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Biden’s Hawkish Foreign Policy Could Derail Moves to Fight Austerity, Sam Knight, Truthout, January 31, 2021  In his first days in office, President Joe Biden has signaled a willingness to disavow austerity policies and expand public benefits, sparking cautious optimism about whether his administration could succeed in minimizing damage done by the coronavirus pandemic.

But Biden is at risk of repeating similar mistakes made by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who promised more relief to the poor than he could deliver because of his decision to escalate conflict in Vietnam……..

Today, President Biden is at risk of making comparable missteps. Though his plans to “build back better” are far less ambitious and coherent than LBJ’s “War on Poverty,” basic government action has the potential to prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths and the immiseration of millions, given the ongoing health and economic crises. But while Biden has made moves on the recovery front that have given some cause for cautious optimism — most notably, by disavowing austerity — he isn’t doing all he can to foreclose on the possibility of the U.S. military stirring up trouble all over the world, in developments that would likely derail his domestic agenda.

On two major fronts, Biden represents a clear improvement over Donald Trump: The newly inaugurated president, like his predecessor, will attempt to make overtures to Cuba and Iran. ……..

…. Biden has also shown some promise by declaring that the U.S. will cease its support for Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war in Yemen, even if his declaration was vague and unconvincing.

But in almost every other regard, the benefits of the Biden administration’s foreign policy are much less obvious, and could leave the U.S. wreaking havoc on every continent in the world except Antarctica.

With respect to South America, the president is doing little to change course on a Venezuela regime change policy…….

Regime change is also critical to the Biden administration’s policy toward Syria……

On the other side of Asia, there are also worrying signs. Blinken said during his confirmation hearing that, “Trump was right in taking a tougher approach to China.” Biden himself has taken things further: He accused his predecessor of being “soft” on China, and vowed to “pressure, isolate and punish” the country. Biden did not specify his reasons, but nationalistic Americans have been salivating at the thought of “punishing” China in light of the COVID-19 pandemic’s origins in Wuhan.  ……….

With respect to Russia, the other great power that the ruling class loves to cite as a bogeyman, Biden is also aiming to be the tough guy. As vice president, he clashed with President Obama over his former boss’s refusal to send lethal military aid to the Ukrainian government after the start of its struggle with Russian-backed separatists in 2014. According to Biden’s memoir, Obama shot down rallying cries from his number two by replying: “We’re not going to send in the Eighty-second Airborne, Joe.” Biden is already earning himself gushing praise from Beltway think tank ladder-climbers for “confronting” Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call. Among the issues raised by Biden in the call was “Ukraine’s sovereignty,” according to the White House, though the stance is hardly principled.

Biden is also continuing the Trump administration’s policy of recognizing Israel’s claims on Jerusalem as its capital, ignoring sovereign Palestinian claims on the city as its own capital and lending credibility to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine, which ramped up in 2018, when the Trump administration announced it would move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

Biden also has an eye on increasing U.S. involvement in Africa. French President Emmanuel Macron has already asked Biden to up U.S. participation in ongoing operations in West Africa, and the newly inaugurated president agreed to cooperate. ……….

It would be tragic if Biden, like Johnson, promised more than he could deliver to constituents who are suffering most because of a misplaced belief that the U.S. military and the State Department are interested in and capable of liberating people around the world.   https://truthout.org/articles/bidens-hawkish-foreign-policy-could-derail-moves-to-fight-austerity/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=6429be5f-09ac-4f98-a93e-0e009acc775e