{"id":20672,"date":"2020-01-14T10:00:12","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T10:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2020\/01\/14\/national-security-has-barely-made-the-debate-stage-here-comes-the-iran-crisis\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:52:09","slug":"national-security-has-barely-made-the-debate-stage-here-comes-the-iran-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/congress\/2020\/01\/14\/national-security-has-barely-made-the-debate-stage-here-comes-the-iran-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"National security has barely made the debate stage. Here comes the Iran crisis."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 For months, national security has barely registered<\/a> on the Democratic debate stage. But that\u2019s about to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S.-Iran crisis has thrust foreign policy and national security \u2014 rarely decisive factors in elections \u2014 into the spotlight. Since President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike against Iranian military official Qassem Soleimani (without consultation from lawmakers)<\/a>, the candidates have blamed Trump for the ensuing crisis, and the entire field has been unified against the possibility of a war with Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recent days have seen the Democratic candidates lash out<\/a> at Trump on Iran, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren<\/a>, D-Mass., ripped Trump\u2019s \u201creckless actions,\u201d while Sen. Bernie Sanders<\/a>, I-Vt., said Trump was using \u201cthe same old, same old \u2014 same lies,\u201d to justify military action. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said Trump \u201chad better have a strategy\u201d in Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pete Buttigieg<\/a>, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., used his war veteran status to knock<\/a> Trump\u2019s politically polarizing<\/a> decision to strike, former Vice President Joe Biden used his experience to blame Trump<\/a> for bringing the nation \u201cdangerously close\u201d to war, and billionaire Tom Steyer touted his international business experience as he argued<\/a> the strike left Americans \u201cless safe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond Trump, the Sanders campaign has been hitting Biden\u2019s 2002 vote for the Iraq War. As The New York Times noted<\/a>, the two are happy to contrast foreign policy philosophies \u2014 with Biden highlighting his long resume and Sanders emphasizing his long aversion to war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Democratic presidential candidate South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg delivers an address on Nov. 11, 2019, in Rochester, N.H. (Elise Amendola\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As the six candidates take the debate stage in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan 14, they\u2019ll be prepared to both turn foreign policy questions into their perceived strengths and attack Trump\u2019s perceived weaknesses and those of their Democratic rivals, said Andrew Shapiro, a founder of the advisory firm Beacon Global Strategies and former assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDemocrats would like to talk about health care and build on the concerns about Trump\u2019s temperament, demeanor and erratic performance as president \u2014 what they view as their two winning issues,\u201d Shapiro said. \u201cHowever, foreign policy can inject itself into a campaign if a crisis emerges or something occurs that forces its way into the headlines, like the Iran crisis just did in the last couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d be surprised if both Iran and China didn\u2019t come up during the first part of these debates,\u201d Shapiro said, referencing the pending U.S.-China trade deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreign policy is rarely a decisive factor in elections, but \u201cterrorism\/national security\u201d tied with health care, gun policy and education as an \u201cextremely important\u201d topic with voters in the presidential election, according to a December poll by Gallup<\/a>, prior to the events in Iran. (To be clear, national security ranked lower with Democrats than with Republicans, who tend to back Trump on the strike.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democratic strategists argue that impeachment allegations Trump solicited foreign interference in the election mean Republicans no longer have the upper hand on national security. To boot, 56 percent of Americans (and 90 percent of Democrats) disapprove of Trump\u2019s handing of Iran crisis, according to an ABC News\/Ipsos Poll<\/a> released Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s erratic foreign policy and his attempts to use foreign policy for domestic political benefit offer Democrats the opportunity to be the grown up on foreign policy \u2014 and that feeds into the return-to-normalcy campaign Biden is running and Democrats who say they\u2019ll do better without a tweet-a-minute foreign policy,\u201d Shapiro said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreign policy can be a winning issue for Democrats, but the onus is on the candidates both to sell how they would act as commander in chief and prove how they would beat Trump using national security issues, according to Will Goodwin, of VoteVets, a left-leaning political activist group that has endorsed Buttigieg (an Afghanistan War veteran).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have helped elect people with national security backgrounds who talked about them every day on the campaign trail, and some of those are the freshman members who helped flip the House back [to Democratic control],\u201d Goodwin said. \u201cFrom our perspective, given the way Donald Trump has conducted himself, as commander in chief, there is no question the Democratic Party should be speaking from a position of strength on national security and veterans issues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even before facing Trump, Democratic candidates face a competitive race with no clear favorite. A Monmouth poll<\/a> ranked Biden at 24 percent, Sanders at 18 percent, Buttigieg at 17 percent, Warren at 15 percent, as Klobuchar and Steyer trailed at 8 percent and 4 percent, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar arrives to speak at a fund-raising fish fry in Iowa on Nov. 2, 2019. (Charlie Neibergall\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Democratic voters saw Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as the candidate they trusted most to handle foreign policy, according to a CNN poll<\/a> conducted in late November. Biden scored 48 percent to Sanders\u2019 14 percent, Warren\u2019s 11 percent and Buttigieg\u2019s 6 percent; Steyer and Klobuchar tied at 1 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg have criticized Biden\u2019s 2002 vote to authorize military force in Iraq, which Sanders voted against. At the debate, they are likely to make the case that Biden\u2019s experience does not necessarily equate with good judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a Rasmussen poll<\/a>, 39 percent of likely U.S. voters agreed with Trump\u2019s recent statement that, \u201cIraq was the worst decision. Going into the Middle East was the worst decision ever made in the history of our country.\u201d Among Democrats, the number was higher: 48 percent agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s unclear whether Trump can convincingly square that view with his aggressive stance toward Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt its core, you see the Trump administration framing an argument that says diplomacy doesn\u2019t work [with Iran], and the only thing that does is the use of force or the threat of force. Democrats will most likely articulate an alternative to that \u2014 and the question at the debate will be: \u2018Who\u2019s most credible to make that argument,\u2019\u201d said Stephen Miles, the director of Win Without War, a coalition of activist groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with The Washington Post<\/a> in early January, Sanders appealed to primary voters to focus on voters\u2019 appetite for sweeping change and look past Biden\u2019s perceived electability. He pointed to the former vice president\u2019s support of the Iraq War as a negative with young voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe brings into this campaign a record which is so weak that it just cannot create the kind of excitement and energy that is going to be needed to defeat Donald Trump,\u201d Sanders told the Post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., gestures during a rally in Concord, N.H., on Oct. 31, 2019. (Charles Krupa\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Biden, a politician with a reputation for embracing American use of power in the world, has emphasized restraint and diplomacy in recent remarks. He has claimed he opposed the Obama administration\u2019s expansion of the Afghanistan War, but lost the argument, and he is arguing Trump set the stage for the current crisis by leaving the Iran nuclear deal<\/a> in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrump has no strategy here. No endgame. The only way out of this crisis is through diplomacy \u2014 clear-eyed, hard-nosed diplomacy grounded in strategy, that\u2019s not about one-off decisions or one-upmanship,\u201d Biden said in a recent CNN opinion column<\/a>. \u201cNo one wants war. But it\u2019s going to take hard work to make sure we don\u2019t end up there by accident.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miles said he wanted to see the candidates exceed platitudes and articulate plans both to reorient the U.S. relationship with the world and to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while Goodwin wanted candidates to better address Congress\u2019 role in authorizing war and fixing problems at Veterans Affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHearing from these candidates, absolutely, about their specific plans and how they\u2019re going to work with Congress on these issues \u2015 and how they\u2019re going to run the Department of Defense and the State Department \u2015 is incredibly important,\u201d Goodwin said. \u201cWe also need to hear from people about their forward-looking vision.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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