The NPR Politics Podcast - Biden's Foreign Policy Dilemma

Episode Date: December 26, 2023

This year saw the continuation of the Russia-Ukraine war and the start of the latest Israel-Hamas war. President Biden's response risks fracturing his base in 2024.This episode: political correspondent Sarah McCammon, White House correspondent Asma Khalid, and national security correspondent Greg Myre.This episode was edited by Erica Morrison. It was produced by Jeongyoon Han and Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And I'm Greg Myrie. I cover national security. Today, we're taking a look at the year in foreign policy and what a significant year it has been. The wars abroad have reshaped both global and domestic politics. And Greg, I want to start with you. You've spent time in both global and domestic politics. And Greg, I want to start with you. You've spent time in both Israel and Ukraine doing some really wonderful reporting. And I want to talk first about the war between Israel and Hamas. It's been just a few months since Hamas invaded Israel from Gaza. It comes after decades of conflict, but this war has been particularly

deadly. Put this in perspective for us, if you would, Greg. How do you assess the current status of that war, and also where it may be going? Sure, Sarah. The Hamas attack on October 7th was unprecedented in its scope and scale, and Israel launched a major offensive against Hamas. It's been going on for over two months now, and the goal in this conflict is different from all the previous fighting we've seen between Israel and Hamas over the past couple decades. been going on for over two months now, and the goal in this conflict is different from all the previous fighting we've seen between Israel and Hamas over the past couple decades. Israel says its intent is to destroy Hamas this time, not just to degrade it. Israel has bombed Gaza every day for more than two months. Its troops have largely taken over the northern part of Gaza and are now pushing into the southern part. They're really focused on the largest city in

southern Gaza, Han Yunis. They believe a lot of the Hamas leaders are going there. Hamas is still able to respond with fighting on the ground, so we're seeing intensive combat operations on both sides there. But Israel is absolutely unchallenged from the sky and has continued this heavy bombing campaign. Israel says it's now entering a new phase of the war, but we don't quite know what that means yet, and we certainly don't want to make any predictions about how long this might carry on. Now, the war between Russia and Ukraine is getting close to two years. It's becoming another long-running war. How would you characterize the situation there and how it has evolved, particularly over this last year? You know, over the last year, the front line has barely budged. We saw a lot of movement last year where the Russians initially gained a lot of

territory, and then at the end of last year, the Ukrainians gained a lot of territory. And then at the end of last year, the Ukrainians recovered a significant portion of that territory. The Ukrainians had this big offensive announced to much fanfare that took place this summer and fall. Their gains were very, very limited. And even by their own estimation, it was disappointing. They had expected to gain a lot more territory. So we haven't seen much movement on the front lines. There are some other things going on. The Ukrainians have been able to push back against the Russian fleet, naval fleet, in the Black Sea and been able to export some grain through the Black Sea.

So things continue to evolve, but we're just not seeing a lot of movement on the front line. This winter, we'll be looking to see if Russia again tries to knock out Ukraine's electricity grid in the winter. That was a big problem for Ukraine last winter. They survived it. They say they're better positioned this year. So the fighting is still very much going on every single day. We're just not seeing a lot of advances by either side. And, you know, Asma, these wars, particularly the war in Israel,

have been challenging for the Biden administration. The president's approval ratings were already low and they've suffered, particularly since the Israel-Hamas war began. Polling consistently shows Americans disapprove of the way Biden is dealing with that conflict. How have you seen him respond to that? How has his tone shifted as he talks about particularly the Israel-Gaza war in recent months? Well, the White House, I think, would sort of disagree with the assessment that any of the adjustments that you've heard from the Biden administration are because of polling. They say that the president's foreign policy vision, particularly on this issue of Israel and Hamas, is very much geared from his thinking over many years in this conflict. I'm sure many listeners know that the president spent many, many years dealing with these issues when he was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But to your point, Sarah, I mean, we have heard public rhetoric from the president begin to shift, I would say, around kind of mid-December. For the first two months ever since

the October 7th attacks, for the first two months of this conflict, broadly what we heard from the president and from his officials is that the United States stands strongly with Israel, that it believes Israel has a right, not only a right, but a duty to defend itself against those attacks. And multiple times in the briefing room, reporters would ask whether there were any red lines for Israel. And these moments kind of got a lot of attention because you'd hear the national security spokesman, John Kirby, essentially say that, no, the Biden administration was not calling for any red lines. What you heard from the president, I would say, kind of a couple of instances in mid-December. One was at a closed-door fundraiser, meaning there were no cameras in the room, just reporters taking notes.

He referred to Israel's, quote, indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. And really, Sarah, those are noteworthy words. We had not heard anybody in the administration use language like that prior to also made some comments where he said that essentially he wants Israel to focus more on limiting civilian casualties in Gaza. He said that, you know, he reaffirmed they have this right still, but he was public in saying that. And he had not to date been as public in any criticism of how the Israeli military was operating. Now, Greg, I want to talk more about the global picture as well. You know, the U.S., as Asma alluded to, has been a supporter of Israel for a long time. But as the death toll mounts from the war, there have been growing calls, not just domestically,

but globally for a ceasefire. Is the U.S. becoming more isolated when it comes to its approach to Israel? So I think the U.S. is very much isolated internationally here, but a couple things I would add. One, that's not new. That has been the case internationally in the past, where we've seen the U.S. support Israel militarily. By far and away, it's its leading military supporter, providing about $4 billion a year. What is different this time is Israel's goal in dealing with Hamas. In these past conflicts, which have popped up every few years for the past 15 or 20 years, Israel has just tried to degrade Hamas, limit their military capabilities. And then after a couple weeks,

several weeks of fighting, the U.S. would send a pretty strong and clear message to Israel, okay, time to wrap this up, international pressure is building, and generally the Israelis would do that. This time, Israel's goal is to absolutely destroy Hamas, deplete their military capabilities, go after their political leaders, and Israel is saying Hamas will never again rule Gaza. So that makes very clear that it would be a much longer and more sustained military operation, and therefore Israel may not be listening to the U.S. in the way that it has in the past, and that this campaign could go on much longer. So yes, the U.S. is more and more standing alone as it supports Israel in this campaign and is indeed seeking more military assistance for Israel at this stage. And I think that's going to be a very key issue as we see this war play out.

And this time it could play out for a much longer period than in the previous conflicts between Israel and Hamas. You know, the other thing I think is worth keeping in mind here, and you hear this often from White House officials, even back to the 2021 conflict between Israel and Hamas, you know, White House officials at the time told me that there was a lot of back channeling privately with Biden administration officials and the Israeli government to essentially at that time calm down tensions. This is an administration, This is a president who believes in the power of private diplomacy. I think the challenge this time is that the dynamic is different.

The Democratic Party has divisions internally when it comes to Israel. There is a subset of the Democratic Party that supports how the president is handling the conflict. But there's also a faction of the party, particularly younger voters, many voters of color, who feel that Israel's military response has been too much and they would like to see a ceasefire. You know, Greg, it occurs to me we're seeing the domestic politics have shifted around this issue, as Asma was just saying. And you were saying that Israel's strategy and Israel's goal is different in this war. What accounts for that difference? Why is this an all-out war to end Hamas as opposed to sort of blunt its effect as it has been in the past, as you said? In the past couple years, Israel had been pursuing a policy called quiet for quiet, that if it was not receiving attacks from Gaza by Hamas, Israel was doing certain things like

allowing workers from Gaza to come into Israel. It was allowing financial support from Qatar to reach Gaza in the hope that that would keep things calm. But this attack was so unprecedented in scale with about 1,200 people killed, so shocking, so surprising to Israel that its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, and broadly the Israeli public said, we can't allow this to happen again or be in a position where this could happen again. Therefore, we have to completely eradicate Hamas in Gaza. That position is broadly supported by the Israeli public. That was very clear during my recent time there. But it means a much, much bigger operation. And as we're seeing, huge civilian casualties, enormous destruction of the

infrastructure in Gaza. So we're just seeing something that both was an unprecedented attack by Hamas and an unprecedented response by Israel, which suggests this war, this fighting could go on for many months to come. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Hey, it's Asma Khalid. As the year wraps up and we're reflecting on a huge year of political news with an even bigger year coming up in 2024 with a general election, we will continue working to help you keep up with all the political news happening in Washington, D.C. and around the country.

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And thanks. And we're back. You know, Asma, I want to talk a little bit more about domestic politics, because this conflict, particularly in Israel, and also the conflict in Ukraine, have been so controversial in so many different kind of interesting ways that I think reveal fractures in both parties. There's been a lot of pushback, first of all, in Congress to the president's response to the wars, and a lot of that has centered around questions of funding. How are you seeing these debates play out? I mean, some of this is partisan, right? You're seeing a subset of the electorate who are Republicans who just disapprove of anything President Biden does. And this filters down to how he's handling both wars in Ukraine and Gaza as well. But what I think is different here, Sarah, is that I would say I don't think in all my years of really covering voters and demographics, I have come across an issue that is so deeply divided the Democratic Party as the war in Gaza is. You're seeing death toll estimates in Gaza of 20,000 people,

many civilian women and children. And so you're seeing, you know, outspoken members of Biden's own party. You're seeing some elected officials say that this this is too high of a toll. They're calling for a ceasefire. This is a sort of deep divide within the Democratic Party. And I don't know how entirely it's going to get resolved, because ultimately what some members of the Democratic Party want is a ceasefire. They want a different policy. And I'm not convinced that Biden is going to be willing to give them the policy that they want. And when it comes to Republicans, you mentioned

earlier, there's some degree certainly of partisan opposition to anything that Biden does. But there's also a fracture in the Republican Party about whether or not to fund Ukraine. That's right. And you see some members, particularly in the Republican House, who do not want to support additional funding. I mean, what I'm struck by here is that you see members of the progressive Democratic Party, right, and you see kind of a populist flank in the Republican Party, both calling for the same thing to some varying degree, which is that they don't want American taxpayer dollars being used to fund wars abroad. Very different reasons, perhaps, of why they don't want to do these things.

But they're coming to a somewhat similar conclusion. At this point, you know, by the end of the year, what you're seeing is Congress has not been able to get funding for Israel and Ukraine. And Greg, it does kind of raise the question as we look ahead to next year, where does this go? What is the U.S. role in these conflicts, particularly if the administration is struggling even to get funding for these two wars? I think the one thing we can say? What is the U.S. role in these conflicts, particularly if the administration is struggling even to get funding for these two wars? I think the one thing we can say for sure. It's galvanized 50 nations to support Ukraine politically, financially, with weapons. And certainly the U.S., to a large extent by itself, is the leading supporter of Israel. I don't think those things are going to change dramatically.

What I do think is different, which is something Asma just noted, is that U.S. foreign policy used to be pretty bipartisan in most cases. There was this notion dating back generations that politics ends at the water's edge and that opposition parties would usually support an administration on large questions of war and peace. That's completely broken down. Foreign policy is now another partisan issue. And as Asma noted, even within the Democratic Party, there's this huge divide over Israel and its U.S. role in that war. So I think the U.S. is going to continue playing a large role. President Biden, I think, is going to push to support Israel and Ukraine with weapons and to support them politically. But it may have a big impact in terms of U.S. standing internationally and the U.S. election

domestically. Now, Asma, I know you've reported that these were not the fights that President Biden necessarily wanted to have to weigh into and be involved in leading the country through, but you don't get to choose when you're president. How much have the wars in both Ukraine and Israel derailed or even refocused his goals? And what is this year meant for Biden's vision for foreign policy? I think it's fundamentally shifted the president's foreign policy legacy. He came into office really wanting to focus on the Indo-Pacific, specifically China. He had wanted to really align allies around the globe. And he talked about coming into office, rebuilding some relationships that he felt his predecessor,

Donald Trump, had severed, that he said America is back and it was going to be this big fight between autocracies and democracies. That's the vision with which he saw the world. And some would say it's been a little bit murkier of a fight, right? I mean, there were previously questions about the health of Israel's democracy under Netanyahu prior to October 7th. Now, Biden is very strongly standing with the current government of Israel. So it's raised, I think, questions sort of from a sort of broad vision of what he wanted to do on foreign policy. But it's also meant that, you know, a war in Ukraine and a war in Gaza has just attracted a lot of attention. It's certainly attracted a lot of money, a lot of headspace that could otherwise have been spent on really focusing on China, focusing on ways for which the United States to compete more effectively with China. And the other thing I want to mention, you know,

you were just saying, Greg, foreign policy was often bipartisan. China is, you know, intriguingly one of the issues or one of the countries that actually does, I would say, elicit bipartisan support taking on China. In some ways, Israel and funding now for Ukraine have, you know, exposed some partisan fights. But thus far, you do see strong support of China. The challenge for President Biden is that he hasn't been able to, you know, focus 100% of his attention on that issue right now. And Asma, I just add one more thing. From my time in Ukraine and in Israel, President Biden is hugely popular in both of those countries for the support politically and in terms of weapons that he's provided to both of those countries. So he has very high public support in those countries, even as those policies have been divisive at home.

That's where we will leave it for today. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And I'm Greg Myrie. I cover national security. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.