https://vimeo.com/445747292

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 16: Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Phyllis Bennis and Stephen Zunes join Paul Jay to analyze the record of Susan Rice, and what it means to progressive voters if she is Biden's VP pick - on theAnalysis.news podcast.

Transcript

Paul JayHi, my name is Paul Jay, and welcome to theAnalysis.news podcast.Susan Rice, who's considered a front runner as Joe Biden's vice president, is a multi-millionaire investor in the fossil fuel industry, Las Vegas casinos, and much more. And according to many progressive commentators, as a national security adviser to President Obama and before that, an undersecretary of state, someone who seems to have never considered a war, she didn't want to wage. She's considered firmly aligned with the hawks of the Democratic Party, although it's been reported that she was at odds with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel and took Obama's side during their disputes.Now joining us to assess what Susan Rice might mean as Biden's VP and perhaps someday president is Phyllis Bennis. She's director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. Also joining us is Stephen Zunes. He's a professor of politics and coordinator of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco. Thank you both for joining us.

Phyllis BennisGood to be with you.

Stephen ZunesThank you.

Paul JaySo, Phyllis, kick us off. What's the big picture take on Rice and what would it also tell us about Biden if that's his choice?

Phyllis BennisYou know, Paul, there's a theory running around, which I think is actually pretty accurate, that the reason that the very high visibility teams that were put together between Biden and the Bernie Sanders campaign to come up with unity positions between essentially the left and the center of the Democratic Party, that they had one on immigration, one on health care, one on the environment. And they were pretty impressive in terms of bringing in activists, bringing in progressives, as well as bringing in people from the Biden campaign.

They didn't have one on foreign policy, and it was disturbing from a number of vantage points. But one of them was the sense that Biden believes that foreign policy, absent all evidence to the contrary, is actually his strong suit in the election. And because he's very experienced in foreign policy, which he is, he knows a lot of foreign leaders around the world, that somehow he doesn't have to worry about his credentials, his bona fide credentials, as a foreign policy leader. And the problem is, of course, that he is, in fact, an experienced foreign policy operative, and has always been on the side of the war, ranging from the Iraq war to a wide range of other positions. He's never been on the anti-war wing of the party. Susan Rice, even more than Biden in some ways, has emerged from the beginning of her sort of high visibility positions in the Democratic Party as very much a leader of the, “We should definitely go to war side of things”.So with all the conversations that are out there about she's a potential liability to Biden because of Benghazi, Benghazi becomes this sort of watchword of being linked to Hillary Clinton being linked to the crisis around Benghazi. While nobody talks about the fact that the real criminal aspect, in my view of her activities in the US and NATO war against Libya, was not the crisis in Benghazi that ended up with the unfortunate death of four US soldiers and contractors. But was the decision to go to war in the first place. It was a little triad of Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and Samantha Power, who persuaded Obama when he was president to go to war in Libya rather reluctant...