Senator and leading foreign policy voice in Democratic party tells the Guardian Biden has come to realise the limits of his influence

Senator Tim Kaine, a former vice-presidential nominee and leading foreign policy voice in the Democratic party, has said Joe Biden now understands that Benjamin Netanyahu “played” him during the early months of the war in Gaza but “that ain’t going to happen any more”.

In an interview with the Guardian on Tuesday, Kaine accused the prime minister of making Israel “dramatically less safe” and hurting its longstanding relationship with the US, and said the US president had come to realise the limits of his influence.

The Democratic senator for Virginia is best known nationally as Hillary Clinton’s running mate in the 2016 presidential election, a race they lost to Republicans Donald Trump and Mike Pence. The Biden ally is a member of the Senate foreign relations and armed services committees.

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  • wildbus8979English
    13·
    8 months ago

    It’s convenient that you ignored that the experience was repeated ten years later with similar results isn’t it.

    https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/4339670-despite-washingtons-confidence-us-war-with-iran-would-be-disastrous/

    Expecting an easy win against Iran is not any more of a strategy than waiting for humans to learn to fly. The means simply do not exist. Thus, one hopes that mutual deterrence continues to succeed and neither Washington nor Tehran decide to escalate.

    Jordan Cohen is a policy analyst in Defense and Foreign Policy at the Cato Institute and holds a PhD in political science from George Mason University.

    Up to you to provide sources that contradict this. So far all you have is hot air.

    • mosiacmango@lemm.eeEnglish
      33·
      8 months ago

      Hey look at that, an actual source that isn’t 10 or 20 years old. Good job mate. It’s written by the Cato institute, a wildly biased right wing think tank funded by the Koch brothers, but it seems to have good numbers.

      Yeah, Iran looks like a real motherfucker to conquer, but we sure as shit can do immense amounts of damage without that being the goal. That’s enough to give Iran pause, which is why Biden’s threats and rhetoric is effective.

      • wildbus8979English
        13·
        8 months ago

        I’m well aware that Cato is a right wing think tank… Maybe when the war hawks tell you that you would occure incredible losses in a war and you shouldn’t do it, it’s time to to listen to them.

        Again, you have provided not a single source to counter my claims. Nothing but hot air. Cope harder, but I sure as shit won’t get drafted.

        • mosiacmango@lemm.eeEnglish
          44·
          8 months ago

          Im not disagreeing with the claims that iran would be a difficult nation to conquer. I’m glad you properly sourced it eventually.

          What I’m disagreeing with is your supposition that Biden’s threats to Iran are mundane or ignorable. They are not, hence the effectiveness of them as a kudgel to prevent a wider war in the middle east.

          • wildbus8979English
            11·
            8 months ago

            So tell me now, how did that saver rattling rather than de-escalation work out for you?

            • mosiacmango@lemm.eeEnglish
              1·
              8 months ago

              EDIT: Since yall want to play at “I told you so!”, looks like the US/Israel shot down almost all the drones with zero deaths and Iran has stated that they have concluded the attack.

              So again, good saber rattling.

              Slightly older comment:

              Well first off, for good etiquette you could link the revelant news.

              Secondly, this doesnt really change anything about my assessment. Biden was saber rattling and it either failed, or it worked to some degree, keeping the response at “dozens of drones” level instead of full on warfare.

              So, to answer your rhetorical question : from poor to good, as expected.