In 2020, the Democrats released a platform whose foreign policy section was greeted with cautious optimism by the party’s progressive wing. The document called for an end to “forever wars,” a reinvigoration of congressional war powers, a strategic cut to the Pentagon budget, and an end to the Trump-era “blank check” policy toward Gulf countries, among other priorities. It was, in the words of The Intercept, “a sign of how far the party’s center of gravity has shifted in four years.”
Four years later, the center of gravity appears to have shifted almost as far—right back to where it had previously been. The foreign policy section of the party’s 2024 platform largely reads as if the 2020 version never existed. The party, it seems, is proudly hawkish once again.
Since the platform’s release on Sunday, much of the attention understandably has focused on its position on Israel’s war on Gaza. It effectively repeats, and praises, Biden’s policy: calling for “an immediate and lasting ceasefire deal” that “addresses the immense civilian pain and extreme suffering being caused by the conflict, including the displacement and death of so many innocent people in Gaza; results in a durable end to the war in Gaza; and sets the stage for a lasting regional peace”—but refusing to propose the use of any meaningful leverage, such as ending the sale and shipment of arms to Israel, that could hasten such a deal.
But perhaps the most striking passage pertains to Iran. In 2020, the platform criticized Donald Trump for his “race to war with Iran.” While this year’s version reiterates the call to restore the Obama-era nuclear deal, it celebrates Biden’s use of military force against Iranian-linked groups while painting Trump as too soft with Tehran.
“Biden has postured U.S. military forces in the region and authorized precision airstrikes on key Iranian-linked targets tied to attacks against U.S. troops to deter further aggression by Iran,” it states, noting strikes in Iraq and Yemen. “All of this stands in sharp contrast to Trump’s fecklessness and weakness in the face of Iranian aggression during his presidency.” And yet, it conveniently doesn’t mention the Trump-era airstrike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani; had this happened under Biden, one suspects that the platform would have bragged about it.
That assassination, of course, brought Washington and Tehran to the brink of war. And so has Israel’s war in Gaza. While an all-out war in the region has so far been avoided, the risk of a major conflagration will persist so long as the war drags on and the U.S. and Israel exchange airstrikes with Iran and its allies. If Biden wants a “lasting regional peace,” the evidence suggests that a cease-fire in Gaza is the best way to achieve it.
In the platform four years ago, the language concerning Saudi Arabia was largely dedicated to calling for the end of U.S. support for Riyadh’s devastating war on Yemen. And as a candidate, Biden pledged to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah.” But he has eroded that promise little by little, and earlier this month, the administration lifted its yearslong ban on providing the Kingdom with offensive weaponry. So it’s perhaps no surprise that the 2024 platform touts his administration’s plan for a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which it believes will bring peace and stability to the Middle East. But such a deal, which has been in the works for months, only contains vague promises of an undefined Palestinian state while providing Riyadh with a security guarantee that could commit U.S. soldiers to defending the Kingdom. The October 7 attacks and subsequent war make clear that the Trump-era Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and other Arab states—and on which this plan is based—did nothing to promote peace in the region.
The 2020 platform included a section on ending forever wars and the lessons that should be learned from decades of misguided military interventions, including opposition to regime change and the need for informed consent to war from the American public and its elected representatives in Congress. That has been completely removed in the 2024 platform. (The administration’s major accomplishment in this realm—the end of the war in Afghanistan—receives only one sentence.) Also absent is the section arguing for the balancing of defense spending with other foreign and domestic priorities; instead, the entire platform ends with a section titled “Strongest Military in the World.”
These shifts reflect the Biden administration’s—and the party’s—drift away from the goals of the 2020 platform. By continuing its unconditional support of Israel, Democrats in Washington are making it more likely that the U.S. will engage in the kind of military intervention in the Middle East that the party disavowed four years ago. Likewise, it’s no wonder that support for congressional war powers was axed from the platform, given that since October 7 the U.S. has used military force in Syria, Iraq, and the Red Sea without approval from the legislature.
The Democratic platform abandons the progress made in 2020 in more subtle ways, too. The last platform noted that “when misused and overused, sanctions not only undermine our interests, they threaten one of the United States’ greatest strategic assets: the importance of the American financial system.” But the Biden administration has done little to meaningfully reform the sanctions regime, and the new platform does not repeat these concerns about overuse. Both platforms call for competition with China, but in 2020 it said that Democrats would do so while avoiding the trap of a “new Cold War”—language that does not appear this time around.
Biden arrived at the White House pledging to reinvigorate American foreign policy with his vision to bolster democracy, human rights, and diplomacy. After some early successes—such as the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the strengthening of constraints on drone use, and the pledge not to send U.S. troops to Eastern Europe while continuing to support Ukraine after Russia’s invasion—his administration’s unconditional support for Israel’s war in Gaza has scrambled his legacy and forced an unfortunate reversal in the party’s stated positions. But Biden won’t be the party’s leader for long, so it’s time to start asking Vice President Kamala Harris: Are these your foreign policy positions, too?
