Biden is planning a complete foreign policy reboot: Day 42 of 100 days of loving Joe Biden

by GoodNewsRoundup

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(This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020 Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020 at 4:02:09am PDT

Biden is going to be facing a foreign policy nightmare with the mess Trump is leaving behind. Luckily he is up to the job and has a plan.

“He’s looking at an across-the-board restoration project,” said Derek Chollet, a former top Pentagon official in the Obama administration. “Biden would be facing the most chaotic international environment since 1945” — the year World War II ended and the Cold War started to ramp up.

What specifically?

First, he would recommit the US to the Paris climate agreement. America’s participation in the accord ends on November 4, 2020 — the day after the election. The move to end US participation, initiated on November 4, 2019, fulfilled Trump’s campaign promise to withdraw from the pact even as US greenhouse gas emissions were rising, reversing years of decline.

what about our allies?

“For the past seven decades, the choices we have made — particularly the United States and our allies in Europe — have steered our world down a clear path,” Biden said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in January 2017, just three days before leaving office as vice president. “In recent years it has become evident that the consensus upholding this system is facing increasing pressures, from within and from without,” he continued. “It’s imperative that we act urgently to defend the liberal international order.”

The best way to do that, Biden contends, is to maintain and bolster America’s system of alliances that form the heart of that order.

on nuclear proliferation

Biden would come into office before New START officially expires, and he has already committed to extending it. “I’ll pursue an extension of New START Treaty, an anchor of strategic stability between the United States and Russia, and use that as a foundation for new arms control agreements,” he said during his foreign policy speech in New York.

on North Korea

Biden would go back to the traditional model of handling the North Korea portfolio: refusing to hold a nonconditional meeting with Kim while giving space for working-level staff to hammer out critical details of any potential nuclear deal. In the meantime, he’d keep and toughen sanctions on North Korea until it took serious steps to dismantle its nuclear arsenal.

He’d also coordinate actions closely with South Korea and Japan to ensure any move on Pyongyang was done “in lockstep” with them, as well as fold in China due to its immense economic influence on Kim’s country.

On Iran

Here’s how the aide described Biden’s Iran plan: First, the US “would be open to mutual reentry” into the Iran nuclear deal as long as Iran moved back into compliance with it. That would mean reducing the enrichment level and stockpile of uranium, among other actions.

After that, the US would work with European allies in the deal to “push for further talks on regional questions.” This might satisfy one of the main critiques of the agreement, which is that the Obama administration didn’t press Tehran hard enough to end its support for proxies in the Middle East or missile program. “There’s a lot of appetite to have those broader conversations,” the aide said.

America’s wars

“It’s past time to end the forever wars, which have cost us untold blood and treasure,” Biden said in July 2019.

“We should bring the vast majority of our troops home — from the wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East — and narrowly focus our mission on al-Qaeda and ISIS. And we should end our support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen,” he continued. “Staying entrenched in unwinnable conflicts drains our capacity to lead on other issues that require our attention, and it prevents us from rebuilding the other instruments of American power.”

All of this is a tall order. I am sure we all realize how complicated this will be to do and how the workings of other countries and unforeseen circumstances may affect all these plans. But nonetheless, won’t it be great to have a president who has well thought out and reasoned plans that capitalize on our allies and prioritize keeping us safe?