A Closer Look at Joe Biden's Foreign Policy Credentials

Ever since Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama named Joe Biden to be his running-mate, the media has hailed the Delaware Senator as an “expert” on foreign policy issues.

Biden is not the foreign policy panacea the media is making him out to be. In fact, his comments and votes might come back to haunt the Obama-Biden ticket.

The most glaring conflict between Obama and Biden is, of course, their votes on the Iraq war. Joe Biden, following John McCain’s lead, voted in favor of it. Obama dissented.

Biden has recently claimed that he only voted in favor of the war because the Bush Administration misrepresented the facts that led to the war. This is not what he said on “Meet the Press” in 2007:

"Well, the point is, it turned out [Iraq] didn't [have WMDs], but everyone in the world thought [Saddam Hussein] had them. The weapons inspectors said he had them. He catalogued - they catalogued them. This was not some, some Cheney, you know, pipe dream. This was, in fact, catalogued."

As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden concocted the idea to split Iraq into ethnic enclaves. Iraqis vehemently opposed this idea (imagine splitting America into religious enclaves), and so did other political heavyweights on Capitol Hill. The idea stalled and disgust for Biden remains strong in Iraq.

With all the trouble in the American economy, Biden recently announced he wants to send $1 billion across the Atlantic Ocean to help Georgia wage war with one of the few allies America has left in this world: Russia.

Obama immediately endorsed the idea, according to this story in the Wall Street Journal.

Despite the tag that he’s a diplomatist, this isn’t the first time Biden sought to solve an international problem by throwing money at it. The following excerpt from a story by Michael Crowley in The New Republic shows the kind of blind talk that could get the campaign in trouble:

Biden launches into a stream-of-consciousness monologue about what his [Senate Foreign Relations] committee should be doing, before he finally admits the obvious: "I'm groping here." Then he hits on an idea: America needs to show the Arab world that we're not bent on its destruction. "Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran," Biden declares. He surveys the table with raised eyebrows, a How do ya like that? look on his face.

The staffers sit in silence. Finally somebody ventures a response: "I think they'd send it back." Then another aide speaks up delicately: "The thing I would worry about is that it would almost look like a publicity stunt."

More shocking than the remarks, is the context within which he made them: in the days immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

By looking no further than the Senate – the same Senate of which he is a member – Obama has shown he’s got a penchant for the familiar, not for change. His VP choice shows a conspicuous lack of political diversity, since they share the same insulated outlook on the world.

Unless John McCain picks Ronald McDonald to be his running-mate, the Democrats may very well be doomed.