Mike Huckabee's Sunday school foreign policy
Earlier this week, I compared Mike Huckabee's stated approach to foreign policy to that of Jimmy Carter. The more I learn about Huckabee, the more I think I may have been unfair to Carter (Carter the president, that is; not the Carter of today).
Consider this piece in the Des Moines Register, in which Huckabee proposes to restore our standing in the world "by showing the kind of respect that other nations would want and deserve." Huckabee explained that "you treat others the way you'd like to be treated; to me the fundamental issue that has to be re-established in our dealings with other countries."
So there you have it; treat Iran, Syria, and North Korea with the same respect with which we want to be treated and experience the joys of international fellowship and good will. I don't recall even President Carter being that naive.
Next, consider what Huckabee told Fox News on December 4 about why he favors closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay:
For a long time I felt Guantanamo should be kept open. And I have been to GITMO. I have seen up close and personal, having visited there, the treatment of our detainees. And even to this day, I think the detainees are being treated humanely and responsibly. But I have also come to understand that from a perspective of the way the world looks at us, GITMO has become a symbol of what a lot of people are angry about, and whatever value it has, it’s being lost by the ill-will that it has generated. So rather than continuing something that is doing us more harm than good, there’re other places to keep these detainees. I want to make clear. Closing Guantanamo is not letting these detainees loose. It’s simply putting them in a different location and not allowing this symbol, which has become a part of Guantanamo, to further damage the prestige of the United States.I can imagine President Carter letting world opinion dictate our policies, but I can't imagine Carter believing that merely shuffling detainees to another location where they will receive the same treatment (remember that Huckabee has no quarrel with the treatment at Gitmo) would have any meaningful influence on world opinion.
If that's the kind of thinking that a night at Holiday Inn Express produces, I think I'll stick with Super 8 Motel.
UPDATE: Expanding upon the transformative effect of treating other countries with respect, Huckabee cited the example of Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to the U.S. He noted that once Sarkozy "showed a friendly face to us, it was as if the ice melted and there was an entirely new relationship between France and the United States, because that leader reflected the kind of spirit we look for in an ally in and a friend." But Sarkozy melted the ice with his "friendly face" because he genuinely admires our country and our system of government, and said so. Not only does Sarkozy largely agree with our policies, he would like to implement some of them in France.
This model plainly has no applicability to our relations with most of the nations with whom we have diplomatic problems. Would Huckabee go to China, or Venezuela, or Syria and express his admiration for the policies and system of government of these countries?
Huckabee has completely missed the fact that a strong, positive relationship with a foreign country requires a foundation of common interests and common viewpoints, not simply a "friendly face" and a good "spirit." The superficiality of his foreign policy thinking is a bit frightening.
JOHN adds: Great post, Paul. But as a long-time Sunday School participant, I have to object to the title. I don't think I've ever encountered anyone in Sunday School with as mutton-headed an approach to foreign policy as Mike Huckabee's.
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