GOP Candidates to Clash on Foreign Policy
His answer on Iran during the last debate shows that he can give good answers if he’s expecting them, but he’s got to really impress the audience this time. Repeatedly saying he’ll pick the right advisors isn’t going to work anymore. In the early debates, he’d talk about confronting Sharia law and would win major applause. He’d be wise to do it again.
Ron Paul is rising in the polls in Iowa and so he should get more attention than he’s gotten. His consistency makes him predictable. Expect the usual from Paul, and expect the other candidates to use him as a punching bag to show off their own foreign policy credentials.
Rick Perry’s comments on starting all foreign aid at zero were well-received by the audience, as was his ridicule of aid to Pakistan while the government helps kill our troops. He was criticized for this by Santorum and Bachmann, who warned of the perils of undermining the Pakistani government, but primary voters are far more receptive to someone who will share their frustration with our tolerance of Pakistan’s treachery. However, the position does open him up to be accused of opposing aid to Israel.
Perry is in a contest with Romney over who will be the toughest candidate on China. During the last debate, he said that “Communist China” will “enter the ash heap of history” if it doesn’t change its ways. Romney says we are already in a trade war with China.
Michele Bachmann has to knock it out of the park. In a poll documenting Cain’s collapse in support among Republican women in Iowa, she still backslid. While every other candidate gained, she fell from 8% to 5% total. That means that Republican women who left Cain looked at all the other candidates and chose everyone but the Republican woman.
She did a great job of sounding like a policy wonk on Afghanistan during the last debate. Unlike the others, she can point to her access to classified intelligence by being on the House Intelligence Committee in informing her assessments. She opposed the war in Libya entirely and can take it to the others who supported it or have failed to take a consistent stance on the issue.
This is Rick Santorum’s last and best chance to catch on with voters. Foreign policy is where he shines. He has the most detailed plan on Iran. He has two problem areas, though. First, he supports the war in Libya, saying the U.S. needs to be a force for good around the world but criticizing Obama’s indecisiveness. During the last debate, he spoke at length about how the U.S. needs the Pakistani government as an ally and that allies “work through their problems.” When asked about what to do if a Pakistani nuke got loose, he said he’d try to cooperate with the ISI intelligence service — the same one killing our troops. Talking positively about the Pakistani government isn’t exactly a winner.
Jon Huntsman has made his ambassadorship to China a key part of the case for his candidacy. He argues that he’s the only one with any real foreign policy experience and so this debate is crucial for his campaign. He has positioned himself as the dove of the race that isn’t Ron Paul. He will take on Romney and possibly Perry for their confrontational attitudes towards China (which won’t be a crowd pleaser) and point out his consistent opposition to the war in Libya.
He’ll again call for an immediate drawdown of forces from Afghanistan, reducing the mission to training Afghan security forces and special forces for counter-terrorism missions. This sounds appealing, but his opponents should challenge him on how these tasks can be successfully accomplished with a much smaller footprint.
This is the last debate on foreign policy and national security. With the economy dominating the campaign, it is likely these topics will barely be touched upon during the remaining debates. Tonight’s debate will decide who will become the candidate of the national security voters.
Libya was and still is a disaster. The campaign that was to last “days, not weeks,” turned out to last months. And now that Gaddafi is gone, the country is a basket case. There are dangerous and heavily-armed militias fighting for power (with al Qaeda being one of them) and the country is literally disintigrating into civil war once again. Only this time, none of the factions look that good and all of them are fighting for the oil wealth. You have the very possibility of Libya turning into another Somalia, if it hasn’t already. Only this small country is loaded with oil and weapons. Good going, Mr. President. The same thing is also happening now in Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, and Syria. Obama and Clinton are making the same mistake all liberals make in foreign policy. Never, EVER, overthrow a dictator unless you know what’s going to come AFTER him. Obama and Clinton never had a popular western-style government that was ready, willing, and able to take over power once the dictator was overthrown. Now they’ve replaced a dictator with yet another civil war, and none of these civil wars look like they’re going to turn out well for either the countries in question OR the west.
I’m sure Newt will tell them all this at the debate. Let’s hope he understands it as well.
I would really like to see someone take on Ron Paul and and make mincemeat out of his foreign/defense policy stance. Paul talks about it only in soundbites and whenever I’ve seen someone try to drill deeper with him he changes the subject.
My own analysis is here:
http://www.attherubicon.com/2011/11/ron-pauls-foreigndefense-policy-is-incoherent-and-inconsistent.html
Incoherent yes, but not really inconsistent.
Sometimes Paul is Adam Smith. Sometimes he’s the last defender of the Articles of Confederation.
On foreign policy, he’s Wendell Wilke.
Full Disclosure: I support Michele Bachmann. If Gingrich can rise from the politically dead so can she.
Newt made an important point that was ignored:
If we set out to drastically increase our oil production, it would create jobs and bankrupt our enemies.
Well after watching last night’s Republican Party debate, I can tell you that there is no way in hell that I will ever support Newt “Amnesty/Dream Act” Gingrich. Indeed, I won’t support anyone, be they Republican or Dhimmicrat, that supports amnesty or any other backdoor pathways to citizenship. Thus, if Newt “Amnesty/Dream Act” Gingrich happens to win the Republican Party nomination, I will be staying home on super Tuesday, as I will not vote for and support anyone that supports amnesty for illegal immigrants because those loons are not really serious about ending illegal immigration once and for all, and also because I’m not interested in helping the Left to become more intrenched in the Republican Party than it already is. Furthermore, if it means that Barack Insane Obama gets reelected, then so be it.
I watched the Republican Party debate last night and I was very disappointed. Those that believe and support the Patriot Act also support big, powerful, and overriding government and all of those things are in direct opposition to the values of conservatism.
Terrorism and Jihad are mutually exclusive and two entirely different things altogether. We don’t need a humongous Department of Homeland Security, extremely intrusive TSA, and gargantuan National Intelligence Directorate to protect us from terrorism because terrorist attacks like the Oklahoma City Bombing are few and far between, and we also don’t need them to protect the homeland from jihad, which in stark contrast to terrorism not only can be both violent and non-violent, but is holy fighting in the cause of Allah against non-Muslim unbelievers to make Islam supreme.
The way to protect the homeland from jihad is not to grow government because that never works for anything much less for protecting the homeland. What we need to do instead is outlaw Islam and ban and reverse mass Muslim immigration with all of its excess baggage ASAP. Indeed, if we do that, not only can we scrap the Patriot Act, but we can also get rid of those massive federal boondoggles that have done nothing other than create a false sense of security, while almost bankrupting the country at the same time. Indeed, zero Muslims living in America translates into zero jihad attacks in America. It’s not rocket science; it’s common sense. Did we allow millions of Communists to flood the US during the height of the Cold War too?
Indeed, anyone that doesn’t back outlawing Islam and banning and reversing mass Muslim immigration with all of its excess baggage ASAP, should be asked to explain why in country after country and anywhere and everywhere mass Muslim immigration is taking place in the world today, just like clockwork the vast overwhelming majority of Muslim immigrants flat out refuse to assimilate and integrate and instead form segregated Muslim only enclaves that eventually morph into Muslim no-go zones ruled by Sharia as fifth columns and in direct contravention to the laws of the states in which they reside.
They should also be asked to point to all the countries in the world that have had a long term successful outcome from mass Muslim immigration with all of its excess baggage.
Finally, they also need to explain what Muslims have to contribute to America that we don’t already have other than Sharia, FGM, honor killings, discrimination against females, polygamy, both violent and non-violent stealth and deceptive jihad, backwardness, barbarity, bigotry against Jews and all other non-Muslim unbelievers, Muslim no-go zones ruled by Sharia, subversive fifth columns, Islamic supremacism, refusal to assimilate and integrate, increases in the crime rates and especially the crime of rape, false victimhood via false accusations of discrimination, false allegations of Islamophobia, violent threats and intimidation to shut down free speech, etc., etc., etc. ad nauseum.
In fact, one of the biggest objections I hear today against leaving Afghanistan and Iraq is that those two countries will both inevitably morph into terrorist havens. Which is absurd to say the least, because first and foremost terrorism and jihad are mutually exclusive and two entirely different things altogether. As terrorism, which is always violent as its name implies, is a product of Western civilization only, while jihad, on the other hand, which is holy fighting in the cause of Allah against non-Muslim unbelievers to make Islam supreme and in stark contrast to terrorism can be both violent and non-violent, is a product of Islamic civilization only.
As a matter of fact, terrorism, which is a Western manifestation only, is un-Islamic. Hence, the notion that Afghanistan and Iraq will somehow morph into terrorist havens is ludicrous and absurd to say the least, because again terrorism is un-Islamic. Now, of course, they will morph into jihadist havens, but all Islamic countries in the world are also already jihadists havens as well.
Not only that but the only reason we remain vulnerable to jihad attacks today is because we have allowed millions of jihadists to migrate to the USA. Indeed, if we outlaw Islam and ban and reverse mass Muslim immigration with all of its excess baggage ASAP, the threat of jihad attacks on the homeland will be virtually completely eliminated. Thus, the hundreds of billions of dollars we are currently wasting today to protect the homeland by providing a false sense of security could be eliminated altogether and used instead to get our financial house in order. Indeed, it is common sense.
Thus, I would like to see the Republican candidates currently running for the Republican Party nomination to stop scaring Americans to justify Patriot Acts. big government leftwing solutions that never work, and fantasy based nation-building missions, and instead explain to the American people exactly how we can not only end the threat of jihad attacks on the homeland altogether, but also how we can scale back dramatically those false big government solutions by outlawing Islam and banning and reversing mass Muslim immigration with all of its excess baggage.