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Sen. Joe Biden: World's Confidence in U.S. Lost
In the most worrisome world development in recent years, Russia has done an about-face on democracy while the United States looked the other way, the U.S. Senate's most influential voice on foreign policy says. Sen. Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential hopeful and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said other global challenges have been neglected while Washington was preoccupied with Iraq, including a stalled nuclear deal with India and turmoil elsewhere in the Middle East. But "the most worrisome development of the last five or six years, is the about-face in democracy in Russia," Biden told Reuters in an interview. "Because of the need to keep Russia silent on the blunders of Iraq and our actions, they (the administration of President Bush) essentially turned the other way on what was . . . the authoritarian bent of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin," he said.
Story Continues Below The United States has been unable to lead Europe in a coherent response to "some of the most egregious actions of Russia," Biden said. These included Russia's "direct attempt" to undermine the "Orange Revolution" in neighboring Ukraine and democratization movements at home, he said. Putin's leverage was that he was "swimming in oil." Biden, 64, from Delaware, said that if he were in the White House he would try to develop an energy policy that would free the United States from having to respond to such "blackmail." His candidacy is considered a long shot, although he has long experience on the national scene, having first been elected to the Senate in 1972. Biden has been the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations panel since 1997, was chairman from June 2001 to the end of 2002 and became chair again this year. Biden's language veered between the diplomatic and the scathing as he critiqued U.S. "incompetence" in foreign policy under the Republican Bush administration. Not only had the United States disengaged from other global problems because of Iraq, but U.S. credibility had crashed as its Iraq policy failed, he said. Hardly anyone would take American advice now because "the world has very little confidence in our judgment," he said. "Ask yourself the rhetorical question: what nation in the world, including Israel, today, would be inclined to take a major initiative by this administration for their benefit and say, 'Let's embrace that, they probably know what they are doing.'?" he said.
As for Bush's veto Tuesday of the Iraq war funding bill to which Democrats had attached a troop withdrawal timetable, Biden said Democrats should keep sending the same bill back to Bush, even if he vetoes it again, as long as they have the votes to do so. "Just keep the pressure on . . . continue to have this debate in the public, because the public supports us," he said. Eventually, he said, more Republicans would "crack" as elections approached. "If the (2008 national) election were this November, this would be over," Biden said. Even if Democrats drop the withdrawal timeline but convince Bush to accept the rest of the bill, U.S. troop numbers in Iraq would still be reduced, because the legislation calls for redefining their mission to training Iraqis, force protection and limited engagements against al Qaeda, he said. "If he (Bush) buys into the redefinition of the mission, he doesn't need 160,000 troops," Biden said.
© Reuters 2007.
Editor's note:
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2008 Presidential Race
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