Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy Blunders Don’t Spark Confidence in His Judgment

Joe Biden has serious vulnerabilities in the Democratic Primary over his foreign policy record, something he usually likes to tout as part of his pitch to the voters about his experience. 

Bernie Sanders has taken Biden to task at nearly every date for his vote on the Iraq War and Biden’s former Obama administration colleague Robert Gates, who was Defense Secretary, said Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” 

Now, former Vice President Biden is criticizing the Trump administration for killing Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was in charge of Iran’s global terror campaign through the Quds Force unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and responsible for hundreds of American deaths.

United States State Department: “The Iranian regime is responsible for the deaths of at least 603 American service members in Iraq since 2003. This accounts for 17% of all deaths of U.S. personnel in Iraq from 2003 to 2011, and is in addition to the many thousands of Iraqis killed by the IRGC’s proxies.”

This isn’t the first time Joe Biden has opposed eliminating terrorists with American blood on their hands. In 2011, Biden told President Obama that he should not greenlight the raid that successfully killed Osama Bin Laden. 

USA Today: Biden said of Obama, “He got to me. He said, ‘Joe, what do you think?’ And I said, ‘You know, I didn’t know we had so many economists around the table.’ I said, ‘We owe the man a direct answer. Mr. President, my suggestion is, don’t go. We have to do two more things to see if he (bin Laden) is there.'”

Biden’s history on Iran isn’t exactly encouraging. In 2007, Biden said that “Iran is not a nuclear threat to the United States of America.” In less than 10 years, Iran became a nuclear threat and the Obama administration released hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief to the Iranian regime, which some of that likely ending up in the hands of now-deceased terrorist leader Soleimani. 

In light of the recent events, it’s helpful to look back at some of Joe Biden’s major foreign policy blunders over the years.

Osama Bin Laden Raid

Biden argued against moving forward with the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden.

Politico: “‘Mr. President, my suggestion is don’t go,’ Biden said. Obama, of course, ignored his deputy’s advice and dispatched Navy SEAL Team 6 to kill the Al Qaeda leader. It was a historic triumph for America — not to mention a political bonanza for a president facing reelection, perhaps the most consequential decision of Obama’s presidency. And Joe Biden was on the wrong side of it.”

Iraq War

Biden has similarly drawn flack from Bernie Sanders and young primary voters for his vote in support of the Iraq War.

He was also questioned during the first Presidential debate whether Americans should “trust his foreign policy instincts.” The answer drew further criticism.

Syria

In a 2011 conversation with Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Biden said that he didn’t believe that violence in Syria stemming from an uprising against Bashar Al-Asad would cause regional disruption.