Gates on Why Foreign Policy Won’t Work for the GOP in 2012 Posted by Jacob Stokes

Over at Shadow Government, Will Inboden explains how he thinks the GOP should attack the president on foreign policy issues as we move into the 2012 campaign. The piece attempts to muster a somber and stately tone by quoting former Defense Secretary Robert Gates as saying:

“I've spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower, and one that had no compunction about spending what it took to sustain that position … It didn't have to look over its shoulder because our economy was so strong. This is a different time … To tell you the truth, that's one of the many reasons it's time for me to retire, because frankly I can't imagine being part of a nation, part of a government … that's being forced to dramatically scale back our engagement with the rest of the world."

Inboden then tries to implicate Obama's foreign policy as the cause of that sentiment. The problem with this is Inboden failed to read the next quotation in the piece, where Gates pins conservatives for being the cause of a breakdown of the consensus on foreign policy:

“Congress is all over the place,” Gates says at one point. “And the Republicans are a perfect example. I mean, you’ve got the budget hawks and then you’ve got the defense hawks within the same party. And so I think there is no consensus on a role in the world.” 

And therein lies the problem with the GOP using foreign policy as a message in 2012: The two wings of the party come from two very different places, and beyond the hackneyed incantations about American leadership -- in other words, when the rubber hits the road -- there’s not much policy overlap.

Photo: DoD

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