Josh Rogin has a good roundup of who is advising the GOP candidates on foreign policy, which is a better predictor of what any individual candidates foreign policy might look like than what they say in a presidential debate. Neoconservatives are well represented, but there is one candidate who is openly taking advice from the old realist greybeards:
There has been some reporting that Huntsman is being advised by a group of foreign-policy realists including former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass. But none of those advisors has committed to Huntsman publicly, and they are talking to other campaigns as well.
"Those aren't exclusive relationships. They are foreign-policy experts. If any candidate calls them up, they are going to take the call, and they are going to try to explain the world and what the issues are to the candidates. That's just part of being a public servant," said Lindsay. "To imply they are with Huntsman and are forsaking all others is misleading."
They may be advising other candidates, but those other candidates aren't advertising those connections. There's a reason for that -- these guys just aren't very well liked among the current GOP foreign policy establishment. The fact that the only candidate publicly admitting he's taken their counsel is the moderate Utah governor who supported Keynesian fiscal stimulus and once thought that the individual mandate was a good idea, is as good a reason as any to be skeptical of the idea that Republicans' criticism of military intervention in Libya is anything other than skin deep.
