Warren sides with Trump on Afghanistan, Syria, signaling a potential shift among Democrats
WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., agrees with President Donald Trump about few things, but she thinks he is right that the United States should cut its military losses in Afghanistan and Syria.
The first nationally known Democrat to formally jump into the 2020 presidential race may also be the voice of a new willingness among Democrats to challenge the merits of long-running wars – even if it means backing up a president they oppose.
The Afghan war in particular could become a key campaign issue in the upcoming presidential cycle after a decade on the sidelines, and liberal Democrats in the House may have more leeway to raise objections to U.S. military involvement under Democratic leadership.
In an interview on MSNBC on Wednesday night, Warren took issue with the president’s style but not his position that the United States should bow out of what she called endless wars.
“I think it is right to get our troops out of Syria – and, let me add, I think it’s right to get our troops out of Afghanistan,” Warren said.
The position is further than other potential 2020 candidates have gone so far, but could open the door for other Democrats calling for a reconsideration of the U.S. mandate in Afghanistan.
Potential 2020 candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called Afghanistan an “unwinnable war” in 2008 and as a presidential candidate in 2016 said he opposed continuation of the Afghan “occupation.”
Joe Biden, who has the most foreign policy experience among frequently mentioned potential 2020 Democrats, opposed the large-scale troop surge when he served as Barack Obama’s vice president. He favored a smaller counterterrorism force.
Warren, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told interviewer Rachel Maddow that after 17 years of war there remain “lots of different problems in Afghanistan, and what seems to be the answer from the foreign policy establishment? ‘Stay forever.’ That is not a policy. We can’t do that.”
Warren, like other Democrats and some Republicans, took issue with Trump’s abrupt announcement via Twitter last month that he would immediately close out the troop commitment in Syria. Roughly 2,000 U.S. forces are there under a limited mandate authorized by Obama in 2015.
The announcement, in which Trump declared that the Islamic State had been defeated, prompted the resignation of retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis as defense secretary and the resignation of the lead U.S. envoy to the coalition fighting the militant group.
“You can talk about our generals. I gave our generals all the money they wanted. They didn’t do such a great job in Afghanistan,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting Wednesday that was open to reporters. “They’ve been fighting in Afghanistan for 19 years.”
Obama had approved an enormous expansion of the Afghan war during his first term in office – a “surge” bringing military gains that have now been substantially reversed. Obama also was unable to end the Iraq War as he had hoped.
Trump, who visited troops in Iraq last month in his first trip to a war zone, has said he supports the continuation of that mission. But he has ordered the gradual departure of about half the approximately 14,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The merits of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria were a back-burner issue during the 2016 presidential campaign, despite Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Tim Kaine’s long-running effort to force a reconsideration of the George W. Bush-era war authorization.