Why vote Trump? To let Israel win
OpinionGuest columnist

Why vote Trump? To let Israel win

Trump has said Israel should end the war, and fast.

President Donald Trump speaking at a campaign rally in Goodyear, Arizona, in October 2020 (Photo by Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons)
President Donald Trump speaking at a campaign rally in Goodyear, Arizona, in October 2020 (Photo by Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons)

The upcoming presidential contest between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is a foreign policy election. Of course, Pennsylvanians have important domestic concerns to consider, but the president of the United States is first and foremost the person charged with making sure the country is safe. Voters can review each candidate’s foreign policy record to judge what they might do over the coming four years. And we can and should look at the foreign policy experts and advisers surrounding Trump and Harris for further evidence of the direction of their prospective presidencies.

Why is foreign policy so important this year? Here’s the assessment by the bipartisan Commission on the National Defense Strategy from its July report: “The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for near-term major war. … The nation … is not prepared today.”

If the United States is unprepared, what does this mean when it comes to our allies already fighting the terrorists, adversaries and enemies? Think of Israel, especially. The Jewish state is the fighting front line, while locally, especially on our college campuses — at the University of Pittsburgh, at Carnegie Mellon, at Penn, at Temple, among others — the war against Israel and the rest of the West has manifested in physical attacks on students, encampments, harassment, intimidation, trespassing and destruction of university property.

Given the threats facing the United States, both externally and internally, voters would be wise to reasonably assess the two candidates’ views and the foreign policy advisers who will accompany them to the White House.

Vice President Kamala Harris has had one of the best seats in the house for the past three years. She praises some of the positions taken by the administration in which she serves — the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the attempted realignment with Iran.

First and foremost among Harris’ advisers is Phil Gordon, a likely pick for national security adviser or secretary of state. Gordon’s position on Iran goes back to his time working at the State Department during the Obama administration, where he was part of the negotiating team of the Iran nuclear deal. Back then, he was a cheerleader for a more collaborative U.S.-Iran relationship. In 2014, for example, Gordon told the National Iranian American Council that “a nuclear agreement [with Iran] could begin a multi-generational process that could lead to a new relationship between our countries.”

In 2018, he admitted that the U.S. negotiating position toward Iran had been minimalist. Gordon told NPR how any effort to “constrain Iranian regional behavior, have the deal last forever — of course that would have been terrific. But it just wasn’t possible.”

Gordon’s 2020 book is entitled, “Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East,” in which he argues that regime change has never been and never will be the answer when it comes to our adversaries in the Middle East.

As part of the Biden-Harris administration Gordon has been a critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while downplaying the threat posed by an enriched (by the Biden administration) and therefore emboldened Iranian regime.

Neither President Biden, nor Harris, nor Gordon suggest that Israel could or should win its war against Iran and its terror armies — the Houthis, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hezbollah. Harris supports Israel’s right to defend itself but has simultaneously proclaimed the need to restrain Israel’s response to attack; she has neglected to hold Hamas or Hezbollah to account for terrorizing Palestinians, Lebanese, as well as Israelis; and like our very own “Squad” member, Rep. Summer Lee, Harris has indulged in the possibility of an arms embargo against Israel.

Trump had different policies when he was president, has a different view of the current war, and has different foreign policy advisers. On Iran, he worked to restrain rather than enrich Iran; he withdrew from the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal; and he takes credit for ordering the successful assassination In January 2020 of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force. Trump has said Israel should end the war, and fast.

Current foreign policy advisers to Trump include his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who on Oct. 2 told an audience in London that “we should all be worried about getting dragged into another war in the Middle East — that’s why Iran has to be crushed.” Pompeo added that since the problem lies in Tehran, and that “every peace-loving nation” should stand with Israel 100%, the Iranian regime must be defeated. “This is how you avoid a war in the Middle East,” he declared.

This is a foreign policy election. The United States isn’t prepared for the threats we face, and our closest ally in the Middle East — Israel —is fighting a war against our collective adversary and its terror proxies. For all these reasons — if you want the U.S. to be strong and safe, and if you want Israel to win — the clear choice is Donald Trump for president. PJC

Abby W. Schachter is a writer living in Regent Square.

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