US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at the second Democratic presidential debate in Detroit on July 30, 2019. Photo: Screnshot.

JNS.org – Like the first round of 2020 Democratic presidential debates last month in Miami, the new set that begun on Tuesday evening barely focused on American foreign policy. Nevertheless, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren made it a point to attack US President Donald Trump on his policy regarding the Iranian nuclear threat.

Since Trump left the 2015 nuclear deal in May 2018, alleged Warren: “The world gets closer and closer to nuclear war.”

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, without offering specifics, criticized the Trump administration’s approach regarding certain UN agencies accused of anti-Israel bias, including withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in addition to defunding US assistance to United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

“What we need is a foreign policy that focuses on diplomacy ending conflicts by people sitting at a table and not killing each other,” he said, adding hat he would use such an approach dealing with Middle Eastern issues.

Other candidates on stage in this month’s venue of Detroit, including former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, called for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, as well as from Syria and other places around the world.

The next debate for the other group of candidates—so large in number that it again had to be spit into two groups—will feature front-runners former Vice President Joe Biden and California Sen. Kamala Harris.