European Huckabee

With a showing of 18.1% in the Iowa Straw Poll on Saturday, Mike Huckabee is now declaring himself worthy of first-tier treatment. While the scope of Mr. Huckabee's achievement is dubious — Mitt Romney won the straw poll with the support of 31.5% of voters and John McCain and Rudy Giuliani didn't even compete in the contest begun as a fundraiser for the Republican Party in Iowa — his quasi-milestone puts him on the radar of pundits and reporters.

In anticipation of a presidential run, the former governor of Arkansas, penned a book, "From Hope to Higher Ground: 12 Stops to Restoring America's Greatness." Now would be a good time for Republican voters to read it.

Included in the book is the foreign policy vision of Mr. Huckabee, who served as governor between 1996 and January of this year. The vision is an odd one for a national Republican candidate these days. Mr. Huckabee doesn't venture into the neoisolationist lunacy of Ron Paul, but his choice of language surrounding America's role in the world is curious. Quick to personify nations while talking about international relations, at times he sounds like he is channeling a European member of the Green Party.

"When the kid in the neighborhood with dominant power uses his superiority to demand his way, win at every contest, force others to run errands, and ridicule the weaker children, that individual may maintain his position of dominance, but he will be resented by the other kids in the neighborhood," he writes.

Is America under President Bush the bully that he describes? It's somewhat unclear from the text, but he does not write anywhere that it isn't. Just two paragraphs higher in the book, he says, "the less vulnerable a nation is to military defeat, the more vulnerable it is to the resentment and outright animosity of even those nations that could rightfully be described as allies."

While he rejects the notion that it is "all our fault that America is resented across the world," he also writes, "we can't ignore our role and responsibility" to "bring smiles of approval instead of curses of contempt." Perhaps, by that thinking, some of that resentment is our fault.

Previously in the campaign, Mr. Huckabee drew attention when he launched into a passionate oration about God in response to a question about creationism at a Republican debate. His faith is also present in his foreign policy outlook: "The most powerful demonstration of leadership is not a clenched fist of brute force but an open hand of humble assistance. This is the very model of leadership and strength expressed by Jesus, who reminded us that if we really wanted to be great, we must be willing to serve rather than to be served, and that the spirit of our actions is as important as the actions themselves."

In one breath, Mr. Huckabee is endorsing Ronald Reagan's policy of military strength. In the next, he is declaring, "with the development of strength and unprecedented power there must also be unprecedented restraint."

Mr. Huckabee's campaign Web site outlines his backing of Israel: "I am a steadfast supporter of Israel, our staunch ally in the War on Terror, the only fully-functioning democracy in the Middle East, and our greatest friend in that region." In his book, Mr. Huckabee likewise expresses support for Israel, which he has visited nine times. Yet in the only chapter of his book devoted to foreign policy, Mr. Huckabee opts to delve into an unusual discussion about a Palestinian Arab, whom he met during a 1984 visit to the Middle East:

"He told me about the day he came home from school and was met at the corner a block from the home he had known since birth. He was told that he didn't live there anymore. He was told that he would be relocated to a Palestinian camp and that his neighborhood, street and home would be occupied by the Israelis." The point of this homily, according to Mr. Huckabee, is that "there are still human beings who deserve to be treated respectfully and thoughtfully since they personally have not done wrong and now are being forced from what has been their home." Missing from Mr. Huckabee's discussion of the Middle East conflict, other than an assertion "that the Jews have a God-given right to reclaim land given to their ancestors and taken away from them," is a sense of context. It's impossible to discern from which land this Palestinian departed or whether he was part of the group urged to leave Israel by Arab leaders in 1948 or caught up in the 1967 war.

In the Middle East, details matter. Details such as the efforts of Israel's Supreme Court to ensure human rights for the Palestinians and the difficult and painful balancing act a democracy must engage in while maintaining those rights and preserving the safety and security of its citizens.

Near the end of his discussion on foreign policy, Mr. Huckabee writes, "it's important that as a nation we seek to be an example, not just of strength, but of servanthood." Let's hope that Mr. Huckabee's sense of "servanthood" does not extend to America's very real enemies in the world who wish to do our nation real harm.

Mr. Gitell (gitell.com) is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.