Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s recent speech at the Council on Foreign Relations led many pundits to describe him as the most hawkish, if not neoconservative, candidate in the GOP primary field. But discussion of his foreign policy stance would not be complete without a [...]]]> Posted with permission of Think Progress

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s recent speech at the Council on Foreign Relations led many pundits to describe him as the most hawkish, if not neoconservative, candidate in the GOP primary field. But discussion of his foreign policy stance would not be complete without a close examination of the lucrative lobbying, for both domestic and foreign clients, undertaken by his campaign co-chair and senior foreign policy adviser Vin Weber.

Weber, who supported the campaigns of the neoconservative Project For the New American Century and served in Congress from 1981 to 1993, is the CEO and managing partner of Clark & Weinstock, a “strategic advice and consulting” firm whose client list includes, or has included Hyundai Motor Co., Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, American International Group, Gazprom, and JP Morgan Chase & Co.

But Vin Weber’s lobbying expertise isn’t limited to private companies. Clark & Weinstock also represented the interests of Morocco, Greece, the Iraqi Governing Council, Panama, and the United Arab Emirates.

In his January 18, 2005 “Proposal For Representation of United Arab Emirates” (PDF), Weber promised to:

Enhance the reputation and understanding of the UAE as a U.S. strategic ally through major media and other opinion-makers, based mainly in New York and Washington.

Weber advocated portraying the UAE as a U.S. ally in combating terrorism and an observer of human rights, and boasts of his close relationship with DC think tanks. In a section titled “C&W’s Approach,” he writes:

In the area of foreign affairs, we would want to reach out to the Council on Foreign Relations, American Enterprise Institute, The Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Brookings Institution, the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, among others. These are all groups with impecable reputations. Working with them goes well beyond writing a check — if that is even part of the relationship.

And he advises the UAE to “avoid the costly and impactless advertising purchased by other nations” and establish direct relationships with members of the media. Weber suggests holding “message-delivering” meetings with editorial boards, columnists, producers, and news people. Weber said his services would run the UAE $65,000 per month. (His representation of the UAE appears have been terminated on March 30, 2007.)

Weber’s understanding of Washington’s foreign policy circles and the importance of influencing editorial boards is a reflection of his Washington insider status, which, no doubt, played no small role in arranging Pawlenty’s recent speech at the Council on Foreign Relations (Weber sits on the Council’s board). While Weber and Pawlenty’s foreign policy positions are often in line with the more militarist, neoconservative, wing of the GOP, Weber clearly knows that in Washington you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. In 2010, his campaign contributions showed a long list of Republican congressional candidates including Tim Pawlenty’s GOP primary opponent, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).

Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty doesn’t want you to think he’s a neoconservative. But neoconservatives themselves — not exactly known for diverse views — roundly approved of his foreign policy speech this week. One line of Pawlenty’s talk dovetailed quite nicely with neoconservative platitudes about [...]]]> Reprinted with permission of Think Progress

Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty doesn’t want you to think he’s a neoconservative. But neoconservatives themselves — not exactly known for diverse views — roundly approved of his foreign policy speech this week. One line of Pawlenty’s talk dovetailed quite nicely with neoconservative platitudes about regime change pretty much anywhere there is a regime that neoconservatives find unpalatable (in line with Pawlenty’s loose definitions of vital national security interests).

During the question and answer period after his speech, Pawlenty said the U.S. should “try to effectuate change within Syria.” Asked about what would happen after Syrian dictator Basher al Assad fell, Pawlenty responded: “People didn’t ask, ‘What comes after Hitler?’ Hitler was awful and needed to go.”

The statement is utterly and completely wrong — of course people were concerned about what came after Hitler — but it does comport with how noecons tend to think of things (consider how much thought was given to Iraq and Afghanistan post-U.S. invasion). Writing about Syria in the neocon flagship Commentary magazine, Jonathan Tobin zoomed out a little and hysterically declared:

Obama is still too obsessed with engaging with Islamists rather than confronting them to act decisively as did his predecessor.

But regarding Syria, there isn’t actually that much the United States can do. At a conference yesterday hosted by the New America Foundation and the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, Syrian-American human rights activists and U.S. experts agreed that the military option is not an option at all — so scrap euphemistic ‘decisive action’ — and that pushing regional allies international institutions is the best path forward.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, bluntly stated as much:

For a number of reasons, not least of which that we would probably muck it up, the best thing the U.S. can do right now is be hands off. We should give as much diplomatic support, perhaps some financial support, realizing that it’s probably not going to do that much. To ask for any more adamant position by the U.S. is probably not helpful.

Military historian and analyst Mark Perry made a similar point in his remarks:

For those criticizing the Obama administration for not doing enough: We’ve got the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan, we’ve got the 101st Airborne on its fourth deployment. There’s nothing we can do.

Indeed, their assessments track closely with those of CAP analysts Matt Duss and Michael Werz, who wrote recently that the Obama administration should push Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan to lean harder on Assad. “It can only do so,” they write, “by joining the multilateral efforts to end the violence in Syria and by continuing to rebuild the U.S.-Turkish relationship that has been neglected for almost a decade.”

Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty delivered a major foreign policy address this morning at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. The former Minnesota governor, still the darling of Washington’s hawks, spoke out during the question and answer session about the U.S.’ vital [...]]]> Reprinted with permission of Think Progress

Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty delivered a major foreign policy address this morning at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. The former Minnesota governor, still the darling of Washington’s hawks, spoke out during the question and answer session about the U.S.’ vital national security interest in Libya:

In Libya, once the President of the United States says [Libyan president Muammar] Qaddafi must go, he has to go. You can’t let a third rate dictator thumb his nose at the President of the United States in the free world. Keeping him there indefinitely is not an option.

And now, some would argue whether we had a vital interests initially, we have one now, which is you can’t leave Qaddafi sitting there because if he were to survive and reestablish any capability at all, I would guess one of his main motivations is going to be retaliation and guess who it’s going to be against? And so Qaddafi must now go.

In other words, Pawlenty laid out two ways that a vital national security interest can be created out of thin air:

1. If the President says something must be done, and it does not get done, then getting it done becomes a vital national security interest because the President cannot be embarrassed in this way.
2. If the President attacks someone who is not a national security threat, then killing, capturing or removing that person from office becomes a vital national security interest because, like a bee hive you’ve swatted with a stick, that person might come after you for attacking them.

Pawlenty’s line is remarkably consistent — though perhaps a bit disconcerting from someone who can’t keep his Middle East countries straight.

Compared to the rest of the GOP field, Pawlenty seems much closer to the first term of the George W. Bush presidency by emulating Bush’s tough guy swagger. Pawlenty has criticized the Obama administration for not pulling an Osama bin Laden-style raid on Qaddafi and for going to the U.N. Security Council to create an international coalition for the war. But at least Bush (falsely) sold the Iraq war as a vital national security interest before going to war there.