Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Tuesday delivered a forceful and detailed critique of the Trump administration’s aggression toward Iran as he sought at every turn to highlight his own commander-in-chief credentials and to evoke the stature of a president.
The former vice president, speaking from Pier 59 in New York against a backdrop of American flags, delivered a stern warning about President Trump’s stewardship of international affairs and painted a grim picture of the dangerous landscape in the Middle East. Mr. Biden cast Mr. Trump as a hypocrite who preaches an inward-looking foreign policy but operates using unsteady, bellicose tactics, and faulted the president for bringing the nation “dangerously close” to war after an American drone strike that killed one of Iran’s top military commanders, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.
“Because he refuses to level with the American people about the dangers which he has placed American troops and our diplomatic corps, personnel and civilians, as well as our partners and allies, or demonstrated even a modicum of presidential gravitas, I will attempt to do that,” said Mr. Biden, who is one of 14 candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. “That starts with an honest accounting of how we got where we are.”
In Mr. Biden’s telling, the chaos America now confronts — “heightened threats, chants of ‘death to America’ once more echoing across the Middle East,” with Iran and its allies “vowing revenge” — was stoked by Mr. Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal that was negotiated under the Obama administration.
He described a series of subsequent provocations and challenges for which the Trump administration, he argued, was unprepared, even as he also said that he had “no illusions about Iran,” led by a government that he said threatened American interests. But the decision to kill Mr. Suleimani “may well do more to strengthen Iran’s position in the region than any of Suleimani’s plots would have ever accomplished,” he said, arguing that Mr. Trump owed the nation answers but had delivered only “tweets, threats and tantrums.” He said that if there was in fact an “imminent threat” that warranted this “extraordinary action,” Americans should receive “an explanation and the facts to back it up.”
“At precisely the moment when we should be rallying our allies to stand beside us and hold the line against threats, Donald Trump’s shortsighted, ‘America First’ dogmatism has come home to roost,” Mr. Biden said. He went on to add, “We are alone now. We’re alone and we’ll have to bear the cost of Donald Trump’s folly.”
On the campaign trail, Mr. Biden has emphasized his decades-long record in international affairs and extensive relationships abroad, highlighting a contrast with his rivals in the Democratic field, who have largely been focused on domestic matters throughout the race. In New York, the setting appeared designed to conjure the White House briefing room: Mr. Biden spoke against a blue backdrop before a room full of reporters. He walked in to the clicking of multiple cameras and offered his own prescription for the path forward, calling for “cleareyed, hard-nosed diplomacy grounded in a strategy that’s not about one-off decisions and one-upsmanship.”
“Mr. President,” he urged, “you have to explain your decision and your strategy to the American people. That’s your job as president, Mr. President. Not ‘Dear Leader.’ Not ‘Supreme Leader.’ Democracy runs on accountability, and nowhere is it more important than the power to make war and bring peace.”
Mr. Biden, who has faced renewed scrutiny of his foreign policy record and especially his Iraq war vote, also appeared to misspeak at times, referring to Iran when he apparently intended to say Iraq, and he appeared to say that the current perilous situation was “unavoidable,” when excerpts from the speech circulated before the appearance used the word “avoidable.”
Still, Mr. Biden’s advisers and allies hope that the gravity of the moment will further crystallize the importance of defeating Mr. Trump in the minds of voters, and polls continue to show that Democrats believe Mr. Biden has the best chance to do so, though other candidates have also polled strongly against the president in hypothetical head-to-head matchups.
The current crisis “just reinforces how high the stakes are in this election,” Mr. Biden said at a fund-raiser earlier Tuesday.
He was not the only presidential candidate to castigate the Trump administration’s handling of foreign policy on Tuesday.
Speaking Tuesday on “The View,” Ms. Warren said that “Suleimani was a bad guy, but the question is, what’s the right response?”
“The job of the president of the United States is to keep America safer,” she added. “And having killed Suleimani does not make America safer.”
As evidence, Ms. Warren cited the withdrawal of American citizens from the region because of safety concerns and said Mr. Trump had tweeted “threats of war crimes” by threatening to strike cultural institutions.
“We need a president who actually has good judgment, and is willing to follow through,” she said.
Pressed on whether she believed Mr. Suleimani to be a terrorist, Ms. Warren said: “Of course he is. He’s part of a group that our federal government has designated as a terrorist.”
As for how she would handle foreign policy in the Middle East, she said, “It is the responsibility of the commander in chief not to ask our military to solve problems that cannot be solved militarily.”
“The point is not whether or not Iran is a bad actor — they are,” she added. “But the question is: What are the right steps for the president? Use our diplomacy. Use the back channels. De-escalate and get Iran to the negotiating table.”
Matt Stevens contributed reporting from New York.