What is a Republican foreign policy?
Aaron Blake writes today on Tim Pawlenty's hawkish stance on foreign policy, a position he identifies as being an attempt to distance the former Minnesota governor from the rest of the field - or more accurately, from Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman:
Pawlenty appears to be trying to set the issue backdrop and shape the policy debate in the Republican presidential field, laying out high-minded goals and daring his opponents to jump on board.To some extent, Pawlentyâ??s aggressive approach has worked. The Pawlenty campaignâ??s comments critical of Romney and Huntsman on foreign policy have fed a debate about the GOPâ??s supposed isolationism.
Romneyâ??s campaign made clear immediately after the debate two weeks ago that he hadnâ??t shifted his foreign policy in any significant way and remained committed to strong national defense.
Huntsmanâ??s campaign, too, is working to highlight that his position on Afghanistan does not imply any kind of unwillingness to act internationally â?? rather that he prefers a different approach.
â??Jon Huntsman is the only candidate who has the foreign policy experience to know the threat and to understand the best way for America to protect our core national security interests,â? Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller said in response to Pawlenty.
On today's edition of Coffee and Markets, I discussed this issue further with Pejman Yousefzadeh, who has been more supportive of Huntsman's campaign but no less skeptical about his position on Afghanistan. Within this conversation, I note my concern about Huntsman's position, and Romney's as well to some degree: that in attacking Obama from the left on America's role in the world, they will take an outlier view within the right's coalition and transform it into something more acceptable.
