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Pepe Escobar is as pessimistic about a Harris (Biden) administration as I am. The incoming foreign policy team would be the return of the blob that waged seven wars during the Obama/Biden administration:
Taking a cue from [the Transition Integrity Project], let’s game a Dem return to the White House – with the prospect of a President Kamala taking over sooner rather than later. That means, essentially, The Return of the Blob.
President Trump calls it “the swamp”. Former Obama Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes – a mediocre hack – at least coined the funkier “Blob”, applied to the incestuous Washington, DC foreign policy gang, think tanks, academia, newspapers (from the Washington Post to the New York Times), and that unofficial Bible, Foreign Affairs magazine.
A Dem presidency, right away, will need to confront the implications of two wars: Cold War 2.0 against China, and the interminable, trillion-dollar GWOT (Global War on Terror), renamed OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) by the Obama-Biden administration.
The Democratic White House team Escobar describes (Clinton, Blinken, Rice, Flournoy) would be an assembly of well known war mongers who all argue for hawkish policies. The main 'enemies', Russia and China, would be the same as under Trump. Syria, Venezuela, Iran and others would stay on the U.S. target list. U.S. foreign policy would thereby hardly change from Trump's version but would probably be handled with more deadly competence.
But Escobar sees two potential positive developments:
In contrast, two near-certain redeeming features would be the return of the US to the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal, which was Obama-Biden’s only foreign policy achievement, and re-starting nuclear disarmament negotiations with Russia. That would imply containment of Russia, not a new all-out Cold War, even as Biden has recently stressed, on the record, that Russia is the “biggest threat” to the US.
I believe that Harris (Biden) will disappoint on both of those issues. The neoconservatives have already infested the Harris (Biden) camp. They will make sure that JCPOA does not come back:
Last night on an official Biden campaign webinar led by “Jewish Americans for Biden”, and moderated by Ann Lewis of Democratic Majority for Israel, two prominent neocon Republicans endorsed Biden, primarily because of Trump’s character posing a danger to democracy. But both neocons emphasized that Biden would be more willing to use force in the Middle East and reassured Jewish viewers that Biden will seek to depoliticize Israel support, won’t necessarily return to the Iran deal and will surround himself with advisers who support Israel and believe in American military intervention.
Eric Edelman, a former diplomat and adviser to Dick Cheney, said Trump’s peace plan has fostered an open political divide in the U.S. over Israel, ...
Eliot Cohen, a Bush aide and academic, echoed the fear that Israel is being politicized. ...
...
Cohen and Edelman opposed Obama’s Iran deal, and both predicted that Biden will be hawkish on Iran.
...
“There will be voices” in the Biden administration that seek a return to the Iran deal, but the clock has been running for four years, and we’re in a different place, he said. And “it will be hard [for Biden] not to use the leverage that the sanctions provide in part because Iran is not abiding by a lot of the limits of the nuclear agreement… They’re about three, maybe four months away from having enough fissile material to actually develop a nuclear weapon.”
For lifting the sanctions against Iran the Harris (Biden) administration will demand much more than Iran's return to the limits of the JCPOA. Iran will reject all new demands, be they about restricting its missile force or limiting its support for Syria. The conflict will thereby continue to fester.
The other issue is arms control. While a Harris (Biden) administration may take up Putin's offer to unconditionally prolong the New-START agreement for a year it will certainly want more concessions from Russia than that country is willing to give. Currently it is Russia that has the upper hand in strategic weapons with already deployed hypersonic missiles and other new platforms. The U.S. will want to fill the new 'missile gap' and the military-industrial complex stands ready to profit from that. The New-START prolongation will eventually run out and I do not see the U.S. agreeing to new terms while Russia has a technological superiority.
Domestic policies under a democratic president will likewise see no substantial difference. As Krystal Ball remarked, here summarized from a Rolling Stone podcast:
But even with a Biden win, Ball doesn’t think it will mean much for policy.
“My prediction for the Biden era is that very little actually happens,” says Ball. “Democrats are very good at feigning impotence. We saw this in the SCOTUS hearings as well. They’re very good for coming up with reasons why, ‘oh those mean Republicans, like we want to do better healthcare and we want left wages, but oh gosh, Mitch McConnell, he’s so wiley, we can’t get it done.'”
'Change' was an Obama marketing slogan to sell his Republican light policies. A real change never came. The Harris (Biden) administration must be seen in similar light.
I therefore agree with the sentiment with which Escobar closes his piece:
In a nutshell, Biden-Harris would mean The Return of the Blob with a vengeance. Biden-Harris would be Obama-Biden 3.0. Remember those seven wars. Remember the surges. Remember the kill lists. Remember Libya. Remember Syria. Remember “soft coup” Brazil. Remember Maidan. You have all been warned.
Posted by b on October 31, 2020 at 16:45 UTC | Permalink
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I have been trying to set the expectations for my deluded Democratic, pro-tech industry, pro-security state friends and colleagues who think they are forward-thinking progressives but actually just hate Trump as emblematic of non-college educated blue collar types they prefer not to associate with. Biden himself said it, "Nothing will change," and Obama deported many more people in his first term than Trump has to pick but one issue. There will be no M4A, little change in foreign policy, no major stimulus for workers, etc. But since the face in the White House will have changed, they will convince themselves that America has changed and it was all thanks to them... Great and accurate summary! Thank you. Given our future circumstance I've been pondering bumper stickers that will help me get pulled over by the Stasi. Two come to mind immediately: Wars R US! Biden 2020! Defund the Elite! Posted by: Michael | Oct 31 2020 17:18 utc | 2 Really, so what? You have a choice between chaotic anarchic corruption, and organised professional corruption. Is it not better to have the calm, predictable, version - at least you know what you're getting. In any case I am not sure Biden would be able to go back to launching new wars so easily. The US gives the impression of being over-stretched as it is. Posted by: Laguerre | Oct 31 2020 17:25 utc | 3 It seems clear that Biden will win. This means that the possibility of a serious military confrontation with Russia is more likely than it would be with a Trump win. In any Biden cabinet Michelle Flournoy will have a major voice. She would have likely become Hillary's Secretary of Defense. In August of 2016 Flournoy wrote a major foreign policy article advocating a 'no fly' zone over Syria. That would have meant that the US military would have been obliged to prevent the Russia airforce from operating in Syrian skies (even though, the Syrian government had invited the Russians to be there). No one really knows if Flournoy would have been given authority to carry out such insanity had Hillary won, but the consequences of such insane policy are easy to imagine. But without much doubt, a Biden administration will have Susan Rice and Michelle Flournoy in very high policy positions. Given that Biden is rapidly descending into dementia and Kamala Harris seems utterly clueless, US government foreign policy will very likely be led by a Rice/Flournoy collaboration in the coming years. Of course, China has become a much bigger player in the last four years. Maybe those fools around Biden will be distracted by China and they avoid war with with Russia. In either case it looks like very dangerous times ahead. Posted by: ToivoS | Oct 31 2020 17:25 utc | 4 Trump was always for me about controlled demolition of the empire. Putin will not tolerate another ramping up of hostilities in the MENA. I believe, just as in 2016, open military confrontation with Russia hangs in the balance. It is believed here and elsewhere that Russia and China are working hand in hand and lockstep to thwart the empire. They may be trade allies but they are not bed fellows. Russia will always do what is in its own interest and will be beyond reproach from China come a last-minute attempt for it to talk down hostilities btw Ru and U.S.A. I hope those peddling the narrative that all is theater and a mere globalist game to keep the peons entertained are correct. But I fear the stupidity and egoism of man far more than I do their love of money and life of luxury. Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 31 2020 17:25 utc | 5 The JCPOA's "snap back" provisions etc. prove that Obama never intended JCPOA as a long term agreement in the first place. The issue was always how long it would suit, not how long it would take for the US to. Nor is the US going to forego it's support for a colonial assault on the Middle East, aka Israel, any more than England will give up Gibraltar. That said, there really is a policy debate between attacking Russia first or attacking China first or simultaneously attacking both. The thing is, the conflict will continue after any election. Since the Democratic Party isn't a programmatic party but a franchise operation of Outs, there will be zero unanimity within the Democratic Party and not even a clean sweep of the national government will resolve the dispute, which will be waged with exactly the same panic-mongering, paranoid cries of treason, barely subdued hysteria at the prospect of the lower races overtaking the God-given rights of the US government to exercise imperium (right to punish, particularly with death, originally) over humanity, and so on. The same ignorant vicious halfwits who were convinced Clinton Foundation was worse than the Comintern infiltrating innocent America made assholes of themselves. They'll just do it again over Biden, but with different made up excuses. Domestically, there will be real differences, albeit some will still consider them entirely minor. There will be less emphasis on military officers masquerading as civilian officials; more emphasis on actually having competent officials who are even confirmed by the Senate; somewhat larger infrastructure investment; somewhat less deliberate destruction of government capacity to deliver services; slightly greater emphasis on keeping money valuable by limiting government spending, with smaller increases in military spending, slightly greater taxes, and only limited support to state governments going bankrupt, bankrupt unemployment and pension funds; a few restrictions on mass evictions; no separation of families in ICE prisons; open appeals to racism will cease. There will not however be any Medicare expansion, nor will there be a radically progressive federal income tax, not even a new bankruptcy law, nor will there be even political reforms like direct popular election of the president or even reform of the judiciary. There may be a minimum wage increase to $15 per hour. One note: The idea that any president will honor any deal to step down or that a president can be forced down is refuted by history thus far. All theories that Biden is scheduled to be terminated are silly. Or worse, attempts to race bait Harris (note the ones who like to call her by her first name.) The influence exercised by Obama in getting Biden the nomination shows that if Biden is in any sense a puppet, he's Obama's puppet. Fixating on Harris instead is foolish even as some sort of amateur conspiracy mongering. No matter what Obama thinks, the inauguration will sever all puppet strings. Posted by: steven t johnson | Oct 31 2020 17:31 utc | 6 Posted by: ToivoS | Oct 31 2020 17:25 utc | 4 Can't say I'm convinced by all these threats of wars. They didn't do a No-Fly Zone in Syria when they could, e.g. 2013. The reason it was not done is that it was too difficult to do, and required too vast a military investment. Situation remains true today. You'll find most of Biden's prospective wars fall in the same category. Posted by: Laguerre | Oct 31 2020 17:36 utc | 7 The US self-declared “progressives” are horribly dumb people, no matter their degrees and “intellectual” professions. Stupidity is the illness (weakness) of the societal immunity system. The Blob of the parasitic class is the pestilence that thrives on the immune weakness of the US society. Not happy with mine, then find a better metaphor. I repeat myself from before, US presidents change, US policy (Mayhem Inc.) does not. Nether on Russia, Syria, Iran, Venezuela ..., nor on China. If Trump loses, I will miss only the potential duel at the OK Corral between Trump and the Blob/Swamp. If Trmp wins, I am buying popcorn. Posted by: Kiza | Oct 31 2020 17:40 utc | 8 @Laguerre #7 Posted by: c1ue | Oct 31 2020 17:51 utc | 10 More pearl-clutching for Trump. It's everywhere. And matched by Democratic Party ineptitude, fake "resistance", and generally lax attitude (spurred by a false sense of security due to polling numbers that can't be relied upon). That's why I'm predicting a Trump landslide - including winning the popular vote. The Deep State wants a 'Glorious Leader' type that can lead the country against Russia and China. God help us!! Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 31 2020 17:55 utc | 11 Posted by: c1ue | Oct 31 2020 17:51 utc | 10 Not a policy change, more that the military will have advised against it, the same problem that has always prevented an attack on Iran. Posted by: Laguerre | Oct 31 2020 17:56 utc | 12 KB has it right the demodogs will have better PR but nothing will change. The only thing I hope they do is fully throw the u.s. govt behind stopping the virus and even that will be hard do to many stupid people. Trumpster and the swamp all he did was change the cruel animals in it and biden will change it back to the other cruel animals that were there before. Posted by: jo6pac | Oct 31 2020 17:59 utc | 13 It is hard to tell what will change if the Democrats win because they have flip flopped on policies so many times that you don’t know what they really stand for. Are they going to ban fracking or not? Other than #OrangeManBad what do they actually stand for ? The one issue that is critical is that it is clear than Biden will not make it full term. His mental faculties are deteriorating rapidly. He might just make it over the goal post line but just barely. Therefore the real question is what will Kamala Harris do? Russia has a lead in strategic weapons that the US will not be able to catch up with. Hence the US emphasis on nuclear weapons to bridge the gap. Russia has successfully thwarted the empire on several occasions. How will the empire struck back ? (So as not to lose credibility with allies and vassals alike) There are too many unknowns. Posted by: Down South | Oct 31 2020 18:00 utc | 14 Another look at what a Biden win may mean by Philip Giraldi. Posted by: Down South | Oct 31 2020 18:06 utc | 15 They are going to reduce government subsidies for fracking Kamala Harris will keep an active and high profile as she is being groomed to run in 2024 Posted by: Malchik Ralf | Oct 31 2020 18:08 utc | 16 I agree that trajectory in foreign policy will be the same. I think a Trump administration would tend to entrench into the bureaucracy the xenophobic nationalists. This is in contrast to the neoliberal nationalists that make up the Democrat side of the foreign policy clique. In practice the latter ends up carrying water for the neocons, so the difference from the global perspective, the perspective of those on whom the bombs fall, is academic. Domestically, however, I don't think we can say there's no significant difference. At some point far down the road, there will be a more meaningful internal political struggle in the US. Talking about when the $$ printing power runs out, so several presidential cycles from now at the very earliest, maybe many decades away. The out-groups targeted by xenophobic nationalism will shift by then - either black or hispanic people will necessarily be included into the Republican party, and the divide may be more a matter of religion or nationality than race, but the overall idea will be the same. No matter the details, it would be better to go into that conflict without giving the right-wingers a big head start. I think we should admit that Trump does accelerate the process. Maybe readers outside the US take some pleasure in the chaos produced by this, but for anyone actually planning to live within the US, who also objects to unrestrained nationalism, there actually is a pretty high price to pay for peeling off the mask of phony benevolence off of the de-facto imperialist foreign policy. Posted by: ptb | Oct 31 2020 18:20 utc | 17 |
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One major change I expect to see is that BLM protests will fade into the background if Harris/Biden is elected. Without the need to pressure an administration the elites want to get rid of, there won't be the funding and energy to sustain it. But America will continue on the same downward trajectory and the same divisions will still exist with no remediation in sight.
Posted by: worldblee | Oct 31 2020 17:02 utc | 1