the road to ruin in the Middle East.
Harris’ answer on 60 Minutes was a bad one, and Logan is right that it is absurd for her to say that Iran is America’s “greatest adversary.” I discussed that in one of my columns last week. My concern is that it wasn’t just an extemporaneous remark or a politically safe pandering response. It was another example of the very hawkish position that she has been taking on Iran since she became the Democratic presidential nominee. For whatever reason, Harris has been determined to paint Trump as too soft on Iran. Given how reckless and confrontational Trump’s Iran policy was, this has alarming implications for what her Iran policy might look like.
She made a point of threatening Iran and its allies during her convention speech that was otherwise very light on foreign policy. She said, “I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists.” She has repeated that line many times since then. She followed that up by bashing Trump being too passive in response to Iranian actions. The Democratic Party platform attacked Trump for “fecklessness and weakness in the face of Iranian aggression,” and it specifically faulted him for not using force in response to the downing of a U.S. drone in 2019 and the attack on Saudi oil facilities. Harris picked up that message and ran with it.
Harris recently criticized him again for not responding to the missile barrage that Iran launched after Trump ordered Soleimani’s assassination: “When Donald Trump was president, he let Iran off the hook after Iran and its proxies attacked US bases and American troops.” Trump brought the U.S. and Iran closer to war than any other president in decades, but according to Harris’ campaign rhetoric she thinks he wasn’t hardline and aggressive enough. This is an exceptionally odd attack for Harris to make when she was one of the senators who voted for a resolution in 2020 opposing the use of force against Iran without Congressional authorization.
Read the rest of the article at Eunomia
Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.
She's a neocon who "feels sympathy " for Palestinian suffering. Her career was built on saying the right platitudes , and her approach to the Gaza war reflects that. I believe she is sincere in her sympathy. But she will not DO anything about it and will gladly work with war hawks.
"I believe she is sincere in her sympathy." Why?
Yes I didn't get that memo either. I didn't manage to discover anything sincere about this woman. There is nothing that I am able to discern that distinguishes her from the festering pool of slime and pus surrounding her.
I meant it in contrast to Biden who I do believe is actually racist ( as in he does not care about non-white people , consciously or subconsciously ). I think she views Palestinians and Israelis in similar terms of humanity. But she will do whatever to get elected and is not principled in that sense at all.
Thanks for clarifying. I wish I could agree. Having brown skin, IMHO, doesn’t by a long shot guarantee you are not a white supremacist.
Which is why Norman Finkelstein described Harris as an "empty vessel". Her advisors and her husband tell her what to do and say.
NO original thoughts there.
Harris is bearish.
I'm not surprised Harris and Biden are such war hawks. I just did not think they'd become even more hawkish than George W Bush and Tony Blair. If there is a war with Iran, they, Trump and Netanyahu will figure out why George W Bush and Tony Blair avoided war with Iran.
For heaven sake, her husband is Doug Emhoff. Of course she is going to have "sympathy" for the Palestinians, while blabbing that Israel needs to "defend itself" by killing nearly every living Palestinian in Gaza and the West Bank.
F*ck her and the horse she rode in on.
It's not 'bizarre' at all- money talks and Tel Aviv has plenty of it.