Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy strategy? Deflect. In place of laying out substantive foreign policy proposals to help combat terrorism, Sanders attempts to hide his thin credentials time and time again by invoking his Iraq War vote.
Politico: Sanders’s campaign often invokes his vote against the Iraq war as a trump card against attacks over his foreign policy chops. [Politico, 1/30/16]
Daily Beast: On foreign policy, Bernie Sanders “had no chops beyond saying I voted against Iraq.” [Tomasky column, Daily Beast, 2/5/16]
Asked about North Korea, Sanders did not mention North Korea in his answer and talked about Clinton’s Iraq War vote. “Senator Bernie Sanders was asked on Sunday about the North Korean missile launch that took place while he was appearing the previous night on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ and he answered without once discussing how he would contain or confront the renegade nuclear state, or persuade China to control its ally. In fact, he never once mentioned North Korea, telling his interviewer, John Dickerson of CBS News, that Hillary Clinton had ‘voted for the war’ — the Iraq war, 14 years ago — and reassuring him that ‘I can put together a strong team to provide great foreign policy.’” [New York Times, 2/8/16]