Rare News Desk
In a speech that focused primarily on foreign policy on Thursday, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) urged the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference to fully embrace the concept of the United States as the only force that can effectively manage the world’s affairs.
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Directing his message directly to the young crowd at CPAC, Rubio said:
If you inherit a world where the Chinese gets to decide who gets to ship products to the South China Sea and all the countries in that region or tributaries to them… If you inherit a world where North Korea can blow up California or the West Coast of the United States with a nuclear weapon… If you inherit a world where Iran can reach the east coast of the United States or can wipe Israel off the face of the earth with a nuclear attack…
Rubio added, “What I’m trying to say to you is that without American engagement the world I just painted to you is not just a possibility, it is a real probability.”
In December, a Pew Research Center poll showed that support among Americans for a more full-throated global engagement had fallen to a 40 year low. Many attribute this to war weariness due to the decade long US missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sen. Rubio stipulated Thursday, “That doesn’t mean that we’re going to be involved in fifteen wars or that American foreign policy needs to involve armed conflict with every corner of the planet, it also doesn’t mean we can solve every conflict.” But then added, “We do not have the luxury of seeing the world the way we hoped it would be, we have to see the world the way it is, and we must address these issues before they become unmanageable.”
Senators John McCain and Marco Rubio.
The concept of pre-emptive or preventive war, the rationale used by President George W. Bush to lead America into war in Iraq, is that military threat or action should be taken in advance to prevent potential threats in the future. Most Americans now see the Iraq War as a mistake.
In the lead up to war in 2003, President Bush urged Americans to see the world as it is, similar to Rubio’s warning, and administration advocates for invading Iraq made many predictions about the relative low cost and probable success, most of which never came to fruition.
Rubio supported Obama’s intervention in Libya in 2011, saying regime change in that country was in our “national interest,” and banged the drum for war with Syria before shifting his position in September when most Americans and conservatives overwhelmingly opposed Obama’s intent to intervene in that country’s civil war.
Rubio said on Thursday that America “must confront (global threats) with a seriousness of purpose that requires an American foreign policy deeply rooted in our values…”
Results from CPAC’s 2013 straw poll showed that 50 percent of attendees said they believed the U.S. should do less militarily around the world.
