Huntsman hits Perry on foreign policy
GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman is going after Gov. Rick Perry for his flub of a foreign policy question during last week’s debate. In a new video titled, "Foreign Policy Experience: It shows," the Huntsman campaign juxtaposed Perry’s rambling answer at last week’s debate to the question of what he would do if told the ...
GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman is going after Gov. Rick Perry for his flub of a foreign policy question during last week's debate.
GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman is going after Gov. Rick Perry for his flub of a foreign policy question during last week’s debate.
In a new video titled, "Foreign Policy Experience: It shows," the Huntsman campaign juxtaposed Perry’s rambling answer at last week’s debate to the question of what he would do if told the Taliban had gained control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons with Huntsman’s answer to the same questions on Michael Smerconish‘s radio show today.
"Well obviously, before you ever get to that point you have to build a relationship in that region. That’s one of the things that this administration has not done. Yesterday, we found out through Admiral Mullen that Haqqani has been involved with — and that’s the terrorist group directly associated with the Pakistani country. So to have a relationship with India, to make sure that India knows that they are an ally of the United States," Perry said in a rambling answer that did not even mention nukes. "For instance, when we had the opportunity to sell India the upgraded F-16’s, we chose not to do that. We did the same with Taiwan. The point is, our allies need to understand clearly that we are their friends, we will be standing by there with them.
In fact, India chose not to buy American fighter planes and the United States sells F-16s to Pakistan.
In his answer, Huntsman suggested he would use U.S. forces to infiltrate Pakistan and attack the Taliban almost immediately.
"You convene the National Security Council staff immediately, you look at the intelligence, you call your closest friends and allies in the region, and you say ‘we’ve got to take after it and we’re going to deploy every means we have at our disposal to track down that material, to track down those weapons, and to do those people in,’" said Huntsman. "That’s the only option you have. You sit around and you consider your options for too long, and the proliferation concerns are going to mount."
Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller sent out the video to reporters and wrote a note that said, "Unlike Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, Governor Huntsman has real, hands-on foreign policy experience. It showed. Compare the two responses in the video below, and then ask yourself: who would you want as Commander-in-Chief?"
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
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