"I’ve always thought that Trump is a threat to peace in the world. In the realm of public statements pertaining to US military intervention, however, he has been more good than bad. He stirred up tension with North Korea but walked that back. He made noises about Venezuela but evidently got bored and forgot about it when nothing happened. Iran remains a concern.

The point is that, at least in the primaries, we’ve seen no meaningful critique from Democratic politicians charging Trump with insufficient militancy in world affairs, a critique we could easily imagine coming from Hillary Clinton, or from Joe Biden in a different year. For the time being, US foreign policy resembles the relative quiescence of the years following withdrawal from Vietnam, a period then excoriated by Cold Warriors as one stricken by the “Vietnam syndrome.”

The cherry on top of this cake is the ice broken by Sanders on Israel and Palestine. His statements of support for Palestine, however qualified, are a departure from the preceding decades of Zionist boosterism. In a different time, his opponents would be trying to make hay out of his statements. This time around, the best his rivals for the nomination can offer is silence."