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Omar Sabbour on Facebook:
For what it's worth, I think Biden will be worse for ME than Sanders,
including Syria. Though I also have my doubts that Bernie's 'non
intervention' there will actually be applied; he's not nearly as radical
as many seem to think, but at least he's less likely to escalate the war
on terror, and will have colder relations with shitty regimes. Biden,
meanwhile, will probably be Obama 2.0 - abandonment of democratic
movements. retaining relations with shitty regimes, and escalating the
war on terror - and possibly worse.
EDIT: I was kinda wary and have generally avoided waddling into this
debate, a) because I wouldn't actually advocate a vote for Sanders or
Biden, even though I think the former would be potentially less harmful
(read below to know why), and b) because tbh it's based on a lot of
hypotheticals that are difficult to predict.
The reality really comes to the fact that Sanders isn't nearly as 'anti
imperialist' as some believe he is (voted for 1st gulf war, afghanistan,
fight against isis) while Biden conversely isn't really that much of a
liberal 'democracy-promoting' interventionist either. When you factor in
that US presidents don't really have full control over foreign policy
than differences can be exaggerated. but then again, if one of those
hypotheticals arise that i mentioned some of these small differences may
have bigger divergences in policy (for instance, if a certain new war on
terror theatre breaks out, while both sanders and biden admins may
partake, the latter would probably be more vigorous about it, thus the
small difference can mean many lives), so perhaps it's not an altogether
moot conversation.
So this is a more detailed comment in response to how I think Sanders
would be, possibly, on balance, a less shitty option.
"should've written colder relations with *certain* shitty regimes i
guess. he would also normalise with iran, but tbh so probably would
biden. what would sanders have done if he was in obama's place during
Syria/ISIS? well tbh, if we are operating on assumption that there is
even a small influence the president can have in these situations, i
think it would've actually been marginally less likely for a Sanders
administration to have supported the pro-Iran militias in Iraq that
Biden did because of their horrific human rights record.
but anyway, yeah, relations with certain other shitty regimes would also
improve under sanders. but i don't think there'd be a huge difference in
their foreign policies ultimately, which in many areas are preset. both
will likely continue war on terror. so you look for the small things i
guess, wherein sanders is a more consistent critic of human rights
abuses then biden (who said mubarak wasn't a dictator, called rebels
extremists, etc.) and would adopt a less aggressive bombing campaign say
if such a scenario arose (like Obama relative to Trump)
i suppose the point is that there is chances that situations arise
(especially within context of war on terror) where biden will simply be
more forceful in his shitty policies, and US support of shitty regimes
will continue to be a norm - which I don't think is counterbalanced by
some notion that Sanders will massively rehabilitate shitty regimes to
the same extent.
in the case of syria, again, i've not seen anything saying sanders will
'establish diplomatic relations with assad'. i don't really buy this
notion that sanders is unaware of what assad is. i think he basically
adopts a nationalist america first policy (i.e. can withdraw from
'regime change wars' but not quite from the war on terror). so if the
question is about 'willing to engage with regime' (this needs to be
unpacked), well biden's already been part of an administration that
engaged with assad, and actually worked to prevent its downfall. still
shitty undoubtedly that sanders said yes, which is partly why i wouldn't
advocate voting for him. i wouldn't even had he not said that anyway,
solidarity isn't a one way street and he burned that when he went on
years ago about 'regime change' in Syria being the problem.
i don't see much likely difference except biden probably bombing harder
if such a need ever arises, including in places like idlib. you should
also keep in mind that biden will likely be hard on turkey, and will try
and undermine them and by extension opposition probably more than
sanders (who'd probably keep things about the same). I actually think if
there was a Biden administration today, US would be backing Russia up
significantly more vigorously than Obama admin did Putin in 2016 with
Aleppo, and you'd probably be seeing US strikes on HTS at the same time
as regime advance. I don't think, by contrast, that a Sanders
administration would be doing that - and i think they'd probably have
effectively the same hands off trump policy of today.
Re how they balance Iran, Biden will simply be much more anti-Sunni
Islamist and share combatting them along with Iran. Sanders will warm to
Iran regarding sanctions etc but any damage from him will mainly be from
US 'retreating' from region allowing Iran to step in, which I'm not sure
would happen significantly either under Sanders (perhaps there is
slightly more risk of something like US withdrawing from the gulf under
Sanders, but i doubt it would happen). in short, i think a biden admin
would again be more vigorous alongside an aggressive iranian campaign
against a common enemy than Sanders. i of course might be wrong about
the extent of a sanders admin retrenchment from the region giving space
to Iran, but yeah i don't think that's ultimately mainly his decision.
and while im aware of sanders' past on things like russia/soviet
sympathies in 80s, and again that he would likely be friendly with iran
allowing it an even freer reign (which is part of why i wouldn't
advocate for voting for him either, incidentally - comment was just on
who i thought would be marginally worse), i don't think he'll be too
cosy with Russia next few years either, he's rhetorically been very
strong on Putin, and again US hegemony vs russia is something beyond his
pay remit.
ultimately it comes down to that the question we're discussing is how to
reduce footprint of us imperialism when you have russian imperialism
ready to take its place. and while that's a difficult question, i guess
i don't ulitmately really believe that US has been enough of a deterrent
to Russian butchery to justify not preferring a candidate who will
possibly weaken the us empire a bit more than his adversary - while not
actually allowing russia to go top in any case. so the question under
sanders isn't US being replaced by Russia, it's slightly weaker US still
being on top above russia, but fucking others potentially less.
of course though, this is all based a lot on hypotheticals - which do
require a proper analysis/estimation. one hypothetical for instance is
that war on terror massively escalates, in which case Biden would be
worse. another would be that an unfashionable democratic uprising
happens which become armed like Syria and may get abandoned in front of
another imperialist power - yeah, Sanders would probably be a worse bet
here, though not guaranteed as it depends on what the specific
hypothetical is. Sanders would view the kurds as worthy for instance but
not the syrian arabs, and biden had the same view.
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