In thinking about the legacy of Joe Biden as President, some have made analogies to the presidency of Lyndon Johnson—a centrist Senate leader who as President pursued a surprisingly progressive domestic agenda, but who was ultimately remembered primarily for his role in supporting a tragic and unpopular genocidal war overseas.
There is another administration, however, with which Biden’s bears a stark similarity: that of Ronald Reagan.
Both administrations supported unconditional military aid to far rightwing governments engaging in major war crimes while denying and downplaying major human rights abuses. Both administrations vetoed otherwise-unanimous U.N. Security Council resolutions seeking to end deadly conflicts. Both administrations attacked the credibility of reputable human rights organizations and the International Court of Justice when they tried to uphold international humanitarian law. Both administrations refused to condition military aid to the recipients’ adherence to these principles. Both of their foreign affairs policies were opposed by most U.S. allies as well as a majority of the American people.
While Biden’s complicity in atrocities by allied forces was centered in the Middle East, Reagan’s were focused on Central America.
In El Salvador, the Reagan Administration repeatedly covered up atrocities, insisting that the El Mozote massacre—in which more than 800 peasants were slaughtered—never happened. Following the rape and murder of four American churchwomen by Salvadoran soldiers, Reagan Administration officials defended the regime by claiming “these nuns were not just nuns, they were political activists” and that they had tried to run a roadblock and were killed in a shootout. When Salvadoran forces murdered six Jesuit priests at the Central American University, along with their housekeeper and her daughter, administration officials tried to claim it was actually carried out by leftist guerrillas.
Similarly, Biden insisted that casualty figures by the Palestinian Health Ministry were exaggerated, even though they actually appear to be gross underestimates. He also falsely claimed that the civilian casualties were a result of Hamas using “human shields,” despite the absence of evidence of the widespread use of civilians by Hamas in such a manner, and the fact that the vast majority of civilian casualties have occurred far from Hamas military operations. Biden’s administration repeatedly denied that Israel, despite considerable evidence, is violating international humanitarian law.
The Reagan Administration routinely attacked reports by Amnesty International, Americas Watch, and other groups of widespread killing of civilians by U.S. backed forces in Central America during the 1980s. The Biden Administration has shown a similar hostility towards Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other human rights groups, including B’tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization. For example, in response to one Amnesty International report accusing Israel of apartheid, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides declared the idea “absurd.” State Department spokesperson Ned Price also roundly rejected the report’s conclusion, adding “the Jewish people must not be denied their right to self-determination”—even though there was nothing in the report questioning that.
And both administrations categorically ruled out conditioning military aid to their repressive allies, despite polls showing the vast majority of Americans oppose such unconditional arms transfers.
Neither administration tolerated involvement by the United Nations or the international judiciary. The Reagan Administration vetoed otherwise-unanimous U.N. Security Council resolutions opposing its attacks on Nicaragua and its invasion of Grenada. Similarly, the Biden Administration vetoed four otherwise-unanimous U.N. Security Council resolutions trying to impose a ceasefire in the Gaza War.
Similarly, both administrations attacked the International Court of Justice when it tried to uphold international legal standards. Just as Reagan attacked the ICJ for ruling that U.S. attacks on Nicaragua—such as mining Nicaraguan harbors, bombing oil depots, and backing the Contras—was contrary to international law, Biden has pushed back against the World Court regarding its rulings on the illegality of the ongoing occupation of the West Bank and likely violations of the Genocide Treaty in Gaza.
Both administrations have also been prone to engage in gross exaggerations of wrongdoing by their opponents in order to justify atrocities by U.S.-backed fighters.
Reagan defended backing the murderous Salvadoran army by insisting that the popular resistance movement in El Salvador were “terrorists” and he defended support for the Contras, who were attacking civilian targets along the Honduran border, by claiming the leftist Sandinista government (whose human rights record, while flawed, was significantly better than the previous U.S.-backed regime) had supposedly turned their country into a “totalitarian dungeon” and were committing “genocide” against Miskito Indians.
Similarly, Biden has defended his support for Israeli war crimes by falsely claiming that Hamas, in addition to other very real atrocities in its October 2023 attacks on Israel, had “beheaded babies” during those attacks, and falsely claimed that Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest—which was attacked and largely destroyed by Israel—was actually a Hamas military command center.
Both administrations denied agency to those forces their allies were fighting, apparently believing they would have more success in defending a controversial foreign policy if seen as part of a wider geopolitical struggle against a repressive regime with expansionist ambitions. The Reagan Administration insisted that the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and the FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador were simply proxies of the Soviet Union, while Biden Administration officials have claimed that Hamas is an Iranian proxy.
And, just as the vast majority of Latin American scholars opposed Reagan’s policies, a similarly large majority of Middle East scholars have opposed Biden’s policies. Even within the State Department, the majority of relevant area specialists objected to these administrations’ positions. However, both Reagan and Biden demonstrated a disregard for those knowledgeable of the nations in question, insisting that they somehow knew better.
The major difference between the Reagan and Biden Administrations with regard to foreign affairs is that most Congressional Democrats opposed Reagan’s Central America policies, while today, the vast majority of Democrats in Congress have supported Biden’s policies in the Middle East, despite opposition from registered Democratic voters nationwide. Though Americans overall appear to still support human rights and international law, the leadership of both political parties has moved to the right since the 1980s, which will give the incoming Trump Administration considerable leeway to further undermine human rights and international legal institutions.
Awareness of the illegality and immorality of Reagan’s policies in Central America has gained wide acceptance in the subsequent decades and it is likely that, over time, Biden’s legacy will be similarly tarnished. It is most unfortunate that, while in office, the lessons from Central American horrors of forty years ago were lost on Biden and his administration.
