When President-elect Donald Trump first nominated former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii to serve as director of national intelligence (DNI) in his second administration, many critics of current U.S. foreign policy saw the selection as a step in the right direction. To borrow from The New York Times, Gabbard has long been “deeply skeptical of the effectiveness of U.S. military intervention abroad.” Unfortunately, Gabbard applies this skepticism very selectively. In terms of the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, she’s proven to be one of the more effective critics of U.S. militarism. But her support for Israel’s destruction of the Gaza Strip and her frequent rationalizations of the Global War on Terror make her an unreliable ally at best and an opportunistic hypocrite at worst.
During an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show in October 2015, Gabbard was critical of U.S. policy in Syria. Comparing American intervention in that region to both President George W. Bush’s toppling of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and President Barack Obama’s removal of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Gabbard said:
“As the United States and others are focused on saying ‘Assad must go,’ if Assad is overthrown tomorrow, these Islamic extremist groups, who are united by one purpose, and that is to take over Syria, overrun the country, and present a greater threat, not only to the Middle East but to the world.”
Gabbard also noted that, “You don’t defeat your enemy by also simultaneously helping them at the same time. ISIS, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, all of these different groups are focused on removing Assad because they know that if he goes, they will be first ones in the door.”
Granted, Gabbard’s critique of the Obama administration’s policy in Syria was more mission-oriented than it was focused on the inherent folly of American involvement in the region. While opposed to regime change, Gabbard has long defended the notion that the United States ought to wage war against radical Islamic terrorist groups. During her interview with Maddow, she faulted U.S. leaders with a “lack of focus on mission and who our enemy really is in Syria.”
To her credit, Gabbard attacked the Obama administration for partnering with Islamic extremist groups like al-Qaeda and Jabhat al-Nusra in an effort to remove Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Unfortunately, Gabbard also faulted the administration for not replicating Russia’s bombing campaign against those groups. Earlier that month, Gabbard posted a tweet criticizing that very reluctance to target al-Qaeda and Jabhat al-Nusra.
In spite of the imperfect nature of her stance on Syria, Gabbard has long been smeared as an Assad apologist. Back in March 2016, Josh Rogin published an op-ed in Bloomberg News castigating Gabbard for opposing a resolution backing a war crimes tribunal to hold Assad accountable. Gabbard defended her vote, arguing that the bill under consideration was a “thinly-veiled call” for regime change and the establishment of a no-fly zone. She was, along with Republican Congressmen Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Justin Amash (I-MI), one of only three members of the House of Representatives to reject that proposal.
More recently, the attacks on Gabbard have focused on her 2017 meeting with Assad during a trip to Damascus. Never mind the fact that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi met with Assad in 2007 or that the U.S. was fine with Assad when it used its extraordinary rendition program to send Canadian engineer Maher Arar to Syria, where he was tortured. Even though Gabbard clearly stated that she was “ready to meet with anyone if there’s a chance it can help bring about an end to [the] war [in Syria],” her critics were quick to impugn her motives. During her appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience in January 2019, Bari Weiss famously referred to Gabbard as an “Assad toady.” That July, during a Democratic presidential debate, then-Senator Kamala Harris characterized Gabbard as an “apologist” for Assad. More recently, former Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) told Stephen Colbert that he was friends with Gabbard “up until the day she visited Bashar al-Assad…and did his dirty work.” He also accused his former colleague of defending Assad using “Russian talking points.”
It remains to be seen whether the collapse of the Assad regime last month will hinder efforts to paint Gabbard as a supporter of his. Nevertheless, the primary critique of her position should focus on her support for continued U.S. intervention in Syria via airstrikes against terrorist groups, rather than her willingness to engage with a foreign adversary.
On the Ukraine front, Gabbard’s antiwar credentials are more secure, with the former congresswoman refusing to cloak her position in the language of mission creep. A few weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, Gabbard appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight and urged President Joe Biden to guarantee that Ukraine would not join NATO. She acknowledged the reality that NATO expansion “would undermine [Russia’s] national security interests.” She even accused the Biden administration of fomenting a war so that it could institute economic sanctions against Russia and further enrich the military-industrial complex.
The following month, Gabbard was promptly accused of being a Kremlin asset. After Gabbard noted that the United States was funding biological research laboratories in Ukraine, Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) claimed that she was “parroting false Russian propaganda” and warned that “her treasonous lies may well cost lives.” Meanwhile, Forbes writer Mark Hughes called her a “Russian asset who belongs in military prison.”
Romney’s attacks were recently revived by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who alleged that Gabbard had “clearly been in Putin’s pocket,” as well as Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), who called her “pro-Putin.” Ironically, Gabbard has called for Ukrainian neutrality, with “no Russian or NATO troops on each other’s non-Baltic borders.”
Ever since Trump nominated Gabbard for the DNI role, the media has doubled its efforts to frame her as a puppet of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In November, The New York Times published a piece titled “How Tulsi Gabbard Became a Favorite of Russia’s State Media.” The article’s authors cite “analysts and former officials” who claim that Gabbard shares “the Kremlin’s geopolitical views, especially when it comes to the exercise of American power.” The piece also points to positive coverage of Gabbard in Russian media as evidence of her “pro-Russia stances and her amplification of Moscow’s messaging.” Meanwhile, ABC News claimed that Gabbard’s “rosy posture toward Moscow” was shaped in part by her “unorthodox media consumption habits,” namely her reading of RT articles. Apparently, reading foreign state propaganda is the same thing as endorsing state propaganda.
Finally, there’s Gabbard’s position on Israel, which could not be any less reconcilable with a peace-oriented foreign policy. A longtime supporter of Our Greatest Ally™, Gabbard’s pro-Israel activism has gone into overdrive since October 7. One month after the deadly terrorist attack, she declared her incredulity at the notion that Israel was “guilty of human rights abuses and genocide.” She also attended the 2023 March for Israel, where presenters like newly minted Speaker of the House Mike Johnson denounced the calls for a ceasefire. She later castigated President Biden and Vice President Harris for their failure to attend the march.
Gabbard’s unyielding support for Israel has not subsided in the year since Hamas’ attack on Israel. On its one-year anniversary, she posted a tweet claiming that Hamas’ goal is to “establish a global Islamist caliphate, where all must live under their sharia law.” In February 2024, she said:
“Hamas has called for jihad. Hamas is in continued commitment to what has always been not only their goal but the goal of all of these other Islamist terrorist groups around the world…Their goal is to not only destroy Israel and exterminate all Jewish people, but it is to rid the world of quote-unquote non-believers or infidels.”
In that same interview, she was asked for her position on a proposed ceasefire resolution at the United Nations. Her response:
“Obviously, I think everyone who loves peace and freedom would like to see this war come to an end, but we have to be realists about the threat that continues to exist for the people of Israel. So long as Hamas is in power, the people of Israel will not be secure and can’t live in peace. You cannot negotiate a peace with a terrorist group whose founding documents state that their goal is to exterminate all Jewish people and eliminate the state of Israel. There is no way to negotiate peace with a terrorist group that celebrates martyrdom and death.”
She continued:
“I think there are strategic arguments and conversations that should be had about how best to do that, how best to minimize civilian casualties, but just saying, ‘Well, we just need a blanket ceasefire,’ I think that is too simplistic of an approach to deal with, really, the great task, which is to achieve peace, but you cannot achieve peace without the defeat of Hamas.”
Gabbard clearly takes the maximalist position that peace cannot be achieved until Hamas is defeated. While it remains unclear whether she would support further U.S. military aid to Israel, her previous comments strongly suggest that she would. On that front, Gabbard is indistinguishable from every other figure Trump has nominated to serve in his second administration. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton may oppose her nomination, but there is no daylight between their positions on the war between Israel and Hamas.
Tulsi Gabbard’s DNI nomination represents a very mixed bag. For all her claims that the Democratic Party is now the party of war, there is still far too much overlap between her foreign policy positions and those of the Biden administration. At the same time, her broad critiques of U.S. intervention in the Middle East, coupled with her vigorous opposition to the war in Ukraine, make her the best of a dubious lot. If a second Trump administration is liable to reel in the excesses of the military-industrial complex, then it stands to reason that Gabbard is probably the nominee most likely to help him realize that outcome.
