Thread by @NoahPollak

THREAD: I’m proud to announce a new foreign policy project I am helping lead, a new group called the Democratic Alliance Initiative. We have several goals: to remind Americans of the foreign policy stakes in the election 1/

To expose the revisionist history and false claims offered as a defense of returning to the Iran deal & peace process; to highlight the threat from China; and to combat the growing reliance of the foreign policy left on narratives and “experts” 2/

What do I mean by the latter? It’s the subject of @AllianceInit’s first offering, a major report titled “Consistently Wrong: Four Years of Failed Foreign Policy Predictions from Obama and Biden Advisors.” Read it here: 3/
allianceinitiative.com/consistently-w…

We chose six major Trump admin foreign policy moves: withdrawing from the Iran deal; reimposing sanctions; killing Soleimani; recognizing Jerusalem; recognizing the Golan; and the State Dept memo on Israeli settlements + Trump peace plan. 4/

Then we looked at what prominent liberal foreign policy figures said at the time about them. We didn’t look for bad analysis or commentary – we looked specifically for *predictions,* because you can judge whether predictions came true. 5/

We looked at tweets, TV appearances, quotes to the media, and op-eds. No gotcha games and we’ve taken nothing out of context. The examples you’ll see in our report are credible, substantive reflections of liberal claims and “narratives” at the time. 6/

They come from a wide array of figures – Obama admin alums, Biden advisors, scholars at prestigious think tanks, influential activists, former ambassadors & govt officials, prominent politicians. They comprise what could be called the liberal foreign policy establishment. 7/

Their pronouncements both reveal and shape Democratic foreign policy thinking. Just as importantly, these figures strongly influence the MSM framing of issues & coverage the entire country consumes, so they surely have significant influence on public opinion. 8/

As our study shows, when it came to Trump moves that departed from fervently supported Obama policies, this group did more than criticize – its members traded on their status as “experts” to make frightening, public predictions of war, violence, instability, and failure. 9/

These narratives were contrivances – messaging & comms products intended to create a sophisticated-sounding justification for near-hysterical hostility to Trump policies, to short-circuit debate, & pretend Dem policies were favored by a mythical consensus of “experts” 10/

It sounds familiar b/c it is – this style of debate was perfected during the comms campaign promoting the Iran deal. The central message was: If you’re against the deal, you’re for war. Another key message was: Experts all agree the deal is great, so shut up and support it. 11/

Biden pledges to launch back into Obama’s foreign policy should he win, and the group that's gotten everything wrong the past 10+ years will reappear in admin jobs and as media surrogates for the White House. 12/

Before all that, it’s important to look at their track records and understand their contributions to the debate, which is why we spent so much time compiling this study. Follow @AllianceInit as we tweet some of our findings in a new thread. End/

We've started tweeting out some findings from our report over at @AllianceInit. Please join us there:

https://twitter.com/AllianceInit/status/1308471133340008448