The Republican Retreat into Isolationism

An American foreign policy without active engagement fits poorly at a time when other powers intend to jump in.

Barack Obama’s former spokesman is wrong. After the first Republican presidential debate, Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary until four months ago, ridiculed the event, commenting that someone needed to check the tape to see if it might have been a program that had broadcasted eight years ago. No, CNN hadn’t presented a rerun. Among the seven Republicans who appeared on camera preparing for the upcoming primaries, some had previously run; however, several of the positions taken by those seeking their party’s nomination differed markedly from the Bush era.

That is especially true of their foreign policy. The one-time Republican missionary zeal to bring American values such as freedom and democracy to the rest of the world (at gunpoint if necessary) has made a monastic retreat behind secure walls. Mitt Romney, the most viable candidate according to opinion polls, looks at Afghanistan and says, “It’s time for us to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can.” The former governor of the liberal state of Massachusetts and failed presidential candidate of 2008 added that he would only do so “consistent with the word that comes from our generals.”

A call to instinctive American isolationism

Representative Ron Paul, who also ran in the 2008 primaries as a Libertarian, argued even more firmly, “I wouldn’t wait for my generals. I’m the commander in chief. I make the decisions. I tell the generals what to do. I’d bring them home as quickly as possible. And I would get them out of Iraq as well. And I wouldn’t start a war in Libya. I’d quit bombing Yemen. And I’d quit bombing Pakistan.”

Of course Paul, who just a few minutes earlier in a moment of geographical audacity said, “We should think about protecting our borders, rather than the borders between Iraq and Afghanistan,” could easily lose in the primary election once again. But his appeal to the natural American instinct toward isolationism hardly surprised his opponents. Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House of Representatives in the 1990s, also called for abandoning the Libyan campaign, as did tea party supported Representative Michele Bachmann, who at the same time is angry that her president handed over military command in Libya to France.

American foreign policy’s navel-gazing

In contrast, Tim Pawlenty, former governor of Minnesota, still traveling on a conservative ticket, wants to continue the deployment of unmanned drones against terrorist cells in Yemen. Businessman Herman Cain, the only African-American candidate in the Republican lineup, advanced the theory that the U.S. faces complete chaos in Libya. Only Rick Santorum, former senator from Pennsylvania who has little faith in Muslim willingness to negotiate, came out for closer cooperation with the allies. The foreign policy positions of the various candidates won’t be decisive in the election, but a navel-gazing American foreign policy hesitant to engage internationally would massively alter the world at a time when regional powers like Iran and global powers like China are preparing to get involved.

Washington’s foreign policy direction remained relatively unchanged in the transition from Bush to Obama. True, Obama seeks more multilateral consensus where Bush was inclined toward unilateralism and would tell the allies that they were either with America or against it. Obama also, however, orients his foreign policy according to American interests, as shown by his troop surge in the Hindu Kush. After his own party denounced his Afghanistan policy, we now face the rare occurrence of Republican candidates demanding an accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan that is faster than the Democratic president would prefer.

Obama’s competitors lack new ideas

In a time of high unemployment, a candidate must be able to demonstrate a good grasp on how to create jobs. But here — and this is where Gibbs is right — the Republican candidates did not put forth anything new. Lower taxes, get rid of Obamacare and do away with many governmental regulatory agencies: Those are their simplistic solutions. None of the candidates had any captivating ideas on how to stabilize real estate markets or increase exports.

The current Republican field leader, Mitt Romney, wants to stop the party’s ultraconservative right wing, but all too often he has changed his views on gun control, abortion and same sex marriage, i.e., those subjects closest to conservatives’ hearts. The ultimate millstone Romney has to deal with is the health care reform package he introduced as governor of Massachusetts. Obama praised it with great relish as the template for his own reform package. Tim Pawlenty homogenized Romney’s plan into a campaign motto by calling it “Obamneycare.”

Economic recovery is the key

The field is still open for candidates. Jon Huntsman, ex-Ambassador to China, may run, as might Texas Governor Rick Perry. At a time when more Americans call themselves “independent” rather than Republican or Democrat, only those Republican candidates who refuse to let themselves be driven too far into the right wing corner will stand a chance of winning against Obama. At the same time, voters must be able to actually visualize their candidate in the Oval Office, something that in Sarah Palin’s case even her most ardent fans find very difficult.

If history holds true, a new president won’t be elected; the incumbent will either return for a second term or find himself banished to oblivion. Since eliminating Osama bin Laden, Obama is more popular with voters than he was a year ago, though if the economy doesn’t show signs of recovery by November 2012, it will threaten his chances for another term.