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Back in April, I wrote a column predicting that the most interesting foreign policy fight of the 2016 campaign was likely to be one between Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. So, while I've enjoyed watching their disagreements over America's role in the world take center stage, it's been unfortunate to observe the attempt to smear Cruz as an "isolationist."
Though the Rubio vs. Cruz clash has been building for some time, it boiled over Tuesday night as Cruz explained why sometimes allowing dictators to stay in power was more aligned with America's national security interest than promoting democracy. Over the course of explaining why democracy promotion wasn't the answer in Libya, Egypt, and Syria, he said, "I believe in a America first foreign policy." The phrase "America first," is historically associated with Charles Lindbergh, the isolationist who led a movement advocating U.S. neutrality in World War II, an association that was exploited by his critics who have been desperately trying to distort Cruz's foreign policy views.
In a fundraising email following the debate, Rubio campaign manager Terry Sullivan blasted, "the isolationist tag team duo Ted Cruz and Rand Paul."
The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin launched a similar line of attack, comparing Cruz to Lindbergh, saying that he "outdid himself last night in his courting of the Trumpkin base. In doing so, he sank further into the far-right brew of isolationism and xenophobia."
Rubin went on to quote the American Enterprise Institute's Danielle Pletka as saying, "Good for Ted Cruz for being honest. He doesn't want to be anywhere in the world, doesn't want America to lead, and harkening back to the likes of Pat Buchanan and Charles Lindbergh is truth in advertising for him."
Cruz, the so-called "isolationist," used the same debate to advocate regime change in Iran and carpet boming the Islamic State.
Tarring Cruz as an "isolationist" obscures a very real divide within the conservative foreign policy community that has always existed, but that has become more apparent during the Obama era, as Republicans grapple with the lessons of the Iraq War and new challenges emerge.
As I outlined in my April column (and in a separate piece back in 2013 during the Syria debate), the divide in the Republican party isn't so much between interventionists and non-interventionists, but among hawks. During the Iraq War debate, anybody who supported the invasion was lumped into the same ideological camp and described as "neoconservative," even though some war supporters were more about democratization and others backed a more limited mission of removing the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
In the Obama years, two things happened. One was that some supporters of the Iraq War did soul searching and looked at the forign policy consequences (the absence of weapons of mass destruction, democracy evaporating, Iran gaining influence) and the domestic political consequences (the 2006 and 2008 elections that brought Obama to power with massive Congressional majorities), and concluded that it was a mistake. Another factor changing the debate was that the nature of the foreign policy challenges made it less clear that regime change was in America's best interest.
n the case of the protests against the Iranian regime in 2009, conservatives were fairly united in criticizing the Obama administration for being slow to recognize the uprising. The reason is that Iran is the worst of all worlds: authoritarian, Islamist, and anti-American.
But when the Arab Spring took hold of Egypt, it was more complicated. Hosni Mubarak was authoritarian, and no saint, for sure, but U.S. interests aligned more closely with his than with the Muslim Brotherhood. And the two different camps of conservative hawks started to go their sepearate ways.
As John Bolton said to me in a 2013 interview: "Neoconservatives thought the Arab Spring would move the region in a positive direction, whereas the more (national) interest-oriented conservatives believed it might not work out because the conditions weren't right and because the abstract emphasis on democracy doesn't necessarily comport with the actual circumstances around the world."
In Libya and Syria, again, the situation was more complicated -- Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar Assad are bad dudes, everybody agrees, but at the same time, rebels and terrorists have been all mixed together.
Many national interest oriented conservatives concluded that however bad Gaddafi and Assad, getting rid of them helped/helps the likes of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Neoconservatives more or less consistently advocated military action and regime change.
Bolton, explaining to me opposition to airstrikes against Syria in 2013, said, "I think there are neoisolationists in the Republican Party, but I don't think that's a good description for everybody who opposes the use of military force in Syria."
Neoconservatives, many of whom I respect and consider friends, have too often been blinded by their romanticized notion of a world in which certain values are ultimately universal, and democracracy promotion and American security are linked.
Back in early 2011, anybody with at least one eye open recognized that the Muslim Brotherhood would win any free election in Egypt. Yet when I asked Sen. John McCain, who described the Brotherhood as a terrorist-linked group, whether the U.S. should recognize an Egyptian government headed by the Brotherhood, McCain said, "I think the United States should take every step to make sure there is a free and fair and open and transparent election, and that won't happen." Well, it did happen. So why is McCain considered credible on foreign policy among the same group of intellectuals who now say Cruz is not?
What's interesting, too, is that last month, I attended a dinner hosted by AEI. Pletka, who has since taken to attacking Cruz, tried to press Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Syria.
"If I see a situation where I don't have a clear concept, I don't charge in," Netanyahu said. "In Syria, I do not see a simple concept because you choose here between a horrible secular dictatorship or the two other prospects that would be buttressed by Iran, and you would have Iran run Syria, a horrible prospect for us, or Da'ish, which is also touching our borders on the Golan. When two of your enemies are fighting each other, I don't say strengthen one or the other. I say weaken both, or at least don't intervene, which is what I've done. I've not intervened."
This was essentially the position articulated by Cruz in Tuesday night's debate. Would any Cruz critic argue that Netanyahu, too, is an isoloationist or an ideological heir to Charles Lindbergh?
There is a very important and necessary debate about whether and to what extent to intervene militarily. But seeing intervention as synonomous with "toughness" and "seriousness" on foreign policy, and lumping in everybody who disagrees as part of the "isolationist" wing, isn't a very productive way to have a conversation.
Though the Rubio vs. Cruz clash has been building for some time, it boiled over Tuesday night as Cruz explained why sometimes allowing dictators to stay in power was more aligned with America's national security interest than promoting democracy. Over the course of explaining why democracy promotion wasn't the answer in Libya, Egypt, and Syria, he said, "I believe in a America first foreign policy." The phrase "America first," is historically associated with Charles Lindbergh, the isolationist who led a movement advocating U.S. neutrality in World War II, an association that was exploited by his critics who have been desperately trying to distort Cruz's foreign policy views.
In a fundraising email following the debate, Rubio campaign manager Terry Sullivan blasted, "the isolationist tag team duo Ted Cruz and Rand Paul."
The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin launched a similar line of attack, comparing Cruz to Lindbergh, saying that he "outdid himself last night in his courting of the Trumpkin base. In doing so, he sank further into the far-right brew of isolationism and xenophobia."
Rubin went on to quote the American Enterprise Institute's Danielle Pletka as saying, "Good for Ted Cruz for being honest. He doesn't want to be anywhere in the world, doesn't want America to lead, and harkening back to the likes of Pat Buchanan and Charles Lindbergh is truth in advertising for him."
Cruz, the so-called "isolationist," used the same debate to advocate regime change in Iran and carpet boming the Islamic State.
Tarring Cruz as an "isolationist" obscures a very real divide within the conservative foreign policy community that has always existed, but that has become more apparent during the Obama era, as Republicans grapple with the lessons of the Iraq War and new challenges emerge.
As I outlined in my April column (and in a separate piece back in 2013 during the Syria debate), the divide in the Republican party isn't so much between interventionists and non-interventionists, but among hawks. During the Iraq War debate, anybody who supported the invasion was lumped into the same ideological camp and described as "neoconservative," even though some war supporters were more about democratization and others backed a more limited mission of removing the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
In the Obama years, two things happened. One was that some supporters of the Iraq War did soul searching and looked at the forign policy consequences (the absence of weapons of mass destruction, democracy evaporating, Iran gaining influence) and the domestic political consequences (the 2006 and 2008 elections that brought Obama to power with massive Congressional majorities), and concluded that it was a mistake. Another factor changing the debate was that the nature of the foreign policy challenges made it less clear that regime change was in America's best interest.
n the case of the protests against the Iranian regime in 2009, conservatives were fairly united in criticizing the Obama administration for being slow to recognize the uprising. The reason is that Iran is the worst of all worlds: authoritarian, Islamist, and anti-American.
But when the Arab Spring took hold of Egypt, it was more complicated. Hosni Mubarak was authoritarian, and no saint, for sure, but U.S. interests aligned more closely with his than with the Muslim Brotherhood. And the two different camps of conservative hawks started to go their sepearate ways.
As John Bolton said to me in a 2013 interview: "Neoconservatives thought the Arab Spring would move the region in a positive direction, whereas the more (national) interest-oriented conservatives believed it might not work out because the conditions weren't right and because the abstract emphasis on democracy doesn't necessarily comport with the actual circumstances around the world."
In Libya and Syria, again, the situation was more complicated -- Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar Assad are bad dudes, everybody agrees, but at the same time, rebels and terrorists have been all mixed together.
Many national interest oriented conservatives concluded that however bad Gaddafi and Assad, getting rid of them helped/helps the likes of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Neoconservatives more or less consistently advocated military action and regime change.
Bolton, explaining to me opposition to airstrikes against Syria in 2013, said, "I think there are neoisolationists in the Republican Party, but I don't think that's a good description for everybody who opposes the use of military force in Syria."
Neoconservatives, many of whom I respect and consider friends, have too often been blinded by their romanticized notion of a world in which certain values are ultimately universal, and democracracy promotion and American security are linked.
Back in early 2011, anybody with at least one eye open recognized that the Muslim Brotherhood would win any free election in Egypt. Yet when I asked Sen. John McCain, who described the Brotherhood as a terrorist-linked group, whether the U.S. should recognize an Egyptian government headed by the Brotherhood, McCain said, "I think the United States should take every step to make sure there is a free and fair and open and transparent election, and that won't happen." Well, it did happen. So why is McCain considered credible on foreign policy among the same group of intellectuals who now say Cruz is not?
What's interesting, too, is that last month, I attended a dinner hosted by AEI. Pletka, who has since taken to attacking Cruz, tried to press Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Syria.
"If I see a situation where I don't have a clear concept, I don't charge in," Netanyahu said. "In Syria, I do not see a simple concept because you choose here between a horrible secular dictatorship or the two other prospects that would be buttressed by Iran, and you would have Iran run Syria, a horrible prospect for us, or Da'ish, which is also touching our borders on the Golan. When two of your enemies are fighting each other, I don't say strengthen one or the other. I say weaken both, or at least don't intervene, which is what I've done. I've not intervened."
This was essentially the position articulated by Cruz in Tuesday night's debate. Would any Cruz critic argue that Netanyahu, too, is an isoloationist or an ideological heir to Charles Lindbergh?
There is a very important and necessary debate about whether and to what extent to intervene militarily. But seeing intervention as synonomous with "toughness" and "seriousness" on foreign policy, and lumping in everybody who disagrees as part of the "isolationist" wing, isn't a very productive way to have a conversation.
