The approach is presumably meant to contrast with that of Bush. But Huckabee’s words are, in fact, an almost verbatim restatement of George W. Bush’s view of America’s role when Bush, like Huckabee, first campaigned for president. “How,” the moderator asked Bush in his second debate with Al Gore in October 2000, “would you project us around the world, as president?” Bush’s answer: “It really depends upon how our nation conducts itself in foreign policy. If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll resent us. If we’re a humble nation, but strong, they’ll welcome us. And it’s -- our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power, and that’s why we have to be humble.”
The similarities don’t end there. Huckabee: “[W]e must stop using active-duty forces for nation building and return to our policy of using other government agencies to build schools, hospitals, roads, sewage treatment plants, water filtration systems, electrical facilities, and legal and banking systems.” Bush in the same debate with Gore: “I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called nation-building. I think our troops ought to be used to fight and win war.”
In the specifics, too, while Huckabee is portraying himself as a different kind of foreign-policy Republican, his approach—to the “war on terror,” Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, keeping the United States pre-eminent in the world—differs more in rhetoric than in substance from that of Bush. Huckabee is eloquent where Bush is bombastic. Huckabee is articulate where Bush sounds simplistic. But both men share the crusader’s perspective, seeing the fate of the world intimately linked with American willingness not only to protect freedom, but to project it and foment it where it’s wanting.
On Terrorism
Huckabee considers the war on “Islamic jihadism” and what he says is “the lack of a viable moderate alternative to radicalism” the United States’ “biggest challenge in the Arab and Muslim worlds.” Yet eight of the 10 countries with the largest Muslim populations in the world—Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco, with a combined Muslim population of 750 million —are American allies, half of them are democracies, and all of them but Pakistan function quite successfully because of their “viable moderate alternative to radicalism.”
Huckabee blames the Bush administration for “not adequately explain[ing] the theology and ideology behind Islamic terrorism” and blames “most Americans” for not knowing who their enemy is. But Huckabee falls short in understanding the Muslim and Arab world by characterizing it all as the breeding ground of terrorism, and by reductively summing up radical Islam’s aim: “They really do want to kill every last one of us and destroy civilization as we know it.” He further confuses the Muslim Brotherhood, which operates within the moderate Islamic framework of several nations’ political structure, with al-Qaeda’s aims.
Huckabee believes in fighting Islamic terrorism wherever it surfaces with American spies, special forces and local allies along with “swift and surgical air strikes.” In sum, Huckabee’s anti-terror agenda is not a departure from that of Bush. It states the same aims and assumes the same methods, with broader targets, although the language is slightly different.
On Iraq
“Our invasion of Iraq went well militarily, but the occupation has destroyed the country politically, economically, and socially,” Huckabee says. The problem was not attacking Iraq to start with, but doing so with too few troops, according to Huckabee. He would have supported invading Iraq with about half a million troops. He is oppiosed to withdrawing from Iraq. He supports staying there along the lines drawn by the Bush administration and Gen. David Petraeus. He has no issue with Turkey attacking separatist Kurds in northern Iraq, and would support giving Turkey intelligence to do so.
Huckabee’s optimism, however, is startling for its lack of evidence: “Despite what the gloomy Democrats in the United States profess, reconciliation is happening in Iraq, only it is bottom up rather than top down, and since it comes directly from the people, it can end the violence faster. Benchmarks are being reached in fact, if not in law.”
In fact, the country is severely desiccated along sectarian lines, the central government has explicitly abandoned attempts at national reconciliation, more than 4 million refugees are roaming inside and outside Iraq, and benchmarks are not being met by any measure.
On Iraq as on other matters, Huckabee has more in common than differences with Bush, including a pronounced tendency to project optimism quite in contrast with reality.
