Of the many topics covered at last night’s debate in New Hampshire, one of the more jarring moments came when the subject of taking out terrorist kingpin Qassem Soleimani was brought up. The responses of the various Democrats on stage offer a peek at what you can expect in terms of foreign policy and military matters if one of this crew winds up taking a seat in the Oval Office and the situation room. Not one of them would have made the call to help Soleimani shuffle off this mortal coil.

Here’s Pete Buttigieg.

Pete Buttigieg says if he was president, terrorist leader Soleimani would still be alivehttps://t.co/xVJmOgtiEV pic.twitter.com/FE3YFyYExs — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 8, 2020

Mayor Pete at least went so far as to say that Soleimani was “a bad guy.” But he then claimed that “taking out a bad guy is a bad idea if you do not know what you’re doing.” Oh, really? Seems to me that our military knew precisely what they were doing. They knew where Soleimani was, where he was heading and took him out with a single drone shot. And the collateral damage was minimal. He also referenced learning lessons from Iraq in that context. Was he implying that Saddam Hussein should still be alive? Is he aware that Hussein was executed by his own people, not the Americans?

Next, we get to Joe Biden.

Joe Biden, who opposed the raid on Osama bin Laden, says he would not have ordered the strike on terrorist leader Soleimanihttps://t.co/5noRYCqs6w pic.twitter.com/PKHHGXSCWR — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 8, 2020

Biden simply says he wouldn’t have ordered the strike because “there’s no evidence yet of an imminent threat that was going to come from [Soleimani].” Two points about that response should have been obvious. First of all, Biden has been out of office for more than three years. He’s not getting the daily intelligence briefings anymore. Much of the intelligence about Soleimani couldn’t be released to the public because it could have exposed sources and methods. So Joe Biden has no way of knowing conclusively about any imminent threats.

And second, the President can and should make the argument that an imminent threat wasn’t even required. The amount of blood on the hands of Soleimani and the Quds Force could be used to paint a mural the size of Texas. At some point, you run out of second chances. We’d been trying to track Soleimani’s movements since the Bush 43 administration. The opportunity came to take him out and Trump took it. You’ll also recall that Joe Biden disagreed with Barack Obama about the raid to take out Osama bin Laden. Sounds like bad guys around the world should sleep well at night if Joe Biden is elected.

Let’s also get Bernie Sanders’ take on the question.

Bernie Sanders claims killing a terrorist leader plotting to kill Americans creates "international anarchy"https://t.co/supAISr8pn pic.twitter.com/CynsTF7O4C — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 8, 2020

Bernie believes you can’t “go around saying you’re a bad guy and we’re going to assassinate you.” That, he believes, would lead to “international anarchy.” He would also prefer that such matters be handled through stronger diplomacy at the State Department. Perhaps he’s pining for the good old days of the Obama administration and thinks Iran will behave better if we go back to sending them pallets of cash. We all saw how that worked out during the previous administration.

Notice how Sanders, along with many other Democrats, chooses to use the word “assassination” when referring to the death of Soleimani, as if he was some sort of public figure deserving of respect. The General wasn’t assassinated. He was a battlefield casualty in the war on terror and a very high-value target.

This crew has demonstrated that they’re basically carbon copies of each other on many key issues. As for the current topic of discussion, they are soft on crime domestically (with calls for criminal justice reform and emptying the prisons) and soft on terror both at home and abroad. And if voters want to pick one of them this November they will fully deserve the whirlwind we’ll reap from that decision.