Is Mitt Romney flirting with realism by appointing Robert Zoellick to his foreign policy staff?
Jennifer Rubin is outraged that Mitt Romney is associating himself with realists, specifically former World Bank President Robert Zoellick:
For foreign policy hawks, Zoellick is an anathema. As the right hand man in the State Department and Treasury Department of James A, Baker, who was infamous for his anti-Israel stance, Zoellick acquired a reputation as â?softâ? on China, weak on pressuring the Soviet Union at the close of the Cold War, opposed to the first Gulf War and unsupportive of the Jewish state. His stint as U.S. Trade Representative, and Deputy Secretary of State, in the George W. Bush administration did nothing too alter his image with foreign policy hardliners. That tenure will no doubt complicate Romneyâ??s efforts to distance himself from his predecessor. And in 2011, Zoellick shocked foreign policy gurus by delivering a speech praising China, suggesting that it was a â??responsible stakeholderâ? in Asia, at a time human rights abuses and aggressive conduct in Asia were bedeviling the Obama administration.
The odd thing about this, though, is that Zoellick never called China a responsible stakeholder - he urged China to become one. Indeed, the piece Rubin links to in castigating Zoellick notes that he called China a "vital but reluctant stakeholder."
I'd be very surprised if any of Romney's advisers actually disagreed with that assessment.
Update: Daniel Drezner isn't having it:
Hey, did you notice a key word difference between what Rubin claims Zoellick said and what Zoellick actually said? And that the word "responsible" appears nowhere in tha[t] story? And that Zoellick's statement here is fully consistent with what he told a Chinese audience the next month? So either Rubin didn't bother reading the embedded link you provided her, or she didn't read the embedded link at Zoellick's Wikipedia entry... or she didn't care. Either way, it doesn't look good.
Update II: Josh Rogin gets more feedback:
The chief complaint among critics is that Zoellick, who served as deputy secretary of state under Bush before being appointed to head the World Bank, is a foreign-policy realist who has seemed too friendly toward China and, as a disciple of former Secretary of State James Baker, not friendly enough toward Israel. Romney's vows to be tougher on China and closer to the Israeli government are key pillars of his foreign-policy platform."Bob Zoellick couldn't be more conservative in the branch of the GOP he represents," said Danielle Pletka, vice president at the American Enterprise Institute. "He's pro-China to the point of mania, he's an establishment guy, he's a trade-first guy. He's basically a George H.W. Bush, old-school Republican."
Indeed. The last person we'd want advising Romney during this period of economic malaise is someone who's spent years working on international economic and trade issues! Instead, we need more people who cultivate the proper emotional attitudes towards countries and who write op-eds about the awesome power of "will" to make the world conform to American wishes. That will right the ship.
