National Review’s Charles Krauthammer recently penned an article headed The Four Foreign Policies. I thought Charles, on balance, explained the foreign policy positions of Trump, Sanders, Cruz and Clinton quite succinctly. Despite my generally favorable review, I questioned Krauthammer’s linking Ronald Reagan to the neocons. I put the question to my friend Chris Preble, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. I also had a question about Clinton and one on Cruz that Chris clarified for me.
Dr. Preble explained, “It’s a common neocon trick to claim that Reagan was one of them. He wasn’t. The neocons hated Reagan for leaving Lebanon after the Marine barracks bombing and negotiating arms control deals with Gorbachev. They would have preferred him to double down on a foolish mission in Beirut and held out hope for precipitating regime change in Moscow. Reagan was also much more even handed toward Israel than they ever would have admitted. Anyway, Cruz isn’t like Reagan. The other thing that CK should state, but won’t, is that of these four he’s closest to Hillary Clinton. But he knows that that wouldn’t sit well with National Review readers.”
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