Arkansas is no training ground for foreign policy. And everything Huckabee has said suggests he’s a herky-jerky man in the mold of George Bush, driven by moralisms, abstract formulae, and a complete lack of historical perspective on foreign policy. We are a nation at war that faces serious foreign policy threats. If there is one thing that should unite conservatives it is the need for a strong, coherent, and stable response to Islamic terrorism and a commitment to border security at home. Nothing in Huckabee’s records, nor in his recent words, suggests he is commited to either.
As noted in this week’s National Review:
“We haven’t had diplomatic relations with Iran in almost 30 years, my whole adult life and a lot of good it’s done. Putting this in human terms, all of us know that when we stop talking to a parent or a sibling or a friend, it’s impossible to accomplish anything, impossible to resolve differences and move the relationship forward. The same is true for countries.”
This is the kernel of Huckabee’s foreign policy. He wants to anthropomorphize international relations and bring a Christian commitment to the Golden Rule to our affairs with other nations. As he told the Des Moines Register the other day, “You treat others the way you’d like to be treated. That’s to me the fundamental issue that has to be re-established in our dealings with other countries.”
This is deeply naïve. Countries aren’t people, and the world is more dangerous than a Sunday church social. Threats, deception, and — as a last resort — violence must play a role in international relations. Differences cannot always be worked out through sweet persuasion. A U.S. president who doesn’t realize this will repeat the experience of President Jimmy Carter at his most ineffectual.
Other than the general impulse to be nicer, Huckabee’s views are the uneven grab bag to be expected from someone who hasn’t thought much about foreign policy.
Huckabee joked he didn’t know much but he “stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.” This would be somewhat funny if he were talking about something utterly unimportant like rural electrification or the NEA. This guy would be the absolute worst choice of the front-running candidates, and it is in fact a bad thing that he’s anti-abortion and anti-gay-marriage because his populist stand on social issues masks his radicalism on everything else. Like Bush, everything he does will be castigated as “radical, extreme conservatism” when he is, in fact, anything but.
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Huckabee joked he didn’t know much but he “stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”
Really? I missed that, how churlish.