The event [...]]]> CNN’s video game like introduction to Tuesday night’s Republican national security debate was more interesting than the actual event. It included footage of the Bush Administration’s rhetoric during the Iraq war and a clip of a Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speech, but the debate maintained a heavy focus on immigration especially with regard to Mexico.

The event was co-sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, two U.S. think tanks that have taken hawkish positions on a variety of U.S. foreign policy issues. The “questions from the audience” were in fact provided by think tank members such as Bush Administration neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz, and David Addington, one of the authors of the infamous “torture memos”.

There were a number of serious fact check moments, such as Rep. Michele Bachmann’s declaration that President Obama has “essentially handed over our interrogation of terrorists to the ACLU” and the “CIA has no ability to have any form of interrogation for terrorists.” Read about some of them here. Also following are some points worth noting about the candidates’ positions on U.S.-Pakistan and Mideast policy.

Pakistan: Texas Gov. Rick Perry said the U.S. shouldn’t be writing “blank checks” to Pakistan because it has been uncooperative with regard to U.S. military initiatives on its territory. While calling Pakistan “a nation that lies” and “does everything possible that you can imagine wrong”, Bachmann said U.S. aid to the country “is helping the United States.”

Iran: All candidates accepted a question from the Heritage Foundation that cited Ehud Barak’s claim that Iran is “less than a year away” from creating a nuclear weapon and apart from congressman Ron Paul, no one took issue with the U.S. supporting “regime change” or using military force against the country. Leading candidate Newt Gingrich said war should be a “last recourse” to bring about regime change, an outcome which he strongly endorsed. He said the U.S. “could break the Iranian regime” in a year by “cutting off the gasoline supply to Iran and then, frankly, sabotaging the only refinery they have.”

Perry called for sanctioning Iran’s central bank to “shut down that economy” but his most important statement about Iran came later on when he asserted twice that the reason the U.S. should intervene in Syria is not because of the massive human rights violations that are taking place, but because taking out Bashar al-Assad’s government would weaken Iran and strengthen Israel:

I think you need to leave [a no-fly zone] on the table to make sure, because this is not just about Syria. This is about Iran and those two as a partnership, and exporting terrorism around the world. And if we’re going to be serious about saving Israel, we better get serious about Syria and Iran, and we better get serious right now.

There is no evidence to back up Bachmann’s claim that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran will attack Israel with a nuclear weapon. Even the Atlantic’s anti-Iran agitator Geoffrey Goldberg tweeted that “Ahmedinejad has not stated that he would use a nuclear weapon to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Just sayin.’”

Former U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman criticized Obama’s Iran sanctioning policy, stating that “the Chinese aren’t going to play ball. And the Russians aren’t going to play ball, and I believe the mullahs have already decided they want to go nuclear.”

Businessman Herman Cain said he would support an Israeli attack on Iran as long as they had “a credible plan for success.” He also seemed fixed on the fact that Iran is a “mountainous region” and stressed that its terrain should be calculated into any attack plan.

Israel: Mitt Romney declared that his foreign trip as president would be to Israel “to show we care about them.” Paul reminded everyone that former Mossad leader Meir Dagan said attacking Iran would be “the stupidest thing to do in the world” and argued Israel is “not about to do this.” Paul added that

Israel has 200, 300 nuclear missiles, and they can take cares of themselves. We don’t even have a treaty with Israel. Why do we have this automatic commitment that we’re going to send our kids and send our money endlessly to Israel? So I think they’re quite capable of taking care of themselves.

Huntsman tried to outdo Romney’s declaration of allegiance to the Israelis by saying that  “our interest in the Middle East is Israel.”

Obama’s Foreign Policy: Obama’s foreign policy record was consistently bashed but Huntsman essentially argued that he would continue his policy in Pakistan by using special operation forces along with drone bombing campaigns:

Pakistan is a concern. That’s the country that ought to keep everybody up at night…It’s a haven for bad behavior, it’s a haven for training the people who seek to do us harm. And an expanded drone program is something that would serve our national interests.

Former House Speaker and GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich announced his national security team last night, ahead of tonight’s CNN national security debate. Foreign Policy points out that the group, which “seems a little long in the tooth,” is a mixed bag. But some [...]]]> Reposted by arrangement with Think Progress

Former House Speaker and GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich announced his national security team last night, ahead of tonight’s CNN national security debate. Foreign Policy points out that the group, which “seems a little long in the tooth,” is a mixed bag. But some advisers have staked out right-wing militaristic positions on Iraq and now Iran. Here’s a rundown of a few key figures:

DAVID WURMSER

A fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (or AEI, where Gingrich is a former senior fellow), Wurmser served on the staffs of two top Bush administration hawks, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton and Vice President Dick Cheney (where Stephen Yates, another Gingrich adviser, also served). In 2007, a U.N. official called Wurmser one of the “new crazies” who wanted to attack Iran. In 1996, Wurmser co-authored a paper from a right-wing pro-Israel group advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. The group wrote:

Israel can shape its strategic environment… by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.

ILAN BERMAN

Berman, the vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council (which also gave the Gingrich campaign Herman Pirchner and Yates) and editor of the Jewish Institute For National Security Affairs journal, has advocated U.S.-led regime change in Iran and wrote that military action against Iran should be a “last resort.” But he’s also attempted to minimize negative effects of an attack and, in 2005 at a Middle East Forum briefing, said Iran is a “prime candidate” for Iraq-style pre-emption:

I supported the war in Iraq… The minimum nexus the President [Bush] was talking about was the confluence of a regime that sponsors terrorism and the presence of weapons of mass destruction. The fact that we haven’t found WMD… undercuts the case for pre-emption in later circumstances, unfortunately. Which is too bad because I think Iran is a prime candidate for this sort of discussion.

JAMES WOOLSEY

Woolsey served as honorary co-chair of Islamophobe Frank Gaffney‘s Center For Security Policy and is a current leadership board and executive team member at the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Woolsey advocated for the Iraq war, supports illegal Israeli West Bank settlement construction, and now pushes a confrontational stance on Iran. In 1998, Woolsey signed onto a Project For a New American Century letter urging the military removal of Saddam Hussein:

The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.

ROBERT “BUD” McFARLANE

McFarlane, a former Reagan administration National Security Adviser, serves on the leadership council of FDD. In 1988, McFarlane plead guilty to four counts of withholding information from Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal, in which he played a major role, even secretly travelling to Iran in the early arms-for-hostages part of the affair. (McFarlane, who attempted suicide three hours before he was meant to testify before Congress in 1987, was pardoned in 1992.) McFarlane also served as an adviser to Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential run.