Marco Rubio Says He’ll Do Hillary Clinton’s Foreign Policy—but Better

[DonViejo]

By Josh Rogin
November 21st 20135:45 AM

The old ‘labels are obsolete,’ and the GOP has no ‘strategic foreign policy view,’ says the senator. He details his vision—which he acknowledges hews closely to Hillary Clinton’s.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) intends to chart a new foreign policy course for the GOP, and it rejects the policies of both hawks and isolationists within his own party.

“It has become starkly apparent to me that we lack any sort of strategic foreign policy view, and when I say ‘we,’ I mean the country in general but in particular the Republican Party,” Rubio told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview Wednesday. “There’s this false choice between the labels ‘isolationist’ and ‘hawks.’ I think, frankly, those labels are obsolete in the foreign policy debates we now have. They have no applicability at all.”

Rubio laid out his vision in a detailed speech Wednesday morning at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank. The senator is advocating an increase in foreign aid, diplomacy, trade, active engagement, and promotion of democracy and human rights abroad.

“The time has now come for a new vision for America’s role abroad, one that reflects the reality of the world we live in today,” he said in the speech.

full article
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/21/marco-rubio-says-he-ll-do-hillary-clinton-s-foreign-policy-but-better.html

[djean111]

1. Ah, giving up on presidential ambitions and wants to be SOS?

Funny, he brings up Benghazi as an incident that brought SOS stuff up in the last election - does he know Mitt lost anyway?
He reeks of either desperate or entitled ambition - both dangerous in a tea partier or someone connected to Dominionism.

[karynnj]

2. Two things -

1) Interesting that he SAYS he supports something in theory close to what Hillary Clinton supported. Yet when you look at the bills he supported, he has more often been against the administration's policy. One thing it says is that he can see it is better to NOT differentiate on foreign policy from Clinton - meaning he things that is a losing game.

2) The author of this piece - who has written some pieces that are ultimately not positive on Obama's foreign policy team, speaks of how Rubio's THREE YEARS on the SFRC have given him lots of foreign policy creds. I don't recall that Rogin EVER gave either Biden or Kerry equal credit for their around 30 years each - including being the chair.

I suspect what he has ABSTRACTED from Clinton is nothing more than the idea that you need to use both diplomacy and strength. However, note that on specifics - I see no call for using diplomacy in any instance. Instead, he is arguing for a more hawkish position than the current Obama administration on at least Syria and Iran. Other than wording, where does he REALLY break from hawks like McCain and Graham. This simply suggests that he knows that the country as a whole will not support someone overtly backing McCain's positions. He needs to notice that they rejected Romney as well - even as he used softer words to describe the hawkish position.

[Tippy]

3. Problem with Rubio is he is only half as smart as he thinks he is