Can conservatives learn to love international organizations?
As the Republican presidential candidates prepare for their first foreign policy debate, what do we know about the views of the GOP field on the international organizations that are playing such a key role on issues from Iran to the Eurozone to Afghanistan?
Parsing campaign rhetoric is not always worth the effort (remember George W. Bush’s humble America?), but there is a deep and important issue beneath the rhetoric: the difficult relationship between American conservatism and “global governance” efforts (that phrase itself is despised by many conversatives, but it’s probably the best one on offer). There’s been some thought-provoking material produced on this recently, notably at the Lowy Institute, and it’s an issue I’d like to explore in more detail over the next few weeks.
Recent campaign rhetoric often suggests that there is an unbridgeable gulf between the GOP and the organizations that much of the world (although certainly not all of it) thinks are important. Republican antipathy toward the United Nations is most strident and it generates an image of a party that has no time for multilateral institutions. I think the story is significantly more complex, but the UN is clearly an important element. And since the UN attracts so much conservative wrath, it’s worth examining the specific charges that GOP candidates have explicitly and implicitly leveled against the world body. Here’s the beginnings of a typology:
The United Nations encourages attacks on the U.S. and U.S. allies: Republican candidates have repeatedly cited the Palestinian bid for UN membership—and the broad support in the organization for it—as a case study in the organization’s hostility to the U.S. and its allies. Mitt Romney put it this way…