this seems progressive. But Sanders' own example of the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran reveals darker motives.

The U.S. government's aim today is to protect its nuclear monopoly--and that of its allies. Reflecting this viewpoint, rather than challenging it, Sanders turns a blind eye to Israel's development of atomic weapons--while singling out Iran and North Korea for criticism.

Sanders celebrates, as a victory for diplomacy, the agreement that the Obama administration made with Iran, which traded strict limits on Iran's nuclear program for a loosening of U.S.-led economic and political sanctions. The deal was only made after years of cyber-warfare, military threats and an economic blockade--yet Sanders calls it "real leadership. That is real power."

The military force that stands U.S. "diplomacy" at every step contradicts Sanders' aspiration that theU.S. could "defend and expand a rules-based international order in which law, not might, makes right."

And lest anyone mistake Sanders for a pacifist, he admits, "Yes, military force is sometimes necessary, but--always--as the last resort." In truth, the U.S. has justified nearly every war it launched with the alibi that it had tried everything else, and military action was its last resort.

At the core of Sanders' foreign policy vision is a social-democratic illusion that the capitalist state is a neutral institution, which can be wielded by elected leaders for progressive or even socialist aims.

That is a far cry from his days as an anti-Vietnam War activist. Aware of the distance he has travelled, Sanders concedes, in his interview with the Intercept, that he is no anti-imperialist: "Noam Chomsky