War Dogs Show Their Teeth

Here nationalreview.com headlines: “Meet Jeb Bush’s National Security Advisor.”

The advisor in question happens to be John Noonan. NR notes that Noonan has been a contributor to The Weekly Standard (the mouth piece for the neocon faction):

Noonan’s hire is earning praise from the hawkish wing of the GOP and assuaging some early concerns among that crowd that Bush’s own views might resemble his father’s more than his brother’s.

I am also aware that neocon #1 Paul Wolfowitz has been added to the Bush foreign policy team. I cannot imagine a more unpleasant team addition.

Nationalreview.com wraps it up neatly by advising, “Noonan went on to serve as a policy advisor for Foreign Policy Initiative-a nonprofit organization whose board includes prominent thinkers associated with the neoconservative movement, including Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Bill Kristol, the founder and editor of the Weekly Standard.”

My focus regarding foreign policy and national security is based on a foundation of research provided by the Cato Institute and its vice president for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies, Chris Preble. When I ran the Noonan name past Chris this morning, his review was, shall we say, not brimming with enthusiasm: “On foreign policy, Jeb Bush could have learned from the mistakes of the past, and assembled a group of advisors who were so successful during his father’s administration. Instead, he has chosen to surround himself with many of the same people who urged his brother to invade Iraq and double down in 2007.”

I followed up with check in at Niskanen center, a new Libertarian Washington think tank organized by former Cato Institute senior operative Jerry Taylor. Niskanen’s Foreign and Defense Policy Matt Fay responded: “The selection of John Noonan shows that the Bush camp has learned nothing from the past decade and a half. Jeb had an opportunity to select someone like Bridge Colby to run his national security team. Colby may be a hawk on a number of issues, but he’s as smart and reasonable a foreign policy thinker you’ll find in DC. Choosing Noonan, Bush confirmed that the neoconservative viewpoint remains ascendant even after the debacle that was his brother’s foreign policy.”

When considering the best course for American foreign policy and national security, one of my favorite strategists is former CIA bin Laden unit chief Michael Scheuer. In Seeking America’s Survival, I outline some prototypical Scheuer thinking. A neocon slant it has not.