Joe Biden knocked Elizabeth Warren for supporting the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East.
“I was surprised last night in the debate. One of my colleagues said we should remove all troops from the Middle East. We can be strong and smart at the same time,” the former vice president said in Iowa.
Speaking to a crowd of about 100 in Davenport, Biden’s main target was President Trump, who earlier Wednesday was censured by the House over his decision to pull military personnel from northeastern Syria. The move — also criticized by congressional Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — “greenlighted” Turkey to attack Syrian Kurdish militias, Biden said.
“The events this week that he’s initiated in Syria have had devastating clarity on just how dangerous this president is to our national security, to our leadership around the world, and to the lives of the brave women and men serving in uniform,” he told the audience. “You don’t get do-overs when it comes to national security. These decisions have deadly, serious consequences.”
While Turkey considers the Kurds to be terrorists because of their ties to an insurgency in the country’s south, the United States regards both Turkey and the Kurds as allies.
Biden acknowledged how “complicated” the situation was in the region but slammed Trump as a “complete failure as commander in chief,” citing his stumbles with China, Iran, and North Korea.
Biden touted his foreign policy credentials after a lackluster performance in Tuesday’s night fourth Democratic primary debate in Westerville, Ohio. Warren received the most attention from the 11 other White House hopefuls on stage, which political commentators interpreted as a sign the Massachusetts senator had cemented her front-runner status alongside the 36-year Delaware senator and former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“The next president is going to face the enormous challenge of picking up the pieces of American foreign policy, salvaging our reputation, and rebuilding confidence in the comments made by the United States around the world,” Biden said Wednesday. “We’re going to need a leader who can, on day one, pick up the telephone, call our NATO allies, know them by their first names, and have them know there’ll be no question about the word of the next president of the United States.”
At Otterbein University on Tuesday night, Warren said that “we ought to get out of the Middle East.” Warren campaign spokeswoman Alexis Krieg sought to clarify her boss’ comments shortly after she walked off the stage, saying “she was referring to ‘combat troops’ since we have multiple non-combat bases, in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, etc. and she did not mean those.”
“She believes we need to end the endless wars. That means getting all U.S. troops out of combat in the Middle East, and using diplomacy to work with allies and partners to end conflicts and suffering in the region and around the world,” Krieg told the Associated Press.
