Biden's Hawkish Record
When Barack Obama picked Joe Biden as his running mate, he drew sharp criticism from his anti-war base because of Biden's support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, his flagrantly false claims about the alleged Iraqi threat, and the abuse of his position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to suppress antiwar testimony before Congress prior to the invasion. (See my article Biden, Iraq, and Obama's Betrayal.)
A look at the senator's 35-year record on Capitol Hill indicates that Iraq was not an isolated case and that Biden has frequently allied with more hawkish Democrats and Republicans. This was considered particularly significant since Obama and other leading Democrats have acknowledged that the choice of Biden was largely because of his foreign policy leadership.
Thus far, however, it appears that Biden has largely played the role of a loyal vice-president, which is actually consistent with his history of not making waves against the prevailing viewpoint.
Though generally seen as being on the hawkish wing of the Democratic party, Biden never consistently allied with neoconservative intellectuals or the unreconstructed militarists who so heavily influenced the foreign policies of the Bush administration. Indeed, Biden often took some rather nuanced positions and, rather than being a right-wing ideologue, was generally recognized by his colleagues as being knowledgeable and thoughtful in addressing complex foreign policy issues, even if often taking more hard-line positions than the increasingly progressive base of his party.
For example, he called for diplomatic engagement with the Iranian government and -- unlike Hillary Clinton and some other Democratic senators -- voted against the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which was widely interpreted as potentially paving the way for war with Iran. Biden challenged the Republicans' unconstitutional insistence that the executive has the power to wage war without consent of Congress, even going so far as to threaten impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush if he attacked Iran without congressional authorization. He also raised strong objections to some of the Bush administration's efforts to develop new nuclear weapons systems and abrogate existing arms-control treaties. He helped lead the fight against Bush's nomination of the far-right John Bolton to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
During the 1980s, Biden opposed aid to the Nicaraguan Contras and vigorously challenged Reagan administration officials during the Iran-Contra hearings (in contrast to the tepid leadership of the special committee chairman, Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii.) He was also a cosponsor of a 1997 resolution that would have effectively banned the U.S. production and deployment of landmines, an initiative taken despite objections from the Clinton administration.
Yet Biden's progressive foreign policy positions have often been the exception rather than the norm. In fact, his positions have sometimes been so inconsistent as to defy clear explanation. For example, Biden voted against authorizing the 1991 Gulf War -- which the UN Security Council legitimized as an act of collective security against the illegal Iraqi conquest of Kuwait -- but then voted in favor of authorizing the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which the UN Security Council didn't approve, and was an illegitimate war of aggression.
Center-Right Agenda
On most foreign policy issues, Biden allied with congressional centrists and conservatives. For example, despite all the recent media attention given to Biden's working-class roots and his support for labor, and despite his more recent opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), Biden largely embraced corporate-backed neoliberal globalization, particularly during the 1990s. Biden voted to ratify the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), which have both proven so devastating for American workers and have so greatly contributed to increased inequality and environmental damage worldwide.
Despite Biden's support for the principle of "free trade," even with some governments that suppress labor rights, Biden supported tough economic sanctions against Cuba. He even opposed Obama's restrained proposals for loosening restrictions on the right of Americans to travel to that socialist country and the right of Cuban-Americans to provide remittances for family members still living there.
Biden aggressively pushed for NATO expansion eastward. He supported NATO membership for the former Soviet republic of Georgia, despite that government's attacks on South Ossetia and the risks that such a formal military alliance could drag U.S. forces into a war in the volatile Caucasus region. Biden correctly criticized Russia for its military incursion deep into Georgian territory and its disproportionate use of force. But in rhetoric reminiscent of the darkest days of the Cold War, he incorrectly assigned all the blame for last year's war on the Russians, failing even to mention the Georgian assault on the South Ossetian capital that provoked it. While condemning Moscow for its efforts "to subvert the territorial integrity" of Georgia, Biden seemed to have forgotten that he was a key cosponsor (along with Senators McCain and Lieberman) of a Senate resolution introduced in 2007 that called for active U.S. support for the independence of the autonomous Serbian region of Kosovo.
Biden was perhaps the Senate's most outspoken supporter of the 1999 U.S. war on Yugoslavia. He teamed up with McCain as one of the two principal sponsors of the resolution authorizing the 11-week bombing campaign of Serbia and Montenegro, which short-circuited efforts by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and pro-democracy Serbian groups to resolve the crisis nonviolently. Biden's efforts to use Serbian oppression of Kosovar Albanians as an excuse for advancing post-Cold War U.S. hegemony in Eastern Europe became apparent in his insistence that "if we do not achieve our goals in Kosovo, NATO is finished as an alliance."
In addition to stacking his Senate committee's hearings prior to the Iraq war vote with fabricators of WMD claims and supporters of a U.S. invasion, Biden often failed to use his platform to ask tough questions during confirmation hearings for many of the Bush administration's more controversial nominees. For example, during John Negroponte's three confirmation hearings Biden avoided any questions regarding the controversial official's alleged support for right-wing death squads while ambassador to Honduras during the 1980s.
As ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee during the 1990s, Biden teamed up with the right-wing Republican chairman Jesse Helms (R-NC) to try to squash efforts by Russell Feingold (D-WI) and other liberals to end U.S. military training of Indonesian counterinsurgency forces repressing occupied East Timor. Biden was among a minority of Democrats to support increasing military aid -- in the name of anti-narcotics efforts but in reality for counter-insurgency operations -- to Colombia's repressive government. He even voted against an amendment that would have transferred some of the money to support effective but underfunded drug treatment programs in the United States.
Biden also was among a minority of Senate Democrats to vote against a resolution that would have required the administration to certify, prior to selling or otherwise providing cluster bombs to a foreign government, that they would not be used in civilian areas.
Despite embracing much of the Bush administration's alarmist rhetoric about Iran's nuclear program, Biden's actual concerns regarding nonproliferation are rather suspect. For example, he voted against a number of proposed amendments that would have strengthened provisions of the nuclear cooperation agreement with India designed to insure that U.S. assistance would not help India's nuclear weapons program.
While opposing some Reagan-era weapons programs, such as the Pershing II missile, Biden supported full funding of the Trident D-5 Submarine Missile Program a full decade after the end of the Cold War for which it was designed. He has also voted against a series of amendments that would have redirected wasteful military spending to support domestic education programs and limited war profiteering by military contractors with links to the current administration. Biden has also been a strong advocate of increasing military spending even beyond the Bush administration's bloated levels.
Far Right Agenda on Israel/Palestine
In addition to Iraq (on which he was among the minority of congressional Democrats who voted to authorize the illegal invasion of that oil-rich country and supported continued unconditional war funding even after most Democrats had switched to an anti-war position), the foreign policy issue with which Biden has most closely aligned himself with right-wing Republicans is Israel. Long opposed to Palestine's right to exist as an independent country, he came around to supporting the idea of creating some kind of Palestinian state alongside Israel only after the Bush administration and the Israeli government went on record accepting the idea. Similarly, Biden has long insisted that it isn't the Israeli occupiers, but the Palestinians under occupation, who constitute the "one...side that can impact on ending [the conflict.]"
Biden has defended extra-judicial killings by Israeli forces in the occupied territories, Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank, Israel's annexation of greater East Jerusalem and other Arab territories seized by military force, and collective punishment against Palestinian civilians in retaliation for crimes committed by the radical Hamas movement.
When Bush goaded Israel into attacking Lebanon during the summer of 2006 -- blocking international efforts to impose a cease fire even as civilian casualties mounted into the hundreds -- Biden argued that the Bush administration didn't back Israel quickly or vehemently enough. As the outcry from human rights groups and UN agencies mounted over the widespread devastation inflicted on Lebanon's civilian infrastructure, Biden declared "we're left with no option here, in my view, but to support Israel in what is a totally legitimate self-defense effort."
Following the war, Biden blocked investigations into Israeli violations of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act despite a report provided to his Senate committee from the State Department indicating that there was considerable evidence of widespread use of U.S.-supplied cluster bombs against civilian targets. His refusal to allow for such congressional oversight does not give much hope that, now that he is in the executive branch himself, he is being much of an advocate for the Obama administration upholding its legal obligations either.
Obama has pledged to make facilitating an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement a priority as president, but -- as a senator -- Biden argued that the United States should not take any role in the peace process that isn't coordinated with the Israeli government. Indeed, Biden explicitly insists that that there should be "no daylight between us and Israel" and that "the idea of being an 'honest broker'... like some of my Democratic colleagues call for, is not the answer."
Unfortunately, there's little to suggest that any mediating party has ever successfully facilitated a peace settlement between two hostile nations without being an honest broker. Indeed, Biden strongly objected to findings by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and widely supported by the majority of the foreign policy establishment. The Group's report emphasized the importance of the United States pressing for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement in order to restore its credibility in the greater Middle East.
Democrats Unify Around Biden
Even the party's left wing largely refused to support proposals challenging the Biden nomination from the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Prominent Democratic antiwar stalwarts such as Rep. Lynne Woolsey (D-CA) and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) -- in the name of "party unity" -- rejected calls by some delegates for a roll-call vote in which Biden would be pitted against an antiwar challenger for the vice-presidential nomination
The residual grumblings from antiwar Democrats, and threats to defect to the campaigns of Green Party nominee Cynthia McKinney or independent Ralph Nader in response to the Biden nomination largely evaporated, however, when Republican nominee John McCain announced his choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Despite Biden's history of notoriously poor judgment on some foreign policy issues, the veteran senator's knowledge and experience began to look increasingly important compared with his strikingly inexperienced, unknowledgeable, and extremely right-wing Republican counterpart.
For example, in one of the few public statements Palin had made on the Iraq war, she insisted that the invasion was part of "God's plan" and that prosecuting the war is "a task that is from God." In contrast, the Roman Catholic church (of which Biden is a member) and virtually every mainline Protestant denomination came out in opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Only the right-wing fundamentalist denominations went on record supporting it. While Biden's support for the 2002 Iraq war resolution did put him on the side of right-wing Christian fundamentalists on the critical question of what constitutes a just war, he has never claimed the invasion of that oil-rich country was part of God's plan.
Similarly, while Biden's hard-line views regarding Israel also put him at odds with the moderate positions taken by the Catholic Church and the mainline Protestant denominations, Palin goes so far as to embrace the dispensationalist wing of Christian Zionism. As such, she believes that a militarily dominant Israel is a necessary requisite for the second coming of Christ and the Israeli government should therefore not be pressed to withdraw from any occupied Arab lands.
Biden as Vice-President
Biden has demonstrated a greater-than-average willingness to shift to more moderate positions if the prevailing pressure is from the left. His growing skepticism over Bush policy in Iraq, his calls for the withdrawal of most American combat forces, his outspoken opposition to the surge when it was put forward last year, and his tough questioning of General David Petraeus in hearings before his committee has undoubtedly been a reflection of the growing antiwar sentiment within the Democratic Party.
When Biden first ran for the Senate in 1972, he was willing to represent the prevailing mood at the time in strongly denouncing the Vietnam War, calling for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces, and voting against aiding the dictatorial South Vietnamese government of Nguyen Van Thieu. The following decade, his initial support for U.S. backing of the repressive junta in El Salvador was reversed in the face of growing opposition to U.S. intervention in Central America. While not among the first to endorse the proposed freeze on the research, testing, development and deployment of new nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons systems, he did throw his weight behind the initiative as the nuclear freeze campaign grew in popular support.
As a result, continued advocacy by peace and human rights activists for a more enlightened foreign policy can likely minimize the damage that Biden might otherwise have on the Obama administration's foreign policy.
In addition, Obama may have selected the hawkish Biden as his running mate primarily as a political maneuver to enhance his chances of winning the November election rather than having him play a leading role on his foreign policy team.
Like Dick Cheney, Biden pushed for an invasion of a country on the far side of the world that was no threat to us, misled the public regarding nonexistent "weapons of mass destruction," and sought to silence critics of the war. However, even assuming the worst regarding Biden's hawkish worldview, he clearly is not using his office in the same manner. Though he has brought into the Obama administration a certain gravitas on foreign affairs as a result of his knowledge and experience, the fact remains that Biden -- unlike his predecessor -- is serving a president who is quite intelligent and who is quite capable of making his own decisions on the critical foreign policy issues facing the United States.
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*sets down cup of coffee and smiles*
LizM, I just read a very informative and well-researched piece, by your hand.
Thank you for the valuable time and obvious intellectual view and use of facts in presenting this vast information on VP Biden.
As a long-time admirerer of Joe Biden and his wealth of accomplishments, I admit I'm, well, I'm wowed ;-) Thank you.
Hey, PC! Thanks for the kind words. I was actually hoping to spark a little bit of a debate but, what are ya gonna do. :(
The Credibility Factor
Finally, when it comes to the possession of impeccable and unimpeachable foreign policy and national security credentials and sound foreign policy judgement and having the capacity for sharing wise and authoritative advice with the President they serve, Joe Biden and Dick Cheney occupy positions at opposite ends of the spectrum. In fact, they may as well live in parallel universes for the amount of daylight that exists between their respective world views - and that goes, most especially, for US policy in Iraq.
Anyone who would suggest otherwise risks serious damage to their own credibility, on any given issue, in my not so humble opinion.
C’est tout! And, thanks again for writing about all of this...in some length, no less!
War Crimes and NATO Enlargement
It is true that Senator Biden was indeed the strongest advocate for military action in the Balkans. It was Biden who was instrumental in persuading President Clinton to act, along with NATO, to stop a genocide and put an end to the war crimes of the Serbian leader, Milosovic. How many more tens of thousands of lives would have been lost while the OSCE tried to resolve this “crisis” non-violently? Surely the antiwar crowd were strong in their support for what Biden helped to accomplish in bringing a war criminal to justice.
And, I hope you are not attempting to suggest that supporting the declaration of independence by Kosovo and the condemnation of Moscow for attempting to subvert the territorial integrity of Georgia are contradictory. The fact of the matter is that the two issues are not comparable in the way that you imply.
As for NATO enlargement and the survival of that alliance...it’s not too difficult to understand how critical this alliance is to the security of Europe which, in turn, is most definitely in the interests of the national security of the United States.
Hidden Behind a Voting Record
The problem, as I see it, with your analysis of Senator Biden’s voting record is the cherry-picking nature of the votes and the lack of any depth of reporting as to why Biden voted the way he did. We all know that these kinds of votes are most often very complicated in nature and encompass a number of different issues. So, if we are going to discuss specific votes, then we had better be prepared to parse them in detail to determine what those votes really reveal about a Senator’s stance on any given issue. Otherwise, we may as well leave the voting record out of the discussion, altogether.
The problem, as I see it, with your analysis of Senator Biden’s voting record is the cherry-picking nature of the votes and the lack of any depth of reporting as to why Biden voted the way he did.
We all know that these kinds of votes are most often very complicated in nature and encompass a number of different issues. So, if we are going to discuss specific votes, then we had better be prepared to parse them in detail to determine what those votes really reveal about a Senator’s stance on any given issue. Otherwise, we may as well leave the voting record out of the discussion, altogether.
Iraq Supplementals, the ISG and Shifting Positions (in three parts...again)
Senator Biden supported the supplemental requests for funding for the Iraq war for one reason and one reason only - because he wasn’t prepared to sacrifice the life of one single, solitary troop who had been placed in harms way just to score a political point against the Bush administration. And, make no mistake, political points are exactly what a vote against funding meant, in the grand scheme of things.
In fact, it was Senator Biden who spearheaded the fight to make sure that there were billions of dollars in those supplementals to make sure the troops had everything they needed to stay alive, including the MRAP vehicles that literally were responsible for saving the lives and limbs of countless troops who faced daily threats of IED attacks. Biden also understood that there was no way on God’s green earth to end the war in Iraq by withholding supplemental funding. To believe otherwise not only demonstrates a dangerous naivete but, more importantly, represents a critical waste of time and effort in the struggle to end this war.
Senator Biden did strongly object to the basic premise of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) but it had nothing whatsoever to do with their emphasis on “the importance of the United States pressing for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement in order to restore its credibility in the greater Middle East”, as you imply.
In fact, Senator Biden was in agreement with many of the recommendations of the ISG. However, these recommendations were based on a fundamentally flawed premise that Iraq could be governed, at this point in its history, by a strong central government. Senator Biden understood what the ISG, the Bush administration and Senators Obama and Clinton failed to understand - that there was no reasonable prospect that a strong central government could emerge in Iraq, in the short to medium term, that would have the capacity or inclination to provide security and services to all Iraqis, throughout the country. Fortunately, Vice President Biden is now in a position to promote a sustainable political settlement in Iraq based on federalism that will allow for the responsible withdrawal of US troops without leaving a failed and fragmented state in their wake. While there remain some who still cling to failed policies, there is a certain inevitability, if not a present ground-based reality, to the Biden strategy for US policy in Iraq.
I must give you credit for your subtle and almost benign references to Biden’s apparent tendency toward shifting his views and positions given the appropriate applied pressure - very nice, I must admit...but, alas, utterly misplaced. For example, you will recall that Senator Biden’s growing opposition to the Bush administration’s Iraq policy began shortly after major combat operations ended...ahem...around the summer of 2003. Less than two years later, he had developed and begun to fine tune a viable and comprehensive strategy to end the war in Iraq.
To this day, the Biden strategy is the only political solution on the table and it has received widespread support from all corners. It has always been an incredible disappointment to me that the antiwar crowd has never understood how to go about ending a war and how they have failed miserably to appreciate the strong advocate they had in Senator Biden. Perhaps they have shifted their positions or will when they understand what will be required to end the war in Iraq.
Biden on Iraq and Stephen’s Ritter Obsession (in three parts...sorry)
The characterization of Senator Biden, during the latter half of 2002, as “perhaps the single most important congressional backer of the Bush administration’s decision to invade [Iraq]” provides a wholly inaccurate portrayal of Biden’s position on Iraq. This description also confuses the debate surrounding the October 2002 resolution authorizing the use of US military force (AUMF) and the context within which the vote on that resolution took place. In other words, to suggest that a vote for this resolution was the equivalent of a ‘vote for war’ betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the intent behind that resolution.
As Senator Biden correctly understood at the time, the real debate on the AUMF resolution focused on strengthening the unity and will of the international community to keep weapons inspectors in Iraq, secure the sanctions in place on Iraq, and to force compliance of Iraq with various UN Security Council resolutions.
It can be argued that Senator Biden was among the few in Congress who demonstrated a profound understanding and very sound judgement on all of the issues related to the AUMF resolution and that he, had he been president, would have used this important authorization as it was intended - to avoid war, not rush into it. In fact, Senator Biden, along with Senator Lugar, had drafted another resolution which was far more restrictive on the President’s use of that authority but was sabotaged, in effect, by a backroom deal between the White House and Dick Gephardt. I’d like to see a blogger around here write about that!
Furthermore, it was none other than Senator Biden who, along with his colleague Senator Hagel, was warning that war with Iraq would not come without serious negative consequences and that no foreign policy can be long sustained, no matter how warranted, without the informed consent of the American people.
Senator Biden, unlike others, was not buying the Bush administration line about Iraq being an imminent threat to US national security or about Iraq’s nuclear weapons capability. In fact, while Vice President Cheney was publically claiming that Saddam had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program, Biden was simultaneously and strongly refuting that claim, saying that the Vice President was either deliberately misleading the American people or that he misunderstood the intelligence reports he was given. However, Senator Biden was certainly correct to say that Saddam represented both a short and a long-term threat to the national security of the United States. And, I would really like to engage anyone who would disagree with that assessment.
A careful examination of the hearings on Iraq by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, under the chairmanship of Senator Biden, before the October 2002 vote on the AUMF resolution will clearly demonstrate Biden’s superior judgement with respect to US Iraq policy and all related issues. I find the suggestion that because Scott Ritter was not called to testify meant that the committee was not bery well informed about the state of Iraq’s biological and chemical weapons programs and ambitions. Ritter may accuse Senator Biden of favoring regime change or anything else but, that doesn’t make the charge true or even remotely attached to reality.
It seems that I’m going to have to do this in several multiple-part segments. Would you expect anything less from a Biden fan!?
First off, I find it fascinating that there can be such divergent perceptions of Vice President Biden’s world view and of his foreign policy principles. Although, it is hardly surprising that such disparities can exist when we are talking about extremely complicated and interconnected issues dealing with war and peace.
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There is nothing wrong with being a ‘hawk’, per se. If we must use labels, what do you say we use ‘progressive hawk’ to describe Vice President Biden? Actually, come to think of it, I don’t like either label. What about ‘enlightened pragmatist’? That’ll do.
My point is simply that how you see and understand Biden’s world view goes a long way toward how you perceive his overall performance during senate committee hearings or the motivations behind any one of his foreign policy related votes. Clearly, two people with different interpretations of how Joe Biden sees the world can reach diametrically opposite conclusions based on his voting record and on his committee hearing statements and interactions with witnesses, especially when both are taken completely out of context.
Two classic cases on point are Biden’s statements during the Senate debate on the October 2002 resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq (more about that later) and the Senate hearing in 1998 looking into the UNSCOM mission to disarm Saddam following the first Gulf war in 1991. The interplay between then Senator Biden and head UN weapons inspector, Major Scott Ritter, during that hearing in 1998 must have left a lasting impression on Ritter and appears to be responsible for his decidedly warped perception of Biden’s stance on Iraq.
I assume that if Biden assumed Sarah Palin's view of Israel/Palestine, the Catholic Church would excommunicate him.
Well, don’t go falling off your chair or anything but, I wish to thank you for a relatively comprehensive look at Vice President Biden’s record on foreign policy. Of course, I do not agree with the totality of your analysis and there are numerous assertions throughout your essay that demand rebuttal - which I will sort out when I have more time...you may consider yourself forewarned! :-)
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Hi Liz!
Well, I for one am grabbing popcorn ;-)
Hey PC!
You might want to make sure that you have a few stiff drinks on hand, too! And, do join in on the fun. :-)
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