Tough guys: GOP’s Rick Perry and Rick Santorum go neocon on Iran

In their desperate bid to avoid any of the really critical issues that are affecting the United States of America, most runners in the GOP presidential race have opted instead to play the fear card, and build-up those crucial neoconservative credentials before the 2012 primaries.

Bilderberg candidate Rick Perry (TX) and rear guard runner Rick Santorum (PA) took the opportunity during their recent Iowa campaign trail to hop on the war hawk’s bandwagon ahead of today’s IAEA’s intelligence assessment on Iran’s allegedly nuclear weapons program.

The New York Times reported today that both men have taken clear pro-war stances, pledging their support for both joint and unilateral pre-emptive military strikes against the Islamic Republic.

Rick Perry Runs; Rightbloggers Offer Endorsements, Excuses

Not all conservative operatives are rushing to Perry -- not even in his home state; former Texas Congressman Dick Armey is playing it close to the vest, and Ron Paul seems downright hostile.

And at The American Spectator, John Guardiano said Perry's veiled threat to lynch Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke showed he wasn't "disciplined and focused," in contrast to... Michelle Bachmann, whom Guardiano called "a much better and more deliberative presidential candidate." Wicked burn!

Rick Perry and the Neocons

The only change anyone can believe in in Washington is that nothing ever changes. The choice between Republican and Democrat in 2012 will likely boil down to who will be making what kind of cuts in social programs to support continuous warfare overseas. Only Ron Paul stands out from the pack with his commitment to constitutionalism and nonintervention, but sustained efforts by establishment Republicans and the media to make his candidacy go away render him a long shot at best.

The most recent Republican presidential wannabe is Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Having lived in Texas, I know from personal experience that the Texas miracle of employment is based on low wages, no health benefits, and nonexistent protection for the employed, but I will let others who are better qualified than I make that argument. For me the issue is America’s wars and my fading hope that the insanity of multiple overseas conflicts combined with a global war against presumed terrorists everywhere will stop. It will certainly not stop if Perry is elected.

Rick Perry: Tea Party Governor, Neocon Candidate

First, Perry’s foreign policy actions as governor. The thing that demonstrates most clearly how Perry’s tendencies as governor reject neoconservative thinking are his actions to win business from Venezuela and China. Neocons would isolate those regimes, especially if the nature of said business carries national security concerns, as oil from Venezuela and communications technologies from China do. As Eli Lake notes (excuse the lengthy block quote; the piece is behind the wall):

Now that he’s running for president, Perry’s has turned to former Bush administration officials and prominent neocons to serve as his advisors, most prominently Donald Rumsfeld, Doug Feith and Dan Blumenthal. For them, it’s Tea Party be damned, especially when it comes to foreign policy. As Rogin’s story quotes an advisor saying, “He has no sympathy for the neo-isolationist impulses emanating from some quarters of the Republican Party." That advisor also issued the term “hawk internationalist.” Those comments are directly aimed at the Tea Party wing of the party, led by Ron Paul, who have argued consistently for a decreased American involvement in the world.

Rick Perry's Neocon Friends

No one seriously believes that Republicans will nominate the wild-eyed, certifiable Michele Bachmann for president, and Romney the Robot isn’t setting Tea Party hearts aflutter. So it looks like Rick Perry, the Bible-thumping, secessionist hawk—who’s already assembling a team of neoconservative advisers—will get the nod to challenge President Obama in 2012.

Were Perry to win, his victory—especially if the GOP, as seems likely, conquers the Senate—will speed the United States down the merry path to oblivion at least a couple of decades before the rise of China and India do anyway. Worryingly, Perry might be exactly the know-nothing hawk who decides to use US military power to forestall America’s inevitable decline by force, even if it leads to World War III. Like Tea Party fanatics who courted financial Armageddon by insisting that reneging on US debt obligations wouldn’t be so bad, Perry’s own Tea Party Pentagon, staffed by neoconservatives, might decide the nuclear Armageddon wouldn’t be so bad, either, as long as it makes the world understand how exceptional American exceptionalism is.

Rick Perry is the Neocon Warmonger Choice for President

More on the emerging Rick Perry team:

Douglas Feith was Rumsfeld’s deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. He established the Office of Special Plans responsible for inventing the fantastic lies about Iraq that pushed the United States into invading the Arab country previously destroyed by George Bush Senior and further decimated by more than a decade of brutal medieval sanctions that killed over 500,000 children. He is connected to a number of neocon foundations and has long supported the radical Likud party in Israel.

William Luti is the neocon pipeline into the lurid world of death merchants. A retired Navy captain and former Northrop Grumman executive, Luti is linked to neocon foundations and “think tanks.” After working with another “neocon internationalist,” Newt Gingrich (who is also running for president), Luti was taken under Dick Cheney’s wing. He was tight with the neocon “civilians” at the Pentagon during the Bush era. According to former Pentagon staffer Karen Kwiatkowski, Luti acted as the neocon bulldog and enforcer at the Pentagon as he pushed the Office of Special Plans agenda.

Rick Perry, ‘Hawk Internationalist’

The idea that the Republican party Establishment was going to tolerate a takeover of their party by a rag-tag bunch of insurgent "tea partiers" was never very convincing, and Rick Perry’s entrance into the race as the "Teastablishment" candidate – to the hosannas of the neocons — should put that delusion to rest.

For months, the media and the Republican mandarins have been anointing one candidate after another as the chief competitor to Mitt Romney, presumed by many to be the frontrunner. First it was Tim Pawlenty, and after he went nowhere fast it was Jon Huntsman, who has about as much chance as Gary Johnson of winning the race. Now it’s Texas Governor Perry who’s going to unite the various Republican factions around a post-Reaganite, post-Bush conservative consensus. The only problem with that is Perry has aroused the ire of Texas conservatives, who noted the Governor’s Texas Transit Corridor highway project made liberal – if you’ll pardon the expression – use of eminent domain. The TTC proposal put him on the other side of the barricades from most Texas conservatives – and also put him at odds with Rep. Ron Paul, another fast-rising GOP presidential contender, who introduced legislation to block federal money for the scheme. I’ll leave it to others to expose Perry’s RINO credentials on domestic issues, and focus instead on his hostility to the Tea Party when it comes to foreign policy.

Ron Paul calls for a crash, Mitt Romney disappears, Rick Perry combs his hair

We are witnessing the brand destruction of the Tea Party House members that will probably bring back Speaker Pelosi, turn Ron Paul into a virtual political crank and occasion the complete disappearance of Mitt Romney (who has zero to say about the great issue that threatens a crash) and the lightweight maneuvering of Rick Perry, the latest neocon hope of a desperate GOP.

Now Rick Perry is meeting with one of the neocons in chief, Douglas Feith. Will we soon have bombs-away Perry, looking for wars to fight? Does Rick Perry think the voters demand another neocon from Texas? Will Perry campaign as the candidate who acts like the great actor Slim Pickens in the great film "Dr. Strangelove," who near the end of the film sat atop a nuclear bomb, waving his hat as he rode the bomb down to end the world?

Death and Texas: Rick Perry’s Neocon Clues

Compared to past election cycles, this year’s Republican presidential field has thus far offered an unusual level of diversity on foreign policy. While the field does not fully reflect the level of war-weariness that has crept gradually into segments of the GOP congressional caucus (to say nothing about the weariness of war spending), it has nonetheless accommodated certain deviations from the party’s nationalist-neoconservative bent of 2004 and 2008.

In the extreme, libertarian candidates Ron Paul and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson have called for significant rollbacks in U.S. foreign adventures, as well as a tightening of the spigot of military spending that nourishes them.

Neocon game

I am totally dismayed to see that Governor Perry chose Donald Rumsfeld and several of his neoconservative disciples to advise him on foreign affairs. Rumsfeld was the worst secretary of defense in American history. He couldn’t even manage to put armor on humvees. How many young lives did he snuff out? The neocons have been wholly discredited. It’s not hard to see why Perry likes them. The neocons believe in utilizing America’s military to extend American power, and Perry loves the exercise of power.

I don’t know whether, what, or how much Perry reads, but there are plenty of good books about how the Bush administration in general and Rumsfeld in particular bungled the war in Iraq and allowed the insurgency to flourish. Bush will carry the stain of the war to his grave and into the history books. Believe me, I’m no anti-war hand-wringer. When it comes to issues of war and peace, I’m a realist, not an idealist. What concerns me about Perry’s playing footsie with the neocons is that he is following his instinct to make policy based on ideology instead of acquiring knowledge about the mistakes of the past. And a failed ideology at that.

Rumsfeld involved in Rick Perry meeting with neocon advisers

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is helping Rick Perry with his 2012 White House bid by helping provide foreign policy briefers. The Polotico reports that Rumsfeld former aides Doug Feith, Daniel Fata, and William Luti were in Austin last week for a tutorial with Perry on national security issues. The session was yet another indication that Perry is edging toward a presidential run. The session with the neocon advisers might raise eyebrows even in some Republican quarters because of a feeling the neocons around George W. Bush helped steer the country into war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ben Smith of The Politico says that while Perry's camp has been "tight-lipped" about the sessions, Rumsfeld helped organize it. A Rumsfeld spokesman confirmed the meetings but said the former defense secretary and Perry have not met recently - and that Rumsfeld is watching the developing presidential contest with interest.

Is Rick Perry The Most Neocon Friendly Candidate?

Texas Governor Rick Perry hasn't even officially entered the race yet, but per Ben Smith he appears to be the neocon candidate of choice just based on whom he's taking advice from:

Perry's aides have been tight-lipped about the gathering, which National Review reported included former Rumsfeld aides Doug Feith, Daniel Fata, and William Luti, as well as the magazine's Andrew McCarthy and others . But I'm told Rumsfeld helped steer Perry's staff to the low-key advisory group.

Despite his tensions with Bush, this slate of advisers suggests Perry would be the candidate most likely to inherit the former president's foreign policy views. None of the other candidates' foreign policy braintrusts come close to this kind of continuity.

Rick Perry as Hardcore Neocon War Hawk

Perry reportedly met former Bush aides Doug Feith and William Luti, both strong internal backers of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, as well as William Inbolden and Daniel Fata, whose article today is headed, "Why Iraq Still Matters."

The names of invitees to the Wednesday briefing -- and impressions from attendees at the meeting -- suggested to GOP foreign policy hands that Perry will likely stand on the hawkish side of a foreign policy divide inside the Republican Party...

"These are staunch internationalists, conservatives -- very much guys who are committed to victory in the conflicts we are engaged in," said a leader of that wing of the party, which is sometimes called, or calls itself, neoconservative. "These are not the sort of pople Huntsman or Mitch Daniels or even Bachmann would reach out to."

From Perry, neocon tea leaves

Rick Perry has yet to launch his 2012 presidential campaign, but his meeting in Austin last week, reported in National Review and elsewhere, with a set of Republican foreign policy hands seems to offer a glimpse at his emergent platform.

Perry reportedly met former Bush aides Doug Feith and William Luti, both strong internal backers of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Daniel Fata, whose article today is headed, "Why Iraq Still Matters."

The names of invitees to the Wednesday briefing — and impressions from attendees at the meeting —suggested to GOP foreign policy hands that Perry will likely stand on the hawkish side of a foreign policy divide inside the Republican Party.