WASHINGTON, D.C. — If Rick Perry becomes commander in chief, don’t expect his foreign policy to focus much on democracy promotion like the last Texas governor-turned-president.
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“I think this whole conversation about, you know, ‘Are we going to go over and bring Jeffersonian Democracy into this country?’ is not the right conversation to be having,” Perry, who officially entered the 2016 presidential race earlier this month, told The Daily Caller Saturday in an extensive foreign policy interview from his suite at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, where he just gave a speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to the Majority” conference.
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“We need to be asking, ‘What is in the best interest of the United States?'” he continued. “And sometimes that may not be demonstrated in an individual that is delivering ‘Jeffersonian Democracy’ to that particular country.”
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Contra what much of the media predicted back in 2013, the 2016 Republican foreign policy debate is not focused on a fight between hawks and non-interventionists, but rather a battle between varying degrees of hawkishness. A key element of that debate is what role should America play in promoting democracy abroad.
While taking the fight to America’s enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush also sought to implant liberal democracies in those countries. So far, the success of those projects has not been resounding. Some 2016 Republican contenders, like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, see this more as a failure of implementation. Others, like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, view the attempt as quixotic to begin with and not a good use of the U.S. military.
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Perry is framing his foreign policy doctrine more around the latter view. While he says the “U.S. has a real role to play in maintaining world peace,” the former Texas governor says he doesn’t believe the U.S. should be using its military might to help spread democracy abroad. Indeed, Perry says that if Iraq and Afghanistan stabilized into non-threatening dictatorships, he could view that as a success of America’s missions in those countries.
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“I think if you’ve got a region of the world that is supportive of America, where we’re not having to expend our treasure, either monetarily or in the blood of our soldiers, is a good thing,” he explained when presented with the scenario
Via: Daily Caller
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