On domestic policy—taxation, health care, the environment, education, criminal justice, immigration, and so forth—there are major differences between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. On foreign policy, not so much. In fact, a number of observers have correctly pointed out that, to a very great degree, we have a “one-party foreign policy.” As a result, there is almost no debate about the basic premises underlying our long-term foreign policy positions. In a complicated and volatile world, this is not a good thing.
Several months ago, Democrats, with virtually no opposition, gave President Trump every nickel that he wanted in increased defense spending. At a time when our infrastructure is crumbling, when public schools lack the resources to provide a quality education for our kids, when 30 million people have no health insurance, there were very few Democrats opposed to Republican efforts to increase military spending by $165 billion over two years.
Democrats, for good reason, vehemently oppose almost everything Trump proposes, but when he asks for a huge increase in military spending, there are almost no voices in dissent. Why is that? Do we really have to spend more on the military than the next ten nations combined—most of which are our allies? Why do we dramatically increase funding for the military when the Department of Defense remains the only major government agency not to have undertaken a comprehensive audit? Why is there so little discussion about the billions in waste, fraud, and cost overruns at the Pentagon?
Sixty years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about the dangerous influence of the military-industrial complex. The situation since then has only gotten worse. Is anyone paying attention?
But it’s not just military spending. If most Democrats now conclude that the “war on drugs” has been a criminal justice disaster for our country, why is there not a similar examination of the “war on terror”? Year after year, we continue the same old strategy of fighting terrorism. But very few people are analyzing the results of those ongoing policies.
Seventeen years after we entered Afghanistan, about 15 million people—half the population—are living in areas that either are controlled by the Taliban or where the Taliban are openly present and regularly mount attacks. That doesn’t sound to me like a great success story.
Fifteen years after we “shocked and awed” our way into Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi government is now largely under the political influence of Iran. Ironically, U.S. policy helped create for Iran what they were unable to accomplish for themselves in their long and bloody war with Iraq. While the United States now spends billions in military aid opposing Iran, Iranian-sponsored militias are now active in Iraq, helping to move men and guns to proxy forces in Syria and Lebanon.
The “war on terror” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen has cost the United States thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. These wars have caused massive destabilization in the region, the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of people there, and the displacement of millions who were driven from their homelands. Further, these wars have significantly impacted Europe, which has seen the rise of right-wing extremist movements in response to the mass migration of refugees into those countries.
For decades now, in the extremely volatile Gulf region, the United States has determined that our major “ally” in the region is Saudi Arabia, a despotic autocracy controlled by an extremely wealthy family that treats women as third-class citizens, jails dissidents, ruthlessly exploits the foreign labor that keeps its economy going, and has exported the extremist Islamic doctrine of Wahhabism around the world. Why have we continued to give them unconditional support while they and their Gulf allies work diligently to suppress democracy across the region? Why have we continued to sell them billions of dollars’ worth of sophisticated weapons while they wage a ruthless war in Yemen?
How does it happen that there is almost no debate as to why we have determined that Saudi Arabia is the “good guy” in that area while Iran is the “bad guy”? This was the position of the 2016 Democratic candidate for president, Hillary Clinton. This is the position of the Republican president, Donald Trump. Is it the right position?
Foreign policy is not easy stuff, especially at a time when multi-billionaire, authoritarian kleptocrats have growing political and economic power in America and around the world. It’s an area that needs more public and congressional discussion. It’s a subject where basic long-term assumptions need to be challenged. Doing the same old same old does not make sense.
On April 16, I spoke to several thousand people who attended the J Street annual conference, including many young Jewish students.
J Street is a liberal Jewish organization. It was founded in 2007 to provide an alternative voice to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful conservative Jewish organization whose views on Israel have enormous influence over Congress. Its goal is to promote American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts peacefully and diplomatically.
In my remarks, I stated a view that very few in Congress, Republican or Democrat, are prepared to express, for fear of being called “anti-Israel.” My speech was an effort not only to shine a new light on how we should address the never-ending conflicts in the Middle East, but also to open up a debate on this issue beyond the one-party approach that is now dominant.
My friends, the issues that we are dealing with are enormously complicated. Nobody I know has any simple or magical answers to them, and real solutions will require a great deal of hard work. But what I do know is that the United States of America should lead the world with a foreign policy which emphasizes the need to bring nations together, which focuses on diplomacy and international cooperation, rather than a foreign policy that emphasizes the continued use of military force.
And let me also say this. As someone who believes absolutely and unequivocally in Israel’s right to exist, and to exist in peace and security, as someone who as a young man lived in Israel for a number of months and is very proud of his Jewish heritage, as someone who is deeply concerned about the global rise of anti-Semitism and all forms of racism, we must say loudly and clearly that to oppose the reactionary policies of Prime Minister Netanyahu does not make us anti-Israel.
I also referenced the ongoing conflict in Gaza, a crisis that had just erupted into violence as large Palestinian protests were met with an armed response by the Israeli military, with over 30 Palestinians killed. I discussed the horrific economic problems facing Gaza, where 2 million people live in a densely crowded area with highly polluted drinking water, where youth unemployment is at 60 percent, and where freedom of movement is highly curtailed.
I told the audience that I had condemned Hamas’s use of terrorist violence and would continue to do so. But that violence cannot excuse shooting at unarmed protesters, and it cannot excuse trapping nearly 2 million people inside Gaza. In my view, the United States must play a much more aggressive and even-handed role in ending the Gaza blockade and helping Palestinians and Israelis build a future that works for all. And if the White House is unable to do that, Congress must take the lead.
I also felt it necessary to raise another point, one that is very rarely discussed. While we rightfully criticize the Netanyahu government for its obstructionism and for its unwillingness to seriously negotiate with the Palestinians, we must also demand that incredibly wealthy regional states and kingdoms in the area play a new and much more positive role in helping to rebuild Gaza and bring stability to the region.
I concluded:
I read a story the other day about the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. He was just in the United States for a visit, and you might have seen one of the fifty different TV and magazine interviews he did. In any case, as I understand it, the crown prince recently purchased a $500 million yacht because he thought it looked nice. And I’m sure it did. This is on top of his owning the world’s most expensive mansion—worth some $300 million.
So I say to the crown prince and the other multibillionaire leaders in the region, stop just talking about the poverty and distress in Gaza—do something meaningful about it. I heard the other day that the Saudi king pledged $50 million to UNRWA, the UN agency that works with Palestinian refugees. Fifty million dollars is not a small sum of money, but let us not forget that it is 10 percent of what the crown prince paid for a yacht.