Huckabee's Foreign Policy Miscues

Former Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR) has had a tough time of it when it comes to his foreign policy comments. Following the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Huckabee said

"In light of what happened in Pakistan yesterday, it's interesting that there are more Pakistanis who have illegally crossed the border than of any other nationality except for those immediately south of our border."

While he attributed his source on the number of illegal Pakistani immigrants to the "CIA and immigration numbers," CNN reported that "the number of illegal immigrants from Pakistan deported or apprehended is not mentioned in the latest report from the Department of Homeland Security/Office of Immigration Statistics. In 2005, the nation did not make the list of the top 10 sources of illegal immigrants. The previous year, Pakistan was the last country listed, but no specific numbers were given."
He compounded his error by referring to Pakistan's "continued" state of martial law despite Musharraf's lifting of it roughly two weeks earlier.
He also referred to Musharraf not having "enough control of those eastern borders near Afghanistan to be able go after the terrorists," despite the fact that Pakistan's eastern border is with India.
Earlier, Huckabee admitted not being aware of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran and faced criticism for his response to questions on it.

****

The Republican Party establishment doesn't like Huckabee. They don't like his foreign policy gaffes but, perhaps more importantly for them, they don't like his position on taxes. The Weekly Standard poked fun at Huckabee's article in Foreign Affairs where he wrote of the need to "keep your friends close and your enemies closer," and attributed the quote to Sun-tzu. Wrote the Standard's Dean Barnett, "the only problem with citing this ancient piece of wisdom is that it comes not from Sun Tzu, but Michael Corleone. Unfortunately, the rest of Huckabee's essay was silent as to what America should do about Hyman Roth and his Sicilian message boy, Johnny Ola."
Attribution aside (and was Barnett's tongue-in-cheek?), Barnett's comment clearly indicates the low regard Republican economic conservatives have for Huckabee (here, here,
and here). One commentator even said nominating Huckabee would be "suicide" for the Republican Party given, among other things, "his tax-raising history in Arkansas."

****

Yet despite it all, Huckabee remains in a strong position in Iowa. An LA Times/Bloomberg News poll from earlier in the week has him ahead of Romney 37% to 23% (plus or minus 6%).
Based on this, at least, potential voters don't seem too distressed by his lack of foreign policy knowledge. Perhaps their support of him is similar to that of then-candidate Bush who, in 2000, reportedly said to Saudi Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, "I don’t have the foggiest idea about what I think about foreign policy."
If so, given what we've lived through these past seven years, they really ought to think again.