https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/neglecting-foreign-policy-in-the-presidential-debates/?utm_source=ntnlreview&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=amconswap
The second night of the first Democratic 2020 presidential debate had even less discussion of foreign policy than the first. Were it not for a few of the candidates themselves choosing to bring up some of these issues, the audience would have heard almost nothing about foreign policy. There was one important moment when Biden was forced to address his 2002 vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq, and he gave a remarkably bad answer that was consistent with his overall poor performance. It was striking how the former Vice President still had no answer for why voters should trust his judgment.
Biden’s answer was scattershot, and most of what he said wasn’t related to the Iraq war:
Because once we — once Bush abused that power, what happened was, we got elected after that. I made sure — the president turned to me and said, Joe, get our combat troops out of Iraq. I was responsible for getting 150,000 combat troops out of Iraq, and my son was one of them.
I also think we should not have combat troops in Afghanistan. It’s long overdue. It should end.
And, thirdly, I believe that you’re not going to find anybody who has pulled together more of our alliances to deal with what is the real stateless threat out there. We cannot go it alone in terms of dealing with terrorism.
So I would eliminate the act that allowed us to go into war, and not — the AUMF, and make sure that it could only be used for what its intent was, and that is to go after terrorists, but never do it alone. That’s why we have to repair our alliances. We put together 65 countries to make sure we dealt with ISIS in Iraq and other places. That’s what I would do. That’s what I have done. And I know how to do it.
