Debate highlights GOP foreign policy identity crisis

Republican presidential contenders have long viewed foreign policy as a key area of strength in a potential general-election matchup against Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But first, the party must resolve its own identity crisis on the subject, which erupted into view in the fourth Republican debate Tuesday night and flowed quickly onto the campaign trail the next day.

Many in the GOP had been relishing the opportunity to vigorously prosecute the former secretary of state’s role in what they have disparagingly dubbed the “Obama-Clinton foreign policy legacy.”

The large GOP field’s muddled positions have shown that it won’t be easy.

Unlike abortion and same-sex marriage, on which the Repub­lican candidates mostly agree, there are deep divisions on ­foreign policy and national security, highlighting how President Obama’s agenda abroad, and by extension Clinton’s, have become difficult to assail from a consistent posture.

There is also inconsistent command of the subject matter — a sharp contrast with the sure-footed knowledge that Clinton has displayed, most recently at a grueling, 11-hour congressional hearing last month on the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, ­Libya.

In one camp on the Republican side are staunch hawks, including Sen. Marco Rubio and former governor Jeb Bush, both from Florida. In another stand more non-interventionist candidates, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) and businessman Donald Trump. While all are united against the policies of Obama and Clinton, their counter­arguments are tangled.

In Tuesday’s debate, Bush clashed with Trump over Middle East policy. Trump said he is happy to see Russia disable the Islamic State terrorist group with a bombing campaign in Syria. Bush interrupted to note that Russia’s bombing campaign has largely targeted not the Islamic State but U.S.-backed forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Bush also warned against outsourcing leadership in the region to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose relationship with the United States has become tense in recent years.

Bush and Trump were part of an eclectic cast of eight White House hopefuls who stood on the debate stage in Milwaukee on Tuesday in discord over Russia, Syria, Islamist terrorism and military spending.

Instead, Trump responded by bragging that he got to know Putin “very well” during an appearance on a TV newsmagazine. Bush jumped in to criticize Trump, comparing his strategy in Syria to “playing Monopoly.” Former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina noted that she, too, had met Putin and is not inclined to talk to him.

Discordant views were not the only worry for Republicans that emerged from the debate’s focus on foreign policy. During some of the back-and-forth, several candidates appeared confused as to what the issues were and what was happening on the ground. Several misstated the facts and confused geography, perhaps in their eagerness to appear tough while charging that their Republican opponents, and Obama, were weak.

Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who has risen to the top of the polls, appeared to suggest, inaccurately, that the Chinese government has a military presence in Syria. His campaign defended his remark Wednesday, offering media reports, some several years old, of Chinese warships sailing near Syria. 

Bush expressed confidence that the divide within the GOP won’t imperil the eventual nominee’s ability to pounce on Clinton’s foreign policy résumé in the general election.  “I think the failure of the Obama-Clinton foreign policy is so apparent, the chaos that has erupted by the voids we’ve created is so clear for Americans,” he said on the campaign trail Wednesday.

Then he explained what he thinks the public wants the next president to do. “It’s not that they want to have, as I said last night, the United States be the world’s policeman, but they do sense that we’ve lost our way in terms of our leadership,” Bush said.

But the question of what, exactly, that leadership role should look like is far from settled in today’s Republican Party. - Read More at washingtonpost
Debate highlights GOP foreign policy identity crisis