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Huckabee Lashes U.S. Foreign Policy

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By LIBBY QUAID, The Associated Press

Published: December 15, 2007

CONCORD, N.H. - Mike Huckabee, who has joked about his lack of foreign policy experience, is criticizing the Bush administration's efforts, denouncing a go-it-alone "arrogant bunker mentality" and questioning decisions on Iraq.

Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor now running for the Republican presidential nomination, lays out a policy plan that is long on optimism but short on details in the January-February issue of the journal Foreign Affairs, which is published by the Council on Foreign Relations. A copy of his article was released Friday.

"American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up, and reach out," Huckabee said. "The Bush administration's arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad. My administration will recognize that the United States' main fight today does not pit us against the world but pits the world against the terrorists."

In one specific criticism, Huckabee said Bush did not send enough troops to invade Iraq. He also accused the president of marginalizing Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, who said at the outset of the war that it might take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to control Iraq after the invasion.

"I would have met with Shinseki privately and carefully weighed his advice," Huckabee said.

He said this year's troop increase under Bush has resulted in significant but tenuous gains, and he said - much as Bush has - that he would not withdraw troops from Iraq any faster than Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander there, recommends. The military has slowly begun to reverse the troop increase.

Huckabee has joked about his lack of experience in international affairs. "I may not be the expert as some people on foreign policy, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night," he said this month.

The Foreign Affairs article is missing the one-liners he is known for, but it does have a few folksy comparisons to illustrate his points. On Iran, for example, he makes a case for diplomacy by saying, "Before we put boots on the ground elsewhere, we had better have wingtips there first."

He adds that the U.S. can exploit the Iranian government's hunger for regional clout, saying, "We cannot live with al-Qaida, but we might be able to live with a contained Iran."

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