Elizabeth Warren deserves a shot at the US presidency
Janine di Giovanni
It is rare for me to get excited about an American presidential candidate. Politics, it always seemed, was for opportunists and not public servants who wanted to do good for the people. A child of the Reagan years, I grew up as cynical as a Doonesbury cartoon. The Bushes and the Clintons seemed a little distant and their policies failed the people living in places where I worked like Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. So I lost interest in US politics, choosing instead to focus on the region I was living in.
Barack Obamas election gave me genuine hope. But in 2013, he failed to follow up on his declaration that the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria would cross his red line. Thereafter, I lost faith in my hero as well as his foreign policy. Four years later, Donald Trump won the presidency and I have since watched it unfold like a train crash in slow motion.
These days, however, I find myself feeling excited again this time about Elizabeth Warrens campaign and I have thrown my support behind her bid to become the Democratic Partys presidential nominee and take on Trump in the 2020 elections.
Warren is the only candidate to have laid out a clear vision on the Israel-Palestine issue. She supports a two-state solution as much as she does a strong and democratic Israel. There must be an end to the [Israeli] occupation, she said, and the creation of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip living alongside Israel.
It takes a brave American politician to discuss the rights of the Palestinian people, let alone mention the word occupation because of how much support Israel gets within the foreign policy establishment in Washington. But in one line, Warren has articulated her opposition to the Trump administrations Israel policy, which has included moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem a proverbial slap in the face of the Palestine cause. Although little is known about the administrations talked-about peace plan, which is still in the works, officials have made it clear that it will not commit to supporting the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel, which was the policy of previous US administrations. In this context, Warrens position will come as good news for the Palestinians.
Admittedly, she suffered a setback during Tuesday nights Democratic Party debate when she said that she favoured pulling out troops from the Middle East. I dont think we should have troops in the Middle East. But we have to do it the right way, the smart way, she said. We need to get out but we need to do this through a negotiated solution. There is no military solution in this region.
It was a tactical mistake on her part for which she was criticised by former vice president and fellow candidate Joe Biden. I have never heard anyone say, with any serious background in foreign policy, that we pull all troops out of the Middle East, Biden said.
However, it was clear to me then and her campaign later made a clarification that Warren meant pulling troops out of Syria and the not the entire region. She also meant withdrawing combat troops and not the multiple non-combat forces based in the Gulf. It was a gaffe but a relatively minor one. And one gaffe should not be the basis upon which to judge a presidential candidates entire foreign policy. After all, none of the candidates will be well versed in every single topic. It is their judgment and the honesty with which they approach any given problem that the voters will do better to focus on.
The writer is a senior fellow at Yales Jackson Institute for Global Affairs
