Foreign policy progressives like myself have reason for deep concern these days.
Axios is reporting that Biden's two veep finalists are Kamala Harris and Susan Rice: Biden confidants see VP choices narrowing to Harris and Rice
Earlier this month, Sanders supporters sought unsuccessfully to move the platform their direction on universal health coverage.
Now they're setting their sights on Biden's foreign policy, particularly as it relates to staff picks. Since foreign policy bores the ignorant mainstream media silly, we have heard nothing about that behind-the-scenes battle until Huff-Post spilled the beans yesterday in an article at DNC Delegates Call Biden Foreign Policy Team ‘A Horror Show’ And Ask For New Hires followed by a more detailed report from the Washington Post at The Trailer: The left worries about a 'hawk' as VP
Turns out that there are no fewer than eight pro-Iraq War Democratic party veterans who have joined Biden's foreign policy brain trust, led by Rice. Sanders supporters are appalled by all of them, and are saying so loudly, not that anyone seems to be listening -- yet.
Accordingly, they have sent a letter to Biden detailing their concerns. About Rice they write "Susan E. Rice argued for the war in Iraq, endorsing the Bush administration’s lies about weapons of mass destruction...She supported the Obama administration’s intervention in Libya and argued for intervention in Syria and presided over the CIA program ‘Operation Timber Sycamore’ that armed militants there; oversaw US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. She also asserted that ‘unwavering support for Israel’ — even as led by right-wing extremist Benjamin Netanyahu — was her imperative as UN Ambassador."
Ironically, Rice actually butted heads with Netanyahu during the Iran Deal negotiations, in which regard she has actually shown more willingness to criticize Netanyahu's and the Likud's policies than Harris has shown; the latter has appeared at AIPAC repeatedly and has never uttered one word in condemnation of Netanyahu or in support of Palestinian rights.
So the choice, where foreign policy is concerned, seems to have come down to the frying pan or the fire.
One of the leaders of the Sanders group of delegates which has organized this previously-unreported opposition, Nadia Ahmed, also helped to write another letter jointly with a group of fellow Muslim delegates to the convention specifically singling out Rice for condemnation and specifically urging Biden not to pick her for veep. That letter was posted at DNC Muslim Delegates and Allies reject Susan Rice for VP . As an example of this letter's even more pungent prose, here's a sample:
"Rice’s tenure in government has spelled disaster for the Middle East, as she pushed for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, military intervention in Libya and U.S. weapons sales to Saudi Arabia for its barbaric assault on Yemen, a country now in the grips of a humanitarian crisis with millions facing famine and death from cholera...While other lawmakers and politicians have apologized for backing the Iraq invasion, Rice has remained unrepentant about her support for the US invasion that resulted in an estimated one million deaths, five million refugees, 5,000 U.S. dead, immense suffering for soldiers returning home with missing limbs, broken hearts and post-traumatic stress disorder." (This second letter concludes by mentioning Karen Bass, among others, as a promising and progressive voice on foreign policy. )
There is little doubt that progressives like us, politically brought up as so many of my generation were on opposition to the Vietnam War, an experience which found a powerful and nightmarish echo in the 2003 Iraq War, would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to vote for a Biden-Rice ticket unless we found ourselves in a purple state which could hold the key to Trump's re-election.
Unfortunately Harris, while younger and with less of a record on these issues than Rice, appears to be cut from the same cloth in terms of foreign policy, which makes voting for a Biden-Harris ticket almost as difficult for folks like us as a Biden-Rice ticket.
Today is a dark day for those of us who hope for an enlightened pro-diplomacy pro-peace future in American foreign policy.