Liberal Forum

• SEPTEMBER 7, 2023

The War Party Is Back Biden’s appointments reflect his policies, and the leaders of his foreign policy team—Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan—are implicated in the failures of the past.

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL



SHAREA US Army M1A1 Abrams tank, as will be delivered to Ukraine, is photographed in Grafenwöhr, Bavaria, on July 14, 2023. (Matthias Merz / Getty)

President Joe Biden recently appointed Victoria Nuland, Dick Cheney’s point person on Iraq, acting deputy secretary of state, the department’s number-two official.


He named Eliot Abrams, convicted perjurer and grim apologist for Central American torturers under Ronald Reagan, to his Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. 


Bill Kristol, perfervid lobbyist for the Iraq War, cadged $2 million to pay for TV ads urging Republicans to stay the course in Ukraine.


War may or may not be the health of the state, but it surely is a tonic for neoconservative armchair warriors.