Nearly a dozen of the Republicans who are running for US president spent last weekend in South Carolina, talking about foreign policy and to any viewer who stumbled across the event on C-SPAN, it sounded like a contest in ferocity.
Take Florida Senator Marco Rubio: “[When] people ask what should our strategy be on global ... terrorists, I refer them to the movie Taken ... ‘We will look for you, we will find you, and we will kill you.’”
Or Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker: “We need a commander-in-chief in this country who once and for all will identify that ... terrorism is a threat ... I want a leader who is willing to take the fight to them before they take the fight to us.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz: “We saw the ugly face of ... terrorism in my home state of Texas, in Garland, where two [terrorists] came to commit murder. Thankfully, one police officer helped them meet their virgins.”
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum: “If these people want to bring back seventh century Islam, my advice is: Let’s load the bombers up and bomb them back to the seventh century.”
It’s unusual for a campaign to focus so heavily on foreign policy, especially when US troops are not locked in a ground war overseas. Primary contests normally centre on the economy and domestic issues. But this year, Republican primary voters, especially in conservative states like South Carolina, seem to want to hear about the war against terrorism; all those red-meat lines drew whoops and cheers.
A Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll this month found that when Americans were asked what problems the government should address, most cited “job creation and the economy” — but most Republican primary voters cited “national security and terrorism” instead. So Republican candidates are narrowcasting — talking to conservative voters about the subjects they are most concerned about.
Besides, it is easier to criticise the Obama administration for mishandling the Middle East, which is undeniably a mess, than to complain that it is mismanaging the economy — because job creation is up. But slinging bloodthirsty rhetoric against terrorism is the easy part. Do Republican candidates actually have any policy to propose? In fact, they do. Republican voters will get a choice on foreign policy. In simplified form, it is among super hawks, more moderate hawks and one untraditional non-hawk.
The super hawks include Rubio, who has demanded tougher US measures against Russia’s Vladimir Putin, called on Congress to authorise the use of US ground troops against Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) and sought to block President Barack Obama’s impending agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear programme, denouncing it as “a bad deal”.
Walker belongs in that truculent camp too, although his foreign policy has not been fully built yet. (He is on a trip to Israel this week to learn more about the Middle East.) He has said that the next president should abrogate any Iran deal that Obama makes. And when it comes to terrorism, he told ABC News in February: “I think anywhere and everywhere, we have to go beyond just aggressive air strikes ... We have to be prepared to put boots on the ground.”
The leading moderate hawk is Jeb Bush, who has called for a more assertive foreign policy than Obama’s, including more defence spending, but has avoided calling for the use of ground troops against Daesh.
On Iran, Jeb has said he opposes the kind of agreement that Obama is negotiating, but he has left it unclear whether he would try to undo a deal if one were made.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has always been this campaign’s libertarian exception. He has called for lower defence spending; he has opposed using ground troops in Iraq and Syria. Most strikingly, he has supported Obama’s negotiations with Iran. “I do believe that negotiation is better than war,” he told NBC News last month — a bold position in this GOP field.
Cruz deserves special mention: The senator has staked out an unusual mix of aggression and restraint. He has called for more air strikes against Daesh, but opposed deploying ground troops, and he insists that US objectives overseas should be limited. “The largest country Ronald Reagan ever invaded was Grenada,” he said recently. “It is not the job of the US military to engage in nation-building.”
But those nuances were difficult to hear at the South Carolina conservatives’ conference. The candidates, in trying to appeal to Republican primary voters, sounded out-of-tune with the rest of the electorate. Most GOP voters support using ground troops in Iraq and oppose a nuclear deal with Iran, according to polls; most non-Republicans disagree on both counts.
As candidates look for ways to stand out, their debates could push some to sound even more bellicose. If Republican hopefuls continue in that direction, they are likely to accomplish something that once seemed impossible: They will make Hillary Clinton look like the anti-war candidate.
— Los Angeles Times
