Cautious Optimism: Harris’s Potential Shift from Biden’s Foreign Policy

After U.S. President Joe Biden made an unprecedented decision to end his re-election campaign and endorse his Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidential election, gaining significant support from Democrats, we need to ask: how will her foreign policy look if she wins in November?

Some believe that Harris will have a broad continuity of Biden’s overall approach to the world, but there is some evidence that Harris might steer U.S. foreign policy in a “less destructive” direction than it was under Biden, according to the American website Responsible Statecraft.

What Foreign Policy Experience Does Harris Have?

First of all, it should be remembered that Harris did not run for the presidency in 2020 on a foreign policy platform and has relatively modest experience in foreign policy from her short tenure in the Senate and her time as Vice President.

While she cast several decisive votes within the Democratic bloc for Biden’s domestic agenda in the Senate, she played a smaller role in foreign policy by representing the United States at international meetings that the President could not attend. Biden tasked her with focusing on the “root causes” of the illegal immigration crisis from Latin America at the southern border of the United States, which garnered mixed views at best about her capabilities, according to a report by CBS News.

Meanwhile, her voting record in the Senate offers some “bright spots,” including her opposition to U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen and her early opposition to arms deals with Riyadh. She joined her Democratic colleagues in objecting to Trump’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and was generally supportive of arms control and non-proliferation measures.

During her 2020 presidential campaign, she indicated openness to “reforming the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that governs current U.S. military conflicts.” While Harris has a history of warm relations with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), she described Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal as “reckless” during the 2020 campaign and pledged to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) if she became President.

How Will Harris’s Stance on the Gaza War and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Be?

According to the American website Responsible Statecraft, no one should expect any “radical reforms” in foreign policy under Harris’s leadership. She is described as a “traditional liberal internationalist for better or worse” by the American website.

There are some indications that she might adopt a different approach to the Gaza war than Biden, but these have mostly been differences in tone rather than significant policy disagreements so far. In contrast to the President, Harris has shown “more genuine” empathy towards the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. She called for a ceasefire earlier than Biden did, but generally followed the U.S. administration’s script as one would expect from the Vice President’s role.

Indeed, her position as Vice President required Harris to be a vocal supporter of the President’s policy agenda, so we will have to wait to see Harris’s views and how they might differ from Biden’s on the Middle East conflict.

Her previous opposition to supporting the Saudi coalition in Yemen suggests she might be more open to scaling back or ending U.S. support for the war in Gaza, but that remains to be seen. Given all the political headaches Biden is facing in swing states like Michigan, it’s clear that the Gaza war is one of the issues Harris might benefit from by distancing herself from the current administration’s policy, according to the American website.

Meanwhile, some government officials who resigned in protest over U.S. support for the war in Gaza are cautiously optimistic about Harris’s support. After Biden’s unconditional backing of the war, any alternative is seen as an improvement in the U.S. position from their perspective.

Josh Paul, the first State Department official to resign in protest over Biden’s stance on the war, told Politico: “I feel cautious and limited optimism, but I also feel relieved that the Democratic Party will not nominate for the presidency a man who made us all complicit in a lot of unnecessary harm.”

Harris’s Potential Foreign Policy Advisor Gives Reasons for Hope

It is said that the Vice President relies heavily on her foreign policy advisors, so it is worth taking a closer look at the thinking of her current National Security Advisor, Philip Gordon, who is expected to hold this position if Harris is elected.

Gordon is a veteran of the Clinton and Obama administrations with a background in European and Middle Eastern affairs. He was one of the U.S. negotiators responsible for securing the JCPOA with Iran. After leaving government, he became one of the most vocal defenders of the agreement.

Gordon has shown that he understands the Iranian government better than many of his colleagues, which could be very beneficial in reviving negotiations with Iran under its new reformist president, Massoud Bazekian.

Gordon has absorbed some important lessons from the failures of U.S. foreign policy, including the catastrophic interventions in the Middle East and North Africa, and detailed these lessons in his book “Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East.” The book reviews the history of major U.S. regime change policies over the past seventy years, showing in each case how these policies ended up leaving the U.S. and the affected countries in a catastrophic and worse state.

Notably, Gordon criticized the destructive interventions of the Obama administration as sharply as he criticized the policies of other presidents. Some analysts see Gordon’s role as a key advisor to Harris as an encouraging sign that her foreign policy could be better than Biden’s.

Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, CEO of Bourse & Bazaar, commented: “Gordon would be a significant upgrade from Sullivan, especially when it comes to a thoughtful approach to the U.S. role in the Middle East.”

There may not be many deviations from Biden’s foreign policy under Harris’s leadership. As Biden’s Vice President and potential successor, Harris has strong incentives to continue his agenda. However, there are a few reasons to hope that U.S. foreign policy could be smarter, more constructive, and more positive towards the Middle East if Harris takes Gordon’s better advice seriously.