Smallgovt1,
Unfortunately, Ron Paul embraces a neo-isolationist foreign policy. Such a policy would lead the U.S. to abandon critical overseas interests, would radically alter the world's balance of power by withdrawing the U.S. from engagement, and undermine important U.S. relationships i.e., with NATO allies, etc. At the same time, it would not enhance U.S. security. In fact, the previous experience with isolationism prior to World War II proved to be a catastrophic failure.
In addition, he has a peculiar interpretation of the Constitution that would deny the President foreign policymaking authority and, in effect, pose the threat of paralyzing the nation's capacity to make foreign policy. For example, in one of his
essays, Paul wrote:
I have written before about the critical need for Congress to reassert its authority over foreign policy, and for the American people to recognize that the Constitution makes no distinction between domestic and foreign matters. Policy is policy, and it must be made by the legislature and not the executive.
In fact, Alexander Hamilton, in
Federalist No. 75 was explicit that the President was the constitutional agent "in the conduct of foreign negotiations." He explained:
To have intrusted the power of making treaties to the Senate alone, would have been to relinquish the benefits of the constitutional agency of the President in the conduct of foreign negotiations. It is true that the Senate would, in that case, have the option of employing him in this capacity, but they would also have the option of letting it alone, and pique or cabal might induce the latter rather than the former. Besides this, the ministerial servant of the Senate could not be expected to enjoy the confidence and respect of foreign powers in the same degree with the constitutional respresentatives of the nation, and, of course, would not be able to act with an equal degree of weight or efficacy...
Given the importance of a sound foreign policy, especially following the bad outcome concerning the intervention in Iraq and in considering the challenges that currently and are likely to confront the U.S., and the abysmal experience of isolationism prior to World War II, I don't believe one can lightly dismiss Congressman Paul's foreign policy deficiencies. At the same time, should not dismiss Mr. Paul's novel interpretation of the Constitution that would strip the President of his constitutional foreign policymaking authority and, in the process, fundamentally alter the system of checks and balances that the Nation's Founders created.
It would do the nation no good to swing from the extreme of neoconservatism to the opposite extreme of neo-isolationism. It would only entail new risks in the hope that the 21st century experiment with neo-isolationism would not fare as badly as the 20th century isolationist experience.
Anyway, that's my opinion.
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