Policy Decision: Cruz vs. Rubio

Your life could depend on this.   All your money, too.

Neocon

If America gets our foreign policy in the Middle East wrong then some big bombs could go off in New York and Washington, DC, and if they do your retirement savings will evaporate.   Poverty and chaos.

If bombs in New York set off bombs all around the USA (remember, Pakistan and Russia and North Korea have nukes) then you will die.  As will your kids and grandkids.  

Bummer.

My posts on Trump get more readers than my post a couple days ago regarding policy.   So I am making the point again here, one that preceded the New York Magazine article I am linking to, which says what I said then and repeat now.   It is worth knowing who is who in the policy debate.

We are going to elect one of these people, after all.

There is a neoconservative foreign policy idea out there that America is very special, that we are a beacon of democracy and that people all over the world want democracy and want to emulate America and that we have a sacred obligation to spread this gospel of freedom.   Plus, the idea is that countries with democracy will be generally very friendly to us, and be both foreign policy allies and trading partners.  They will sell us dates and olives and oil and we will sell them computers and movies with hot naked actresses, just what those previously backward and traditional cultures want.

Not neocon

Neocons recognize that in order to clear the way for this democratization and Americanization of their politics and culture we need to get rid of the current evil tyrant.   The removal of Saddam Hussain was an archetypal neocon move, and the idea was that we would be greeted as liberators and that the country, free of Saddam Hussain, would form a democracy and become something like Denmark, or at least India.

Marco Rubio is a neocon.   (So was George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.)    And therefore, notwithstanding the mess that the Iraq war caused, the neocon mindset led America to assist the revolt that toppled Gaddafi in Libya, which has been working out poorly so far.  And it wants us to remove Assad in Syria, a precursor to a stable governable country. 

Ted Cruz speaks in policy while Trump speaks in general goals, so the distinctions are clearer when one looks at what Crus is saying.   Cruz is not a neocon.  Policy makers are noticing that Middle East tyrants are undeniably corrupt murderers but that they have some value because they keep a lid on religious sectarian tribal divisions that would otherwise throw their countries into chaos.  Islam is a unifying idea in the face of chaos so Islamist factions start to re-create order.   And those Islamist factions are anti-American.   They see American culture including movies with hot naked actresses, our alcohol and pork, our attitudes toward women and families, our Christianity,  our form of government all being deeply foreign.  Which it is.  We like it, but it is undeniably foreign to them.   They resent it, hate it, and coalesce popular support by rejecting it.

(Americans act surprised, which we shouldn't be.   Americans wave American flags and shout 'We're Number One" and celebrate Americanism and pass laws forbidding sharia law.   They are waving flags all right--their flags, their culture, their religion.  What did we expect??)

Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are expressing the view that America need not attempt to sell democracy to the unwilling and that these Middle East tyrants serve American purpose.   Cruz binds together Americanism and Christianity and democracy which gives him the perspective and flexibility to treat foreigners as different.    He doesn't need to sell democracy to them.  America's interest is in world stability not Middle East democracy.   Cruz says ferocious things to distinguish himself from Obama rhetorically, but his actual policy is now the one that Obama is practicing in Syria: focus on removing ISIS rather than removing Assad, Syria's murderous tyrant, and limit our military actions to bombing and drone assassinations.   

This does not make Cruz a dove or an isolationist.  But in real world application it means reduced foreign military engagements.

On the Democratic side Hillary has been more neocon, backing the removal of Gadaffi and Assad while Bernie has been more skeptical.   The rhetoric of both Hillary and Bernie is much less bellicose than any Republican, especially Cruz, and Hillary would emphasize diplomatic over military pressure, but it is entirely possible that Hillary is nearly as hawkish as Cruz and that she would push for regime change more aggressively than Cruz.

Reading this may disappoint my Democratic readers and cause disbelief among my Republican readers, but we need to look at the policy being proposed not the ferocity of the rhetoric.   Republicans win the language ferocity fight, but Cruz and Trump may be more quick to withdraw from the Middle East than is Hillary.

Here is a link to a longer article on the subject:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/12/cruz-rubio-gop-foreign-policy.html