Speaking tonight at the Nixon-founded Center for the National Interest, Rand Paul will once again attempt to "position" his foreign-policy views in contrast to those of virtually all his upcoming opponents. Based on these prereleased excerpts, though, one suspects he will, in the future, need to be a bit more ingenious in his marketing:
We need a foreign policy that recognizes our limits and preserves our might, a common-sense conservative realism of strength and action....
America shouldn’t fight wars where the best outcome is stalemate. America shouldn’t fight wars when there is no plan for victory. America shouldn’t fight wars that aren’t authorized by the American people, by Congress. America should and will fight wars when the consequences--intended and unintended--are worth the sacrifice....
After the tragedies of Iraq and Libya, Americans are right to expect more from their country when we go to war.
It's hard to imagine Mitt Romney or Chris Christie or even Rick Perry disagreeing with one word of this on some Iowa stage. Who among them will denounce "realism," advocate fighting for "stalemates," urge plan-less wars destined for defeat, deny that "the people" and Congress should have a say, or contradict Paul by hailing Iraq or Libya as a magnificent victory? If Paul's opponents are smart (and, one never knows, a few of them might actually be smart), they'll smother him in love, harmony and philosophical agreement and thereby neutralize Paul's neo-isolationist appeal.
But that's the point, you say. Paul would happily welcome their love. He can read his party's regression to the mean and stupid; even he knows the growing popularity of his heartfelt neo-isolationism was a one-day wonder, and now he must bury himself in ambiguities, platitudes and other meaningless pronouncements. In short, he must become one of the boys.
True. But there's his problem, and it's a big one. In becoming just one of the boys, Paul also erases his unique positioning that holds deep political appeal to the young and even antiwar Democrats. He's no longer the scrappy renegade taking on his party's foreign-policy Establishment; he becomes instead just another "realist": "When we fight, we must fight to win," "We must project strength and action"--bland, boilerplate stuff.
And it's a problem he'll have to resolve--soon. Without his foreign-policy positioning, Paul hasn't much of a program with any political potential.