Former governor Mike Huckabee talks quite a bit about his faith which, he says on his website, "defines me. I don't separate my faith from my personal and professional lives." If that is so, then how does his faith inform his views on foreign policy? He calls for "a real sense of cooperation" between the US and other nations and adds, "I would like us to restore relationships and rebuild the kind of positive attitudes people have historically had toward our nation and do that by showing the kind of respect that other nations would want and deserve."
He doesn't say how this restoration and rebuilding would take place but cited as an example the recent visit to the US by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The president, he said, "showed a friendly face to us."
But this is reaction rather than a proactive expression of corrective policy (and, in any case, the burden here is on the foreign leader to demonstrate a change in attitude). If Huckabee feels the current administration has bungled foreign relations, and that's the implication, then he needs to define the contours of his policy prescription.
He cites several points on his site regarding his national security concerns, including this: "We don't have a dog in the fight between Sunnis and Shiites - our enemy is Islamic extremism in all its guises." If so, it is important to ask why he wasn't aware of the recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) regarding Iran (surely a prime state expression of "Islamic extremism").
At the time of the report's release, Huckabee revealed this lack of awareness but, upon being informed of it, said "I don't know where the intelligence is coming from that says that they suspended the program and how credible that is versus the news that they actually are expanding it," he said. "And then I've heard the last two weeks supposed reports that say that they are accelerating and could be having a reactor in a much shorter period of time than originally they thought." (He offered no evidence on those reports that Iran is expanding its weapons program).
It's clear why Huckabee resonates with some in the Republican Party, but he needs to speak with something approximating depth and insight about his foreign policy positions. Saying "I will fight this war hard, but I will also fight it smart, using all our political, economic, diplomatic, and intelligence weapons as well as our military might," just isn't sufficient.
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Sure it's plausible. It's difficult to believe that the intelligence community unilaterally took it upon themselves to stymie administration plans to launch an attack against Iran (the popular view) since those people report to the administration. Of course, Huckabee didn't mention a secret deal (not that I was aware of at the time I wrote the post) nor cited anything else. As to the Israeli side of things, I don't see that they're locked into anything after an insubstantial meeting at Annapolis (they can simply wait out the current administration). There are many moving parts here and the picture isn't at all clear.
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