Harris pitches muscular foreign policy, and nuance on Gaza

WASHINGTON, United States — Kamala Harris is making her pitch to voters as a muscular defender of US interests while aiming for nuance on the painful issue of Gaza -- hoping to cover vulnerabilities and to paint Republican Donald Trump as the more risky candidate on national security.

In her speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president, the vice president vowed to "not cozy up to tyrants and dictators" who can flatter Trump as he "wants to be an autocrat himself."

The message predictably was one of continuity with her current boss President Joe Biden. But it also made her a rare Democrat to seek the White House on a message of being tougher on the world stage than the Republican.

Biden ran for president promising to end "forever wars" and pulled out of Afghanistan after 20 years.

Barack Obama, succeeding war leader George W. Bush, at his inauguration invited US adversaries to dialogue if "you unclench your fist."

Trump, while insisting that he also wants the United States out of foreign military engagements, frequently boasts of his readiness to threaten extreme force -- or what he calls "peace through strength."

Striking a hawkish note herself, Harris boasted she would maintain "the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world" and warned she would strike back at any Iranian-backed attack.

At a Chicago party convention that prominently featured veterans, Harris also vowed solidarity with Ukraine as she denounced Trump's threats not to defend NATO allies if he feels they are not paying enough.

Harris is vying to be the first female US president and therefore  "needs to go above and beyond what a male candidate would need to do to demonstrate that she is strong," said Allison McManus of the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

"The public will still have an impression of a woman as being inherently a weaker leader than a man, and she needs to make up for that by being very explicit and clear about her commitment to defense," McManus said.

Harris's emphasis on force, McManus said, should not be confused with a truly hawkish foreign policy.

Harris won the biggest applause lines in her foreign policy section when she spoke of the suffering of