Republican leaders clash on foreign policy

(MENAFN- Arab News) WASHINGTON: The most ambitious Republican leaders have begun to clash with each other over the US role in global affairs with an eye toward the 2016 race for president.

Several high-profile Republicans offered differing visions this week for US leadership abroad pitting the party's national security hawks against isolationist conservatives whose influence is growing in Republican politics.

Largely an afterthought in the last presidential contest foreign policy has become a place where prospective 2016 contenders can jockey for position before officially declaring plans to seek the White House.

'I will admit to being different from Republicans and other Democrats' Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told a gathering of business executives in Washington on Tuesday when he advocated for a smaller American footprint in the world and described Iraq as 'a huge mess.'

'To those Republicans who love a Republican intervention Iraq's worse off now' he said. 'Do you think we're better or worse off with Hussein gone'

Addressing the same crowd the night before former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush whose brother George W. Bush ordered the invasion that toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003 cited 'a growing awareness that we can't withdraw from the world.'

The foreign policy focus comes as violence rages across the Middle East and tensions intensify across Eastern Europe. As would-be Republican presidential candidates seek a leadership role in the foreign policy debate others are scrambling to strengthen their international credentials.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is expected to visit Israel for the first time early next year and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie heads to Canada on an official trade mission later in the week his second foreign trip in recent months. In addition to meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other officials Christie is expected to focus heavily on North American energy production including the Keystone XL pipeline project from Canada to the US Gulf Coast building on a policy platform he began to articulate during his recent trip to Mexico.

In Washington this week the foreign policy debate is taking place amid President Barack Obama's search for a new defense secretary and during the final days of the current Congress.

Sen. John McCain a former presidential candidate who is not likely to run again will be among the featured speakers at a foreign policy forum on Wednesday titled 'A World in Crisis: The Need for American Leadership.' He will be joined by at least two prospective presidential candidates Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz a freshman senator who like Paul is trying to tap into frustrations voters may have about America's lingering conflicts overseas.

A CNN/ORC poll in September found that nearly 6 in 10 Americans think the United States should not play a leading role among other countries in trying to solve the world's problems.