As Soleimani killing jolts presidential race, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders seize the moment

Joey Garrison | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Are we really ready for a World War III? Fears are mounting around the world following the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani - but is World War 3 about to happen?

After months of debates on "Medicare for All" and taxes on billionaires, the Democratic presidential primary has been upended by questions on Iran, foreign policy and who is best fit to lead the country in a time of crisis.

Two of the race's leading candidates are seizing on that shift.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who built their campaigns appealing to opposite ends of the Democratic voter spectrum, sharpened their focus on world affairs after a U.S. airstrike killed top Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Iraq.

The killing inflamed tensions with Iran and Iraq and raised worries about whether the United States is again on the brink of a war in the Middle East.

During campaign stops in Iowa over the weekend, Biden and Sanders criticized President Donald Trump for the airstrike. Both spent several days canvassing the state that will kick off the Democratic primary with the first-in-the-nation caucuses in 27 days.

Before the airstrike, 33% of voters rated foreign policy as an important issue affecting their choice for president, according to a poll by Suffolk University/USA TODAY in December. It ranked below the economy, health care, immigration and gun control but ahead of impeachment and climate change.

Biden delivered a special address Tuesday in New York on the situation with Iran. Standing in front of American flags, Biden said the airstrike proved Trump to be "dangerously incompetent." He accused the president of a "haphazard decision process" and a "reckless disregard of the consequences that would surely follow." He added that Trump has failed to provide a "sober-minded explanation" for the airstrike, which he said has put the U.S. and Iran on "a collision course."

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"All we've heard from this administration is shifting explanations, evasive answers, repeated assertions of an imminent threat without the necessary evidence to support that conclusion," he said in a nearly 20-minute speech.

“The only way out of this crisis is through diplomacy,” Biden said.

Sanders, an independent from Vermont, has increasingly gone on the attack against Biden, calling his record "weak" and placing foreign policy atop his critique.

"Joe Biden voted and helped lead the effort for the war in Iraq – the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in the modern history of this country," Sanders said in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper on Monday night.

"Joe Biden voted, and helped lead the effort for the war in Iraq. Joe Biden voted for the disastrous trade agreements like NAFTA and PNTR. Joe Biden has been on the floor of the Senate talking about the need to cut Social Security. Joe Biden pushed a bankruptcy bill" pic.twitter.com/p2zdxdU3K9 — People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) January 7, 2020

How Biden, Sanders approach the Iran question

For Biden, the tension in the Middle East provides a chance to play up his foreign policy experience, both as vice president and as a longtime member and former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A poll by CNN in October found 56% of Democratic voters said Biden is best equipped to handle foreign policy.

Speaking to caucusgoers at a hotel Sunday in Grinnell, Iowa, Biden argued that the killing of Soleimani turned the Iranian military leader into a hero. He pointed to the thousands of mourners packing the streets of Iran.

"They expect literally hundreds of thousands of supporters who were initially opposed to the government in Tehran now solidified around the leadership in Tehran," Biden said.

More: Campaigning in Iowa, Joe Biden predicts Iranian dominance in the Middle East after Soleimani's death, Iraqi vote

Biden said Iran is "in the driver's seat" in the Middle East, noting the Iraqi parliament's vote to remove U.S. forces from the nation. He said Iran will speed up its efforts to build a nuclear weapon. He predicted Iranian leaders will become more popular in their own country as its citizens rally behind them after the attack.

"This is a crisis totally of Donald Trump's making," Biden said.

Hey @realDonaldTrump, do you think the American people want another war in the Middle East? Des Moines certainly doesn’t. pic.twitter.com/uFgQuqg1oL — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 5, 2020

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Sanders, who has long run on an anti-war platform, used the Iran question to remind Democrats about his vote in the Senate against the war in Iraq. That's in contrast to Biden, whose record on the conflict could make him vulnerable among the more liberal wing of the party.

Since October, Sanders has separated himself in polls from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the other top Democrat in the liberal lane, solidifying himself in second in recent national polls behind Biden. He overcome a heart attack that month and pundits who had written off his campaign. If the Democratic primary is as drawn out as it was in 2016, Sanders could set up his foreign policy differences with Biden as an issue for the months ahead as both men battle for votes.

Saturday, Sanders opened a campaign event in Dubuque, Iowa, by calling for immediate congressional action to stop Trump from launching a war with Iran.

"Our founding fathers gave the responsibility over war not to the president but to Congress," Sanders said. "That is very clear in the Constitution. And in my view, Congress must, must act in the face of a president who has shown time and time again that he cannot be relied upon to tell us the truth or to make well thought out decisions."

More: Bernie Sanders, campaigning in Iowa, says 'if Congress wants to go to war, let Congress have the guts to vote for war'

The day before, Sanders gave his first public statement on the killing of Soleimani, which he called an "assassination" and a "dangerous escalation." He told a crowd in Anamosa, Iowa, that "Trump promised to end endless wars," but "tragically, his actions now put us on the path to another war, potentially one that could be even worse than before."

"I have consistently opposed this dangerous path to war with Iran. But we need to do more than just stop the potential of a war. We need to firmly commit to ending the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, in an orderly manner, not through a tweet."

What do voters say?

Kenn Bowen, 69, a Sanders supporter from Iowa City, applauded the senator's remarks: "He made no bones about it. He’s against it, and he thinks this is wrong.

“I’ve seen the cost of war, both in money and lives,” said Bowen, wearing a Vietnam veteran hat and a denim vest with a peace logo sewn on the back. He said he's worried that a war with Iran would spiral and pull in other world powers, such as China and Russia.

Biden supporter Richard Marsh of Cedar Falls, Iowa, cited the former vice president's foreign policy experience as one reason for his support. Marsh, who was at Biden's headquarters in Waterloo on Saturday morning, said Biden’s connections with other world leaders will create more stable relations in areas such as the Middle East.

Marsh said he's worried the United States is on a path toward another war and believes Biden would not have ordered the strike that killed Soleimani.

"He would have sat down and talked to them,” Marsh said.

More: Timeline: How tensions escalated with Iran since Trump withdrew US from nuclear deal

The White House said the president ordered the strike because Soleimani plotted attacks that endangered American troops and officials.

The Trump campaign said in a statement Monday that the president is "cleaning up Joe Biden's Iran's mess."

On Sunday, Iran effectively backed out of a nuclear deal with world powers, saying it would no longer abide by "operational restrictions" on its enrichment of uranium. The Trump administration withdrew from the agreement, which was negotiated by President Barack Obama, in May 2018.

Hostilities between Tehran and Washington have escalated since Trump's withdrawal. The Trump administration blames Iran for a series of provocations in the region.

Iraq's parliament voted to expel the U.S. military from the country, prompting Trump to threaten deep sanctions against Iraq on Sunday.

More: Iran abandons commitments to nuclear deal after Gen. Qasem Soleimani killing

What other leading Democratic candidates say

Other Democrats, including Warren and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, slammed Trump's airstrike before the Iowa caucuses.

Warren, campaigning in Iowa on Sunday, said she questions the Trump administration's justification for the strike. She said the United States is not safer than it was a week ago.

"Immediately after they announced that they had killed this general, they had multiple different stories on why – they couldn't keep their story straight," she said. "They pointed in all different directions, and now the president has taken us to the brink of war."

Warren, who also called the airstrike an "assassination," said the United States needs a president "who is calm and steady-handed" and who "understands the importance of de-escalating and getting out of conflict – not someone who moves us closer and closer to the brink."

Buttigieg, who served as a naval intelligence officer in Afghanistan, said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Monday that he has "no interest" in keeping or adding ground troops in Iraq and that the United States should not have invaded Iraq in the first place.

He said Soleimani has "blood on his hands" and was a "bad actor in the region," but he questioned whether the Trump administration had a plan.

"What we've seen here is no evidence that there's been proper consultation with Congress, and more importantly and more dangerously, no evidence that they've really thought about the consequences."

Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY; Nick Coltrain, Tyler Jett and Kim Norvell, Des Moines Register

Reach Joey Garrison and on Twitter @joeygarrison.