The Wars in Ukraine and Gaza Have Changed. America’s Policy Hasn’t.

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2024

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Joe Biden’s presidency has been dominated by two foreign policy crises: the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The funding the United States has provided in those wars — billions to both Ukraine and Israel — has drawn backlash from both the right and the left. And now, as the conflicts move into new stages with no clear end game, Biden’s policies are increasingly drawing dissent from the center. Richard Haass is an icon of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. He served as the president of the Council on Foreign Relations for 20 years and currently writes the newsletter Home & Away. He’s recently been making the case that our foreign policy is insufficiently independent — that we’ve become captured by allies that have interests that diverge from our own. His view of this moment is a signal of larger shifts that could be coming in the U.S. foreign policy consensus. In this conversation, we discuss why he thinks America’s current strategy on both Ukraine and Israel is untenable, what he thinks the north star for our strategy in both cases should be, the Republican Party’s 180-degree turn from internationalism to isolationism, what America’s biggest national security threat really is and more. Mentioned: “The Two-State Mirage” by Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami Book Recommendations: The World That Wasn’t by Benn Steil Sparks by Ian Johnson Diplomats at War by Charles Trueheart Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. Joe Biden's presidency now is dominated by two foreign policy crises
0:26.7	Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Hamas's attack on Israel which then led to
0:31.8	Israel's invasion of Gaza. Early on both crises
0:35.0	lent themselves to clarity. There was no justification for Russia's invasion,
0:39.0	there was no justification for The scale and ferocity and displacement and death toll of Israel's response in Gaza has made Israel in the eyes of much of the world,
0:58.0	in the eyes even in many Americans, into the aggressor.
1:02.0	In both of these, America is a supporting actor. We do not call the play.
1:07.1	We give Ukraine arms and encircle Russia and sanctions. We give Israel arms and money and
1:12.0	protection from UN resolutions and we ask in return that did act with some respect for Palestinian life
1:17.0	with some view of a peaceful future
1:20.0	But what happens when the lead actors in these conflicts refuse to act as we wish?
1:26.0	This is the phase of the wars that we're now in.
1:28.0	Selensky continues to call for full repulsion of Russia's presence long after many believe that is possible.
1:33.7	Netanyahu is prosecuting a war so brutal that Biden is criticized in public, but though we keep
1:39.2	supporting Israel, Netanyahu routinely and publicly rejects our vision of both how the war should be
1:45.0	conducted now and what should happen afterwards. And that's put Biden in a tough
1:49.8	spot. Americans disapprove of his handling of both Ukraine and Israel.
1:54.9	Republicans are turning towards isolationism and I think more accurately put, they are turning
1:59.1	towards Trumpism, whatever Donald Trump says is what they believe. They're refusing to even vote in the House
2:04.3	on the latest Ukraine aid package. Israel is splitting the Democratic coalition. It is a
2:08.6	central problem for Biden in 2024. It has become not just a foreign policy problem, but a domestic politics problem.
2:16.5	And an interesting signal of the frustration and fracture here is Richard Haas.
	...

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