Sanders’ Fantasy Team

Electable? Really?

At a town hall event hosted by CNN on Wednesday night Sen. Bernie Sanders renewed his calls for a coalition of troops from Muslim nations to defeat the Islamic State. To many a Democratic primary goer scarred by the Iraq War and wary of foreign intervention, this might seem to be an acceptable, if not sensible answer — why risk American lives and treasure in some far-flung region of the world? However pretty the rhetoric is, though, the policy is shallow.

Like the political revolution, this coalition will not be brought into being.

During a previous Democratic debate, the Senator elaborated on what his coalition would look like and the countries that would comprise it— Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan, and Turkey, among others. But in forming a functional military force it’s not exactly wise to include two age-old archenemies whose power struggle has fueled a relentless cycle of violence across the Middle East. Declaring that Saudi Arabia and Iran would even want to participate in such a coalition together reveals a startlingly fundamental misunderstanding of the region.

To take on IS in Syria, where Iranian military advisers and Hezbollah fighters back the Assad Government, where Saudi Arabia sponsors a network of Sunni opposition fighters, with Sanders’ proposed alliance would be like fighting a fire with gasoline. However, even this is a bit generous, since the Iranians and the Saudis would never agree to an arrangement like this.

In Iraq, where Iranian special forces killed hundreds of Americans during the occupation, Tehran’s use of Shia militias to aid the central government has brought Baghdad into its orbit.

Normalizing relations with Iran, as the Senator from Vermont would like, is a tacit endorsement of its new sphere of influence. The regional power’s ability to project strength is the new normal, and thus those concerned with the growing sway of the world’s preeminent state sponsor of terror should be concerned.

Enter Hillary Clinton.

Say what you will about the former Secretary of State, her pending indictment, the failure of the reset with Russia, the feebleness of the nuclear deal with Iran, questions about the adequacy of embassy security during her tenure. She has done her homework. She knows the region and its perilous network of generations old alliances and enmities.

At the town hall event last night Clinton didn’t rule out the possibility of future military interventions. Like many of the Republican candidates, Clinton sees the usefulness of a no-fly-zone and humanitarian safe zones in Syria and wants to remove dictator Bashar Assad from power. Although her insistence that she would never, under any circumstances put American troops on the ground to combat IS rings familiar; it is her own “red line.”

Sure, her vote for the Iraq War is significant political baggage — and many liberal primary voters think she’s too hawkish, but 2016 is not 2008. Americans these days turn on the television to images of military service members being held at gunpoint by Iranian sailors and terrorist massacres in cities both an ocean away and close to home.

Sandernistas are fond of making the argument of Sanders’ electability, but in terms of national security, how competitive is he actually? Congressional Democrats are already concerned about their party’s competitiveness on the issue, where it lags the Republicans by double digits in most polls. Could nominating Sanders be a poison pill for their 2016 Senate prospects?

Four years of inaction regarding the Syrian civil war turned a humanitarian catastrophe into a jihadist nightmare. Saying that a Muslim coalition is like the one Sanders has proposed is good policy is not only a cop-out but also a disingenuous attempt to deny the need for solutions that meet the scope of the problem.