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Joe Biden: Respectable but Wrong

Ryan Mauro - 8/26/2008

As predicted by the Global Politician, Barack Obama has chosen Senator Joe Biden as his running mate. Obviously, this helps Obama deal with his lack of experience and credibility on foreign policy. Biden knows his stuff and whether you agree with him or not, his knowledge can not be doubted.

On the one hand, Biden did consistently say not enough troops were in Iraq. He deserves credit for this. On the other hand, as soon as President Bush called for the surge, Biden said it was a bad move and the time for high troop levels had passed. This is a bizarre turn-around and I can only attribute it to Biden's natural reflex to oppose anything the President was for, despite Biden's previous feelings on the issue.

Biden also can be praised for voting to fund the troops in Iraq despite his opposition to the war and the extreme political pressure from the left to vote against it. Biden has shown himself to be a great supporter of our troops.

Biden was the only presidential candidate with a detailed plan for Iraq and deserves credit for that as well. The plan was credible and well thought-out. It involved having a weak central government and three autonomous regions, one for Sunni, Shiite and Kurd.

Biden's plan would have prevented today's success, though. It involved a drawdown in U.S. forces, and likely would have resulted in fighting over the mixed Shiite-Sunni areas in Iraq. This potential conflict would have required more U.S. forces, but according to his plan, we'd have less available than before. This division of Iraq would also have reduced the need for moderate Iraqi politicians who can work across sects, and therefore would have empowered the more radical elements of Iraqi society concerned only with their individual sects.

Biden's plan would have validated the widespread suspicion of Middle Easterners that the U.S. sought to dismember Iraq. As someone who talks to lots of Iraqis, I cannot express enough how many Iraqis feared this and thought the U.S. goal was to divide the region, specifically Iraq, along sectarian lines in order to weaken it. The psychological affects of Biden's plan would have been extremely negative. It offended Iraqis, made them again suspicious of U.S. intentions and would have made them go to the militias, yet again, for security. In fact, when Biden's plan was proposed in Congress, there was a nationalist outburst in Iraq. Pushing this plan on the Iraqis would have been imperialism. If the Iraqis wanted to divide among themselves, that is their deal, not ours.

Finally, Biden's plan would have denied the U.S. and the Iraqis the success we've seen lately. That's the biggest concern I have about Biden. While highly intelligent, he either lacked the political guts to support the surge or was simply wrong on the most criticial decision in the region since the original invasion.

We must also look to Iran. Joe Biden must understand Iran as well as anyone given his experience. Yet he voted against designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization, resulting in sanctions against the,. This is the branch of the military used by the mullahs to kill Coalition forces and our troops, and is one of the primary supporters of terrorism. Terrorism will not end or be sufficiently degraded without the IRGC being defanged. In addition, by placing sanctions on the group, we can apply additional pressure on the Iranian regime. That is not a stepping stone to war--it simply is a diplomatic maneuver that increases the chances of a diplomatic solution to the conflict. Joe Biden voted against it.

I make these statements not out of partisanship. I very much like Joe Biden as a person, and love his style. He is straight-forward, sometimes politically incorrect. He's my type of guy. But his failure to support the surge and his vote against labeling the IRGC as "terrorist" leads me to be dissapointed with the choice of Joe Biden as VP.