Jeb and the Neocon Trap
Matt Lewis
Can Jeb Bush assuage the concerns of the GOPs hawks without looking like the second coming of his brother?
Are the neoconservatives turning on Jeb Bush? It would be ironic, considering
the men his brother turned to for foreign policy advice. It would also be
highly problematicsince foreign policy establishment hawks should represent one of Bushs few natural constituencies on the right. But its hard to observe recent developments and not suspect something is afoot.
Ive often observed that
Sen. Rand Paul has to walk a fine line in order to keep all the disparate elements of his coalition together, but its increasingly looking like Jeb Bush is having to do the same thing. He has the legacies of his father and brother to contend with. And while these legacies arent necessarily mutually exclusive, they arent necessarily complementary, either. And therein lies the trap for Jeb: Does he alienate the GOPs main cadre of foreign policy activists and thinkers, or does he saddle up with them and risk being seen as the second coming of his brother?
The foreign policy realist community hopes Jeb will be the smart son and follow the prudent footsteps of his father. Bush 41 oversaw the collapse of the Soviet Union and liberated Kuwait without toppling Saddam, a move thatdepending on where you standwas either an example of prudence or cowardice. But neoconservatives prefer George W. Bushs more aggressive foreign policy, and want the GOP to nominate a hawk in 2016. Now Jeb Bushs campaign needs to figure out what kind of President Bush he would be, and he likely wont be able to assuage the concerns of both camps.
The conundrum, presumably, began when
Jeb announced his foreign policy team. Much was made of the fact that many of his advisers had served in previous Bush administrations. This was much ado about nothing. Any Republican who gained senior foreign policy experience in the last quarter of a century would likely have worked for a Bush administration.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/26/jeb-and-the-neocon-trap.html