Larison's damning critique of Rubio's foreign policy cred

Excerpt:

"“The fact of the matter is Jeb has no foreign policy experience,” Rubio said. “He has no foreign policy experience and was governor a long time ago. The world has changed a lot in the last 10 years. Foreign policy has changed a lot in the last five years. No one on that stage has more experience or has shown better judgment or has shown a better understanding of national security threats than I have.”

This is the story that Rubio and his admirers like to tell, but it’s quite misleading. It’s true that he has some experience being on the Foreign Relations Committee that Bush and most of the other candidates don’t have, but considering how often he has skipped out on his job in the Senate that isn’t as significant as it sounds. Besides, Kasich could plausibly claim to have more experience on these issues than Rubio from his many years in the House. This argument may work against Bush, but it nonetheless exaggerates how much experience the senator has.

As for having better judgment and understanding, that’s not at all obvious. More so than any Republican candidate still in the race, Rubio was on board with Obama’s foolish military intervention in Libya, which helped to destabilize Libya and its neighbors for the last five years. [my emphasis]  That not only calls his judgment into question, but it would make him uniquely ill-suited to face Clinton in the general election. He may not be alone in his supporting reckless actions in Syria that risk war with Russia, but that by itself shows that his judgment is worse than that of at least a couple of his rivals. Any Republican candidate unwilling to risk an armed confrontation with a nuclear-armed major power over Syria has already shown that his judgment is better than Rubio’s."

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/rubios-bad-foreign-policy-judgment/

"Time for the Libya mea culpas"

"Well: Libya is a nightmare. A humanitarian intervention has led to a humanitarian crisis.

So: you guys want to step up and talk about why you were wrong? I mean I don’t expect the real Samantha Power warmongering types to admit they were wrong. But can we get a little social pressure for our political class to own up to the fact that they were wrong, please? You guys want to weigh in, here? Zack Beauchamp? Spencer Ackerman? Juan Cole? Jon Chait? Garance Franke-Ruta? John Judis? Christopher Hitchens, I’m sorry to say, is no longer around to apologize. But how about you,Fareed Zakaria? John Heilemann? Andrew Sullivan, at least– and his readers– are getting frank about the damage done. But Shadi Hamid, how about you? Anne-Marie Slaughter, we already know, is beyond helping. The whole New Republic will never stop being wrong about war. And Jeffrey Goldberg has built a career on being wrong but acting really pompous about it. But you, Peter Beinart? You have another of those brooding apologies in you? Matt Steinglass, still feeling good?

...You guys. The people who want to make things better. The people who think there should be accountability in punditry. The ones who think professionals should take responsibility for their professional work. This is where it happens, or it doesn’t. Either the community that is the elite political media pressures people to examine their support for this failed intervention and in so doing perhaps gain insight for the future, or it doesn’t. But this is where it happens. This is where the rubber meets the road. So what are you guys gonna do?"

-Fredrik deBoer

'We hope you will, please, pursue this... Check it out. Challenge us.'

"The Citizens Commission on Benghazi, a self-selected group of former top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers, declared Tuesday in Washington that a seven-month review of the deadly 2012 terrorist attack has determined that it could have been prevented – if the U.S. hadn't been helping to arm al-Qaeda militias throughout Libya a year earlier."

'The United States switched sides in the war on terror with what we did in Libya, knowingly facilitating the provision of weapons to known al-Qaeda militias and figures,' Clare Lopez, a member of the commission and a former CIA officer, told MailOnline.

She blamed the Obama administration for failing to stop half of a $1 billion United Arab Emirates arms shipment from reaching al-Qaeda-linked militants.

'Remember, these weapons that came into Benghazi were permitted to enter by our armed forces who were blockading the approaches from air and sea,' Lopez claimed. 'They were permitted to come in. ... [They] knew these weapons were coming in, and that was allowed..

'The intelligence community was part of that, the Department of State was part of that, and certainly that means that the top leadership of the United States, our national security leadership, and potentially Congress – if they were briefed on this – also knew about this.' (read more)

AP: "Russian Embassy in Libya evacuated after attack"

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia on Thursday evacuated all of its diplomats and their families from Libya, the day after a mob attack on the Russian Embassy, and issued a warning to its citizens against visiting the country.

An armed mob broke into the embassy compound in the Libyan capital Tripoli, climbing over walls, breaking down a metal gate and shooting in the air. One of the attackers was killed by the gunfire, and four more were wounded, Libyan officials said.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in Thursday's statement that Moscow decided to evacuate the embassy after Libya's Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdelaziz visited its grounds and told the Russian ambassador that Libya was unable to protect the personnel.

AP