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  • U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks at a campaign rally in Denver, Colorado, on Feb. 13, 2016.

    U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks at a campaign rally in Denver, Colorado, on Feb. 13, 2016. | Photo: Reuters

Published 25 February 2016
Opinion
Bernie Sanders’ Middle East policy may help us to develop a more fine-grained account.

While part of the Left and progressive forces in the U.S. are feeling the Bern, the Piketty-candidate who has been challenging casino capitalism in the U.S. needs to have his stances on the Middle East interrogated.

A Supporter of Humanitarian Imperialism

Putting aside the question of Palestine, Sanders’s positions regarding “just and unjust wars” might help us to get a lucid picture of the ongoing upheavals. More than one decade ago, Sanders opposed the 2003 imperialist invasion of Iraq. Though the defeat of Washington is not only limited to the quagmire of Iraq’s ongoing tragedy ,one can hardly gainsay invalidity of U.S.-led imperialism, both in terms of its regime-change-wars-of-choice and the increasingly effective resistance to the international financial and trade regime known as the Washington Consensus. The final sequence of this chapter was delineated in the moment Muntadhar al-Zaidi Iraqi journalist threw his shoe at then-U.S. president George W. Bush. In this historical continuity, Bernie's cheerleading for humanitarian imperialism is simply traceable, from the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia to Serbia and Afghanistan. Moreover, he was a supporter of the Clinton war on Serbia and the bombing of Kosovo in 1999. He also supported the Bush/Cheney administration’s launching of war against Afghanistan in 2001.

Syria and Iran

In terms of the Syrian conflict and Washington’s intervention in the ongoing crisis, the “democratic debates” are probably the appropriate venues to assay Sander’s rhetoric. By saying, “Defeating the IS (the Islamic State group) is a more pressing national security priority in the Middle East than ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad” Sanders signaled a less interventionist policy than Hillary Clinton. Though he rightly stipulated that “if we can spend 6 trillion in endless wars in the Middle East we can afford anything,” he predictably omitted to specify that “priority” is what created the Islamic State group and their “moderate” versions in the first place. Having argued, “the two can and should happen concurrently” it was Hillary who went the full distance.

In terms of Sanders policy towards Iran, though he supported the Iran Deal and mentioned the name of Iranian prime minister who was ousted in a CIA-led coup over 60 years ago, he could not help him from not repeating the famous insolent threat of all of the U.S. presidents, “War should be the last option,” even as Iran’s “moderate” government is opening the gates to the West. Regardless, putting Obama’s and Sander’s doctrine toward Iran into the context of soft power is the only way to grasp the ongoing tectonic shift in the U.S. foreign policy. Despite the will of part of Sanders’s supporters for “a progressive foreign policy platform,” one can still not see any substantial position by his campaign on Washington’s regime change doctrine and “democracy” promotion.

Nonetheless, one might argue that it is worthwhile to compare the difference between Trump and Sanders with Reagan and Carter, what is called the "Reagan Corollary to the Carter Doctrine.” It seems that the decline of the American empire yet again creates the space to be implemented by Obama's “liberal” successors.

Though Carter and Sanders share a strong non-interventionist position that did not prevent Carter and Obama from pursuing other kinds of soft intervention strategies. From funding the CIA-backed Jihadists against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan (which Reagan ran with) to Obama’s think tanks pathetic attempt to fish in the troubled waters during the turbulent aftermath of Iran's 2009 elections to the U.S. Intervention in Venezuela. These are only a few stances of the kind of soft policy which will likely be pursued by any of the less hawkish Obama predecessors.

Nevertheless, as evidence has shown, the Middle East policy simply is not an area in which Sanders is particularly comfortable. It speaks volumes when the role model of the self-described democratic socialist candidate is a king. Sanders called the King Abdullah of Jordan "one of the few heroes in a very unheroic place."

Less Dangerous

Putting aside the ongoing battle between Sanders and Clinton over the term “progressive”, with Clinton (or any of her other hawkish counterparts in Capitol Hill) Riyadh and Tel Aviv will be able to gain the upper hand in their move against Iran and Syria. Thus, it means adding fuel to the many fires already burning in the quagmire of perpetual warfare in the region. However, putting typical Bernie-bashers from Paul Krugman to Ta-Nehisi Coates aside, the evidence has shown that one should not expect much from Sanders when it comes to the region. Sanders’s calling for Saudi Arabia – the largest petro-monarchy of the world, currently engaged in a savage military assault on Yemen with its U.S.-backed bombing campaign – to increase its military role in the Middle East speaks for itself.

However, when it comes to the current shift of Washington's foreign policy regarding the Global South, particularly the Middle East, thanks to the strategic maneuvers of Beijing and Moscow as the major actors, it is abstract in the extreme to ignore Sanders while the female version of Dick Cheney, lurks behind the wall of that house.

The Beacon of Hope

Signs of hope amid the misery? Decoding the savage class war of the ruling kleptocracy on the people's living and working conditions is the backbone of Sanders’ campaign. It is only in the kind of grassroots movements that one might learn instead of calling the current policy "bad," and hoping to somehow – presumably through “smart arguments and sage advice” – replace it with the "good" Keynesian policy, to grasp things at the root.

Whatever the outcome of this race, this is the beacon of hope for the individuals who believe in alternative theory to hear the term “class,” a word that is rarely used in American political conversations. Puyting Senator Sanders' contributions to the decrepit U.S. political arena aside, the simple fact that we cannot have democracy at home and imperialism abroad might help a number of Sanders’ average supporters to elucidate the structural issues of the system. Demystifying politico-economic content behind the pursuit of imperial power is the least Sanders campaign can contribute to a space for a number of people trying to get him elected in crucial grassroots political engagement.

Soheil Asefi is an independent journalist and analyst. He is studying political science at The New School university in New York. Follow him on Twitter.

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