Paul Pillar: Biden's chances of winning the election have gone down

TABNAK– Professor Paul Pillar, who was CIA intelligence analyst for 28 years, says the poor performance of Biden in debate will swing a significant number of votes because it accentuates the perception--fairly or unfairly--that Biden is too old to function effectively as president.

“Of course, there will still be many voters who see Biden as better than Trump and will vote for Biden, but I think Biden's chances of winning the election have just gone down,” Pillar told Tabnak News Agency.

Following is the full text of the interview.

Q: The first debate between Biden and Trump for the 2024 US presidential election was held. According to polls, Biden's performance has been very poor. What is your assessment?

A: His performance was indeed very poor.  Even though the people are electing a president and not a debater, and debate performance by itself ought not to determine voter's decisions so much, unfortunately it does.

Q: Some pollsters believe that this debate does not have a negative impact on Biden's voting base. What is your opinion? Will this debate affect swing votes in swing states?

A: Yes, I think it will swing a significant number of votes because it accentuates the perception--fairly or unfairly--that Biden is too old to function effectively as president.  Of course, there will still be many voters who see Biden as better than Trump and will vote for Biden, but I think Biden's chances of winning the election have just gone down.  He needs support not just from his base but from many independent voters.

Q: Trump recently announced that he is willing to talk and solve problems with the current Iranian leadership. What is your assessment of these words?

A: I do not place much value in his words.  He frequently claims that he can deal better with foreign governments than his domestic rivals can, but he doesn't have accomplishments to show for it in his first term.  In addition to his policy on Iran being a total failure, he made the same claims about being able to solve problems with the North Korean regime, but he accomplished almost nothing useful there either. 

Q: In Iran, Saeed Jalili and Masoud Pezeshkian have entered the second round of the presidential elections. Jalili is an opponent of the JCPOA and has strong anti-Western views. What is the effect of Jalili and Trump's possible victory on the foreign policy of the two countries?

A: Either Trump or Jalili--but especially Trump--in a presidency probably will mean continued confrontation and tension between the United States and Iran.  That will be all the more so if both of them win office.  They will play off each other's hardline policies in telling domestic audiences how unreasonable the other government is.

Q: Can Trump increase regional tensions like in the first term of his presidency? While the Persian Gulf Arabs and Iran are improving relations. Will the countries of the region be with his policies?

A: He certainly can increase tensions.  The main strand of Trump's regional policies in his first term and probably also in a second is total support for the Israeli government and Israeli policies.  For the Persian Gulf region, this means going along with Israel's efforts to stoke maximum animosity toward, and isolation of, Iran, and to get Gulf Arabs to be part of an anti-Iran alliance.  This all goes very much against the promising moves that Iran and Gulf Arabs have been making to improve relations.  Some of Trump's policies in this regard are not all that different from what is being done by the Biden administration, with its effort to make a deal with Saudi Arabia that would involve U.S. security guarantees to Saudi Arabia and upgrading Saudi-Israeli ties to full diplomatic relations.