The Biden administration has long talked about Russia as America's greatest adversary, particularly in the context of the long-raging Ukraine war. The CIA and US national intelligence community, as well as the Pentagon, have more broadly named China as America's #1 'pacing threat' globally and in the long term.
This is why it's somewhat curious and unexpected for Vice President Kamala Harris to name Iran as the United States' top "adversary" when asked in her 60 Minutes interview. It seems she's just jumping on the bandwagon, going with the geopolitical hot spot of the moment which happens to be grabbing the headlines, just as Israel is poised to retaliate against Iran.
Notable answer not included in the 60 minutes broadcast last night (was in Overtime)
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) October 8, 2024
Asked which foreign country she considers to be the US’s “greatest adversary,” Harris says:
“I think there’s an obvious one in mind which is Iran. Iran has American blood on their hands.” pic.twitter.com/yLefXJM1Cr
Asked by the show host about which country is America's "greatest adversary," she responded, "I think there’s an obvious one in mind which is Iran. Iran has American blood on their hands."
"And what we saw in terms of just this attack on Israel, 200 ballistic missiles, what we need to do to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power, that is one of my highest priorities," she continued.
In follow-up Harris was asked whether she would approve military action against Iran if it became evident country had nuclear weapons. She responded, "I’m not gonna talk about hypotheticals at this moment."
An independent journalist and analyst of the region, Zaid Jilani, pointed out the following:
Kamala Harris says Iran is America's greatest adversary. How is a country with 60 times smaller GDP than ours our biggest adversary? It does suggest that her lack of policy knowledge just has her absorbing silly Cheney talking points.
Perhaps she's also doing the pre-election let me demonstrate my full commitment to Israel ritual which pretty much every candidate of the past decades on both sides of the aisle has done.
As for current Washington consensus on who's the 'big threat', the 2022 National Defense Strategy labels China the "most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security strategy."
And it identifies Russia as a close second. Iran finds mention as merely in the category of "persistent threats" - which also includes small non-state actors like al-Qaeda.
