Shortly after President-elect Joe Biden clinched his party’s nomination in May, a group of 50 progressive organizations sent his campaign a letter urging him to commit to a broad agenda of foreign policy reform. They wanted him to agree to such policies as re-entering the Iran nuclear deal and cutting at least $200 billion from the Pentagon budget.
Six months later, Biden has given his answer: With his choice of Antony Blinken for secretary of state and Jake Sullivan as national security adviser, as well as his expected nomination of Michele Flournoy for secretary of defense, Biden has signaled that his national security cabinet will be more centrist than the left flank of his party would like.
To be sure, Blinken, Sullivan and Flournoy will not give Saudi Arabia the green light it has come to expect from the Trump administration. Biden’s appointment of John Kerry to be his climate czar shows that an issue the Trump White House did not care about will be a priority for Biden. And Biden has committed to trying to rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal if Iran comes back into compliance with it.
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