America needs a “Bernie Doctrine”: How Sanders’ foreign policy weakness could become a game-changing strength
salon.com/2016/02/11/america_needs_a_bernie_d...
salon.comPosted Feb 11, 2016, 10:59 PM UTC
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Not even once
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I agree in general but
left-wingers and anti-intervention realists
Implies left wingers can't be realist and as a lefty I seriously disagree
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It's wishful thinking to believe such a thing could be a strength especially during this campaign. Events have a way of overtaking a campaign, and considering the current state of relations between this country and Russia, looking too much like a pacifist will ultimately be his ruin if things continue to heat up, as they probably will.
With the fall of oil prices and sanctions imposed over the annexation of Crimea, Russia's economy is falling into a trough of misery. When faced with internal threats to his rule by a dissatisfied populace, Putin has time and again resorted to international provocation, and tensions between NATO ally Turkey and Russia are becoming more strained by the day. Syria has long had the capacity to become a proxy war, but diplomacy and the U.S. droping its demand for Assad to leave have calmed some of the arguments about Syria, but the U.S. committing to a "two-front war", ostensibly against ISIS, in that country could give the Russians either an incentive to cool it or it could ratchet things up further.
Sanders cannot afford to look like a foreign policy naif, particularly in a time like this.
It's not wishful thinking that brought me back to the Democratic Party, something I never thought would be possible again. It's precisely his lack of hawkishness that makes his foreign policy attractive to me, and I would imagine millions of other real progressives tired of unilateral, permanent war without declaration by congress against the third world, er, "terrorism".
Of course we are. I consider myself a progressive, and I'm certainly against perpetual war and hegemony built on the claptrap philosophies of neo-Cons. What I'm saying is events can overtake campaigns, and as things stand right now, a more troublesome Russia could get Clinton more of an edge in their race. If his stance is he's against all wars (and really, few people aren't), that can be troublesome to defend if Russia begins to further provoke the U.S. and its allies.
In the last debate he made it clear that Putin is posturing because of Russia's declining power and troubled economy. This is the truth, and corporate media and the Clinton's of the world don't care, because their too busy trying to protect the interests of military contractors et al.