Sanders has pointedly declined to label Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro a dictator. He called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “racist,” and he has campaigned with Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), vocal supporters of a controversial Israel boycott movement. He said China has done more to address extreme poverty “than any country in the history of civilization.”
And as Sanders has noted repeatedly in recent days, he opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq that most U.S. leaders, including former vice president Joe Biden, supported, advancing an argument that he is the most unwavering antiwar candidate in the race.
“I think it would be a fundamental shift, assuming his principles hold in the transition from campaigning to governing,” said Aaron David Miller, a former adviser to six secretaries of state and now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “You’ve had a consensus in this country on certain principles. Joe Biden represents that consensus. And to a degree, Obama as well.”
