Joe Biden’s Muddled Middle East Policy
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, David Klion on a president’s mix of hawkish policy and moderate rhetoric.
The Nation Podcasts
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Joe Biden’s Muddled Middle East Policy | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, David Klion joins Jeet Heer to discuss the President’s mix of hawkish policy and moderate rhetoric.
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US President Joe Biden shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they meet at the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City on September 20.
(Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images)Joe Biden has often been described as among the most pro-Israel politicians in America, a characterization that has a large element of truth but misses some important nuances. As David Klion argues in a deeply researched essay for The Nation, Biden’s support for Israel has long been accompanied by rhetorical gestures indicating opposition to aspects of Israel’s policies, particularly the building of settlements. How do we make sense of this disjunction between action and rhetoric? Is Biden simply trying to placate his liberal base with cheap words? Or does his thinking on the topic indicate a fundamental incoherence in his worldview?
David joins the podcast to talk about Biden’s Israel policy, which leads into a wide-ranging discussion of the internal contradictions of Cold War liberalism and Biden’s larger policy thinking.In addition to David’s piece, we talk about topics that address this by Jonathan Guyer in The American Prospect and Noah Landar in Mother Jones.
The Nation Podcasts
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Michael Ledeen and Trumpian Fascism | The Time of Monsters
Michael Ledeen, who died on May 17 at age 83, was a prominent figure on the American right since the 1970s. He is most famous, or notorious, as one of the instigators of the Iran/Contra scandal, helping to connect the Reagan administration with an Iranian arms dealer. Beyond that, he was active not just as a writer but also as an activists who often promoted disinformation, most notably the lie about the “weapons of mass destruction” the was used to sell George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, I talked about Ledeen’s controversial life with Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest and author of a fine study of neoconservatism, They Knew They Were Right.
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