High stakes campaign

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris should limit appearances alongside unpopular incumbent Joe Biden during her jolly, high stakes campaign to succeed him. Last Wednesday, he hovered beside her on the stage at a community college hall in Maryland not far from the White House.

He clearly did not want to be there, playing second fiddle to Harris instead of being the nominee. Predictably, she lauded his successes on the domestic front – including the expansion of affordable health care – but ignored his disastrous interventions on the foreign front which loom large in his legacy. Although uncertain of victory in the November election, Harris will have to consider how to deal with Biden’s legacy when she announces prospective foreign policies during the campaign.

Three years ago, Biden withdrew remaining US forces from Afghanistan, implementing a policy adopted by his predecessor – and Harris’ rival – Donald Trump. Biden delayed the deadline from May to August but neglected, as armed forces commander-in-chief, to arrange with his generals a dignified, orderly exit. Instead, the pull-out was a rout with fearful Afghans thronging Kabul’s airport to escape the inevitable, instant Taliban take-over. Biden’s aim was political rather than strategic. He wanted to complete this operation before the 20th anniversary of Afghanistan-based al-Qaeda’s 2001 shock attacks on New York and Washington.

Trump and the Taliban signed the withdrawal deal in February 2020, and he ran down the deployment from 13,000 to 8,600 by July 2020. By the time, Biden ordered the exit in 2021 there were 2,600 US troops still in Afghanistan, not enough to challenge the Taliban which began its final offensive in April. Military experts argued that if the US had retained 8,000 troops, the Taliban could be contained. With their pull out the Afghan army began to collapse due to a lack of a viable command-and-control structures and logistical arrangements for payment of salaries and deliveries of ammunition and food to army bases and posts. During the 20 years of the US occupation, the US military did not train the Afghan army to assume these existential roles. Its soldiers either melted away or joined the Taliban which paid higher salaries than the corrupt US-sponsored regime.

The return to Taliban rule has been disastrous for Afghanistan, which has reverted to pariah status for its imposition of harsh regressive laws, brutal treatment of the population, and exclusion of women from secondary and university education, government, business, and public spaces. Today 90 per cent of Afghans have fallen into poverty and 50 per cent rely on aid which this year has been only 15.9 per cent funded. The situation is unlikely to improve as global relations with the Taliban are deadlocked due to its policies, deepening the humanitarian crisis which Harris would have to address.

Despite warnings from Russia that NATO’s expansion into Ukraine is a red line for Moscow, Biden, ex-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to press for membership in the Western alliance. At the end of February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Since then, the Biden administration has provided more than $175 billion for Ukraine. Of his sum $107 billion is in military, financial, development, and humanitarian assistance while $68 billion is paid to US manufacturers of arms, equipment and other items. “Jobs for the boys,” as the saying goes.

Before the Ukrainian army invaded and seized territory in Russia’s Kursk region, Ukraine appeared to be on the brink of defeat, but this offensive seemed to justify the high investment, at least for the moment. Retention of Kursk could give Ukraine an advantage if Zelensky were to opt for peace talks and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to engage. While armchair warrior Biden would likely press Zelensky to expand further into Russia, Harris would have to decide whether to rein in Kyiv, due to the threat of spill-over into Ukraine’s European NATO-member neighbours. This could compel the US to enter the battle against Russia, a risk Washington wants to avoid.

The cruellest legacy Biden would leave for Harris is the Gaza war whether or not there is a ceasefire before he leaves office at the end of January. Biden has cleaved to Israel as tenaciously as he clung to the Democratic Party’s presidential candidacy until he was no longer viable. Before Biden put forward his May 31st plan for a ceasefire, he instructed his UN mission to scupper three Security Council resolutions. The first was in October less than two weeks after the Hamas attack on Israel, the second in December and the third in February. On all three the US cast the sole veto. Finally, the US circulated a draft resolution calling for a temporary humanitarian ceasefire “as soon as practicable” which was never as far as Israel was concerned. In late May, Biden put forward his plan and submitted a Council resolution calling for a ceasefire which Israel has subverted by demanding changes rejected by Hamas and by assassinating Hamas’ negotiator Ismail Haniyeh ahead of new ceasefire negotiations. Since Israel carried out this killing in Tehran the day after Israel slew Hizbollah military strategist Fuad Shukr in Beirut, both Iran and Hizbollah have vowed to retaliate against Israel if there is no ceasefire in Gaza. With the aim of averting retaliation, Biden has dispatched senior envoys to aid Qatar and Egypt in their quest for a ceasefire.

Instead of threatening to withhold arms supplies Israel uses to attack Gaza if it stalls over a ceasefire, Biden has sent ships and warplanes to protect Israel from Iran and Hizbollah. This has encouraged Israel to continue its onslaught on Gaza and carry on with other Israeli provocative behaviour. This has enraged regional public opinion which Harris would have to placate.

Biden has also pledged the US to deliver $20 billion in weapons and fighter jets to Israel during 2026, knowing full well he will not be in the White House and that he would be burdening Harris with honouring this commitment. While she has said she would not withhold weapons from Israel, Biden knows Harris is particularly vulnerable to criticism because hundreds of thousands of Arab, Muslim and anti-war US voters demand an end to the war, humanitarian aid for the 2.3 thirsty, hungry, ailing, wounded and traumatised Gazans, and accountability for the 40,000 killed, 10,000 buried under the rubble and 90,000 wounded, thousands of them crippled. For them Biden is “Genocide Joe” who deserves to be hailed before the International Criminal Court along with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Goav Gallant who are accused of war crimes.

Photo: TNS