Sanders Should Challenge the Foreign-Policy Status Quo
Sanders Should Challenge the Foreign-Policy Status Quo
We desperately need to overturn a foreign policy that grows ever more divorced from the interests and security concerns of the vast majority of Americans.
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Global economic troubles threaten our economy, a cold war heats up with Russia, the Middle East is aflame, and 2015 was the hottest year on record, as climate change accelerates. Despite this, the presidential campaigns have offered little more than foreign policy by bumper sticker.
In the Republican race, particularly now that Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has ended his campaign, the debate has descended into bellicose posturing, xenophobia, fervid denunciations of all things Obama and, of course, climate change denial. The candidates vie to rip up the Iran deal, rev up a new cold war with Russia, fan the flames in the Middle East and walk away from the progress made in Paris on climate.
Democrats have a genuine opportunity to offer a sorely needed new, real security agenda. Yet we’ve seen little evidence of it. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has made a stirring argument about our rigged economy and our corrupted politics, electrifying young voters and unsettling the party establishment’s favorite, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. But Sanders has said little about foreign policy, apparently viewing it as a distraction from his core economic message.
Continued: http://www.thenation.com/article/sanders-should-challenge-the-foreign-policy-status-quo/
