Did Bernie Sanders Just Endorse a Neocon Regime Change Foreign Policy?
Jose Nino
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Is Bernie Sanders the anti-war candidate that many non-interventionists are making him out to be?
Journalists Jacob Crosse and Barry Grey presented some interesting observations about Sanders’ foreign policy views.
Sanders criticized the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Suleimani in January and also stressed his opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
During the Iowa presidential debate, Sanders loudly boasted, “I not only voted against that war, I helped lead the effort against that war.”
However, Sanders changed his tune when chatting with the New York Times.
The answers the Sanders campaign gave the Times showed its flexibility when it comes to foreign policy.
In other words, the Sanders campaign signaled to the military and intelligence apparatus that Sanders won’t present a threat to their interests and may actually carry out their interventionist agenda.
One question in the survey that the Times sent the Sanders campaign stuck out above the rest.
The third survey question asked, “Would you consider military force to pre-empt an Iranian or North Korean nuclear or missile test?”
The Sanders campaign responded, “Yes.”
Based on this response, Sanders’ is signaling that he’s willing to continue Bush-era policies of “preemptive war.”
Like Obama, Sanders’ opposition to the Iraq War was a matter of politics rather than a principled opposition to regime change wars.
His campaign was also asked, “Would you consider military force for a humanitarian intervention?”
Sanders responded, “Yes.”
Some of the wars that the U.S. carried out in the name of “human rights” have been the Bosnian war and the bombing of Serbia in the 1990s along with the aerial campaign against Libya in 2011 and the Civil War launched in Syria.
All in all, Sanders’ pro-peace/non-interventionist image is at best window dressing.
Under a Sanders presidency, the interventionist status quo will likely stay in place and the defense industry will profit as usual.
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