New York.– Six months ago, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — caught between a left flank that demanded punishment for Israel and moderate voters who asked them to support their ally — expected the war in Gaza to end or that Israel’s right-wing leader opted for a peace that would define his legacy in that endless armed conflict.
Five weeks before the election, it is clear that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a military and political date of his own.
Now, all Harris can do is pray that the expansion of the war in the Middle East does not overshadow her candidacy and confirms in the minds of the last undecided voters the idea of what her opponent Donald Trump is promoting: that the world is out of control thanks to weak leadership from the Biden-Harris administration.
This Tuesday’s vice presidential debate was supposed to be the last piece of the 2024 campaign before the last push to get to Election Day.
But everything was overshadowed by images of Iranian ballistic missiles confronting Israeli defense systems in the dark sky over Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Netanyahu pledged to retaliate — “Iran made a big mistake and will pay for it,” he said — while Harris was firm in her condemnation of Iran, denouncing it as “a destabilizing and dangerous force in the Middle East.”
His running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, framed the issue of a regional war as a test of character.
“The bottom line here is that strong leadership is going to be needed,” Walz said in the debate. “It is clear and the world saw it during the debate a few weeks ago. An almost 80-year-old Donald Trump who only talked about the number of attendees at his rallies is not what we need right now.
However, any dreams of diplomatic success to end hostilities, return home the Israeli hostages left in Gaza or peace negotiations in the final days of the Biden administration vanished before the mountains of rubble left behind. rain of Iranian missiles on Israel.
It was a moment that the Republicans were not going to waste. “Even though Governor Walz accuses Donald Trump of being an agent of chaos, Donald Trump brought stability to the world,” Senator JD Vance of Ohio said Tuesday night.
Yet American voters continue to place foreign policy far down the list of their priorities and far below the economy, abortion, inflation and character.
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