Joe Biden's Strength: Foreign Policy

Of the Democrats running for president, only former Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico is close to Joe Biden's expertise in foreign policy (though Wesley Clark, if he runs, would be up there with Biden and Richardson). I don't always agree with Senator Biden but I very much respect what he has to say when he talks about Iraq and the Middle East and he provides a sharp contrast to a president who either doesn't know much about the Middle East or who chooses to mislead the American public (since Bush's fellow Republicans often follow the president's lead, it appears politics, 'story-telling' and ideology rather than a respect for the facts dominate right wing commentary these days).

The New York Times carries an article by Jonathan Broder of the Congressional Quarterly on Joe Biden:

When Joseph R. Biden Jr. first came to the Senate in January 1973, the consuming issue of the day was the Vietnam War, and its most influential opponent was the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, J. William Fulbright.

The 30-year-old Biden looked to the urbane Arkansan as a mentor after joining the committee as a freshman.

(snip)

“The lesson I leaned from Sen. Fulbright is that, if you inform the American public, they’re pretty smart,” Biden said in an interview. “They can form their own opinions.”

(snip)

Unlike many lawmakers who can’t tell the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite, Biden is a man who not only knows the difference, but also can speak knowledgeably about the allegiances of different Iraqi tribes, the shifting demographics in the northern city of Kirkuk, and the finer points of the Iraq constitution.

In his quest for his party’s 2008 presidential nomination, Biden is banking that his facility with foreign policy will be his principal calling card — or at least set him apart from the perceived front-runners.

Whether Biden wins the nomination or not, and whether many of us even agree with some of his positions are not, he is already playing a valuable role by bringing his expertise to a discussion about Iraq, Iran and foreign policy in general. Biden is reminding us that we can't afford another incurious neophyte like George W. Bush, let alone an ideologue who would continue the nonsense and deceptions of the neocons. It's not clear that any of the Republican hopefuls have distanced themselves that much from Bush's failures yet, except Chuck Hagel who has become very critical of Bush's policies—and it's not certain that Hagel will run.

In the meantime, McCain is an example of a Republican who already is playing fast and loose with his statements over the last five years and is pretending that his position has been x, y and z all along when in fact it was a, b and c. In recent statements, McCain has been hedging his support of Bush by saying more troops are needed than what Bush is sending, but McCain fails to note that the troops he would send simply do not exist.

I think it's worth mentioning, by the way, that Biden's counterpart on the Foreign Relations Committee is not Senator McCain but Senator Lugar, a loyal, capable but somewhat low-key Republican who has not been happy with Bush's foreign policy and amateurism for some time. If Biden is not exactly out in front of other Democrats on Iraq, it's partly because he still believes in bipartisanship and Senator Lugar is part of the reason Biden continues to follow that path. And there may eventually be dividends though I suspect the time could possible be getting short. Lugar is patient but he should not underestimate Bush's recklessness. If Republicans wait too long to rein in Bush, Biden's efforts on the Foreign Relations Committee could come up short and affect his run for the president.