Gaza Tests Biden Foreign Policy Team s Promise To Learn From Obama-Era Mistakes
No Biden staffers who signed a letter regretting Obama s Yemen policy would say on the record how the administration s support of Israel s bombardment is different.
Two years before Joe Biden won the presidency, 30 national security experts who worked with him under President Barack Obama published a high-profile mea culpa. They called their policy of supporting the Saudi Arabia-led military campaign in Yemen a “failure,” citing how it hurt civilians, and urged then-President Donald Trump to end it.
The move had big implications for U.S. foreign policy. Critically, it acknowledged that Washington’s pattern of arming and aiding other nations made Americans complicit in their actions ― a truth that the Obama administration spent years denying with regard to Yemen.
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With Nicholas Wu, Burgess Everett, Marianne LeVine and Sarah Ferris.
THE YAY-SAYERS: Alright, alright, alright, your Huddle host and Mel have a tentative, partial whip list of GOP members we believe will vote in favor of the Jan. 6 commission. It isn’t comprehensive some members wouldn’t say how they are voting. Others said on the eve of the vote that they aren’t sure and want to further review the terms of the agreement. But here is what we found:
May 19, 2021
A group of progressive Democrats in the US House of Representatives is planning to introduce a joint resolution to block the Biden administration’s planned $735 million sale of bombs and JDAM guidance kits to Israel amid the ongoing conflict with Gaza.
The move is unlikely to pass, and the window to consider the measure has largely closed.
But it marks a major milestone in rising opposition among progressive lawmakers to US military support for Israel amid the Benjamin Netanyahu government’s policies toward the Palestinians.
“The United States should be prioritizing humanitarian aid and upholding human rights, not rushing through arms sales that could fuel further violence,” read a statement by the lawmakers provided to Al-Monitor.
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Predictions that the Taliban will quickly overrun Afghan government forces and conquer Kabul once U.S. and coalition forces have fully withdrawn are unduly pessimistic, Washington’s special envoy to Afghanistan said Tuesday.
“I personally believe that the statements that their forces will disintegrate and the Talibs will take over in short order are mistaken,” Zalmay Khalilzad told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, whose members expressed deep worry that President Joe Biden’s decision to fully withdraw by September will lead to chaos and intensified civil war.
Lawmakers are not alone in their skepticism that a fractious Afghan government can withstand a potential Taliban onslaught. Some senior U.S. military leaders had preferred keeping a U.S. troop presence as a hedge. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has held out hope that Afghan forces can hold up if Washington continues some forms of support, but he told reporters as the U.S. wi