Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty seemed intent on separating his foreign policy views from those of President Obama and even his fellow Republicans in a major address on the topic he delivered this morning.
The way he’s doing it: Promising to get tough with Saudi Arabia and stand in the way of any cuts to the defense budget.
Billed as a response to Obama’s major address on the Middle East last month, Pawlenty’s speech delved into the changing politics of the region while picking up the classic GOP theme that Obama has turned on Israel.
“It breaks my heart that President Obama treats Israel, our great friend, as a problem, rather than as an ally,” Pawlenty said in the prepared version of the speech sent to reporters Tuesday. He gave the speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
“Today the president doesn’t really have a policy toward the peace process,” Pawlenty said. “He has an attitude. And let’s be frank about what that attitude is: he thinks Israel is the problem. And he thinks the answer is always more pressure on Israel.”
This is pretty standard-issue GOP rhetoric. You’d be hard-pressed to find a Republican politician these days who doesn’t think Obama is among the greatest threats to Israel’s safety and security.
But Pawlenty is also calling for America to get tough with one of the nations Republicans in the past have considered a great ally: Saudi Arabia. President George W. Bush was pretty close to Saudi Arabia, in keeping with the general American stance toward the nation for decades. Pawlenty says its time for Saudi Arabia’s free ride to come to an end.
He divides the Middle East into “four broad categories” in his speech. Here’s how Foreign Policy described them in a preview: “those that are struggling for democracy, entrenched monarchies, anti-U.S. regimes such as Syria and Iran, and Israel.”
Saudi Arabia, Pawlenty said in his speech, is one of those monarchies that is “resisting reform.” Pawlenty said that Obama’s support for the concept of engaging Iran diplomatically has helped make it so “US-Saudi relations are at an all-time low.” Pawlenty says America needs to rebuild “trust” with the Saudis by reminding them that the nation is prepared to do whatever it needs to to “defend the region from Iranian aggression.”
But Saudi Arabia also needs to hear some tough words. “we need to be frank about what the Saudis must do to insure stability in their own country. Above all, they need to reform and open their society.”
“Their treatment of Christians and other minorities, and their treatment of women, is indefensible and must change,” he added.
Those are tough words. But not as tough as the ones Pawlenty reserved for those in his own party suggesting defense cuts as a way to balance the budget. Pawlenty has called on US forces to stay in Afghanistan as long as Gen. David Petraeus wants them there (which puts him in opposition to former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and others) and in past speeches he’s also said that even the smallest cut to the defense budget line was out of the question.
He reiterated that in the speech today, and took a jab at members of his own party who would dial back U.S. spending on global engagement.
“What is wrong, is for the Republican Party to shrink from the challenges of American leadership in the world,” he said. “History repeatedly warns us that in the long run, weakness in foreign policy costs us and our children much more than we’ll save in a budget line item.”
