Smith Tau Mar 16 2011 GOP 2012 Return of the neo-cons
GOP 2012: Return of the neo-cons
The GOP response to the situation in Libya is particularly illustrative. | AP, Reuters Photos Close
By BEN SMITH & BYRON TAU | 3/16/11 3:29 PM EDT Updated: 3/17/11 5:28 AM EDT
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51424.html
When former President George W. Bush left office in 2009, liberal Democrats and a fair number of moderate, traditional Republicans proclaimed the good news: The GOP neo-cons were dead, chased from Washington in disgrace.
But as Republican presidential hopefuls begin developing foreign policy platforms, a clear and surprising pattern has emerged: They're back and, so far, winning the fight for the direction of the party.
In spite of the tarnished reputation of the neo-cons and the movement by many in the tea party wing toward a more isolationist foreign policy that is open to real cuts in defense spending, all but one of the leading 2012 candidates — in early speeches and campaign books — appear to be toeing a hawkish, interventionist line and promising increased spending on the Pentagon.
When Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour abruptly broke with that consensus Tuesday in Iowa, he set himself apart from the field and positioned himself to fill a potentially significant opening in the 2012 GOP debate. Former Govs. Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, meanwhile, have differed largely only in their attempts to outdo one another in committing to what Bush called the "freedom agenda."
"They're all basically mainstream in their agreement about the [Obama] administration being too friendly toward enemies and too harsh toward allies," said Randy Scheunemann, who was John McCain's top foreign policy hand in 2008, has worked for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and has informally advised other contenders.
The apparent unanimity reflects the settlement of a long dispute inside the Republican Party, as many in the aging band of "realist" statesmen defected to support Barack Obama in 2008.
"Once upon a time, there was a debate within the party between realists of the Brent Scowcroft[1] variety and the neo-cons," said Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former adviser to Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bush. "It seems like realists have lost that debate."
"The party is reasonably united," Abrams told POLITICO. "There is a consensus about the need for American leadership of the world."
Practically speaking, the change inside the party has meant that none of the several Republicans moving seriously toward presidential runs joined former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton in calling for Obama to stand with former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak — though Bolton, on many other policy issues, is a neo-con of the first order. They have been, when asked, bullish on the notion of a no-fly zone over Libya and competitive in their devotion to Israeli security.
The GOP response to the unfolding situation in Libya is particularly illustrative.
Pawlenty recently blasted Obama for an "incoherent" response and said he supports a no-fly zone.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum echoed that sentiment, calling for airstrikes and telling a Des Moines, Iowa, radio host that Reagan bombed Libya. "If you want to be Reaganesque, it seems the path is pretty clear," said Santorum.
Romney was more cautious but echoed the theme that Obama has failed to show leadership.
The president and his team look like deer in the headlights. Instead of leading the world, the president has been tiptoeing behind the Europeans," Romney said in New Hampshire earlier this month.
Gingrich, Palin and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee also joined the chorus for imposing a no-fly zone on the troubled North African country and took aim at the Obama administration's handling of the situation.
Barbour alone, in his comments Tuesday, broke with that consensus.
"I don't think it's our mission to make Libya look like Luxembourg," he told reporters in Davenport, warning of "nation-building." (Andre adds agreed!)
"At the end of the day, we might have some role in Libya, but it should not be to send American troops in there and knock heads and make Libya what we would like Libya to look like. Because it, no offense, is not ever going to look like what we'd like it," Barbour said.
A few weeks earlier in Egypt, a similar dynamic unfolded as the administration grappled with how hard to push Mubarak, a U.S. ally for 30 years, to leave office. Even tempered by fears about a potential Islamist government taking power, most of the Republican presidential wannabes stuck to a pro-democracy political script — and slammed Obama for a lack of leadership.
Gingrich called the administration "amateurish," while Pawlenty compared Obama's response to the Tower of Babel and said the situation is the result of the United States cozying up to autocratic regimes. (Andre adds agreed!)
"It's important to not be sitting, only supporting the authoritarian regimes for decades. That's why we — 10 years ago, 20 years ago — we should have been pushing President Mubarak to make these changes, even if incrementally, so that the people of Egypt could see the United States was pushing for those values and that we were getting results," Pawlenty said on ABC's "This Week." (Andre adds agreed!)
Barbour hasn't suggested anything different from his peers on the "Arab Spring," but he indicated for the first time Tuesday that he might test the intersection of Republican foreign policy and the anti-spending impulses of the tea party movement.
And even as the other major candidates who have begun to shape their platforms appear united around a hawkish internationalism, some Republicans believe the space is open for the taking.
"We're sweating government cutting $61 billion out of the budget, and we're spending almost three times that occupying Afghanistan and Iraq. You can't quite take it off the table," said Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist.
"There's running room there — but you've got to be strong on defense, supportive of Bush and his positions, and you pivot out of that," he said, adding that he understands why Republicans are leery of taking that risk.
For many Republicans, the debate over American operations abroad is tied to questions of spending, and the link between those two has been the subject of heated debates on the right this year. Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol — a central voice in the current, hawkish GOP foreign policy — joined the presidents of the two central Republican think tanks, The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, in a "Defending Defense" manifesto urging "anyone seeking to restore our fiscal health [to] look at entitlements first, not across-the-board cuts aimed at our men and women in uniform."
Norquist's group, and others with tea party ties, fired back that the focus on smaller government shouldn't hold the Pentagon blameless. "True fiscal stewards cannot eschew real spending reform by protecting pet projects in the federal budget," they wrote. "Any such Department of Defense favoritism would signal that the new Congress is not serious about fiscal responsibility and not ready to lead."
The exchange sparked a rolling debate on Capitol Hill, but among the leading Republican 2012 contenders, the matter appears to be largely settled on the pro-defense-spending side. Romney and Gingrich, for instance, have publicly backed a Heritage Foundation plan under the rubric "Four Percent for Freedom," which would commit 4 percent of gross domestic product to baseline military spending — subtracting the cost of the two wars, which would put the current spending well over 4 percent.
McCain had refused to sign onto a similar rubric in 2008.
"Given what's happening in the world, we should not reduce our commitment to national security," Romney said in Concord, N.H., recently. "In particular, we should not cut the number of our men and women in uniform."
As for Barbour, he seems to have a clear opening, since his only competition to be a less hawkish foreign policy voice is among second- and third-tier candidates and those who don't seem to be running at all.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul continues to oppose nearly all American foreign commitments. Donald Trump, who is flirting with a run, has suggested to Newsmax that the U.S. should be building roads in Alabama, not Afghanistan.
Huckabee (Andre adds – a real goober pea – listen & laugh - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBOxw6vbDyo ), who has not taken steps toward a bid, recently cited "doubts" about the absence of an "endgame" in Afghanistan. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, in a similar position, has raised questions about the cost of American commitments.
And Santorum broke with his fellow Republicans on the question of democratiztion, saying he's not "fixated" on democracy.
Ambassador Jon Huntsman's foreign policy views are largely unknown, though members of Washington's "realist" foreign policy camp harbor secret hopes that he's one of them.
Barbour is striking a different note.
"Anybody who says you can't save money at the Pentagon has never been to the Pentagon," he said. "We can save money on defense, and if we Republicans don't propose saving money on defense, we'll have no credibility on anything else."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51424_Page3.html#ixzz1H2uqyV9V
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51424.html#ixzz1H2tBDVMb
[1] Brent Scowcroft was born in Ogden, Utah to Lucile Scowcroft (formerly Ballantyne) and James Scowcroft, a grocer and business owner. He is a descendant of early 19th century immigrants from England, Scotland, Denmark, and Norway.He received his undergraduate degree and commission into the Army Air Forces from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1947. Scowcroft also earned an M.A. in 1953 and Ph.D. in 1967 from Columbia University.was the United States National Security Advisor under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush and a Lieutenant General in the United States Air Force. He also served as Military Assistant to President Richard Nixon and as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He served as Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He also assisted President Barack Obama in choosing his national security team. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Scowcroft
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