When Huckabee ran for president in 2007-08, he campaigned as a more or less conventional hawk, but occasionally said things that didn’t align him with the most hard-line positions all the time. Since his first campaign, he seems to have made sure to remove any hint of creative or independent thought from his foreign policy statements. He now generally holds a very hawkish view on any given issue, and often talks about these issues as superficially as we would expect from a cable news talking head. Needless to say, Huckabee has nothing to offer those of us interested in a more restrained foreign policy.

Looking back over some his recent remarks on a few issues should make that clear. On Iran, he may have once talked about negotiating with their government, but has since denounced the idea that Iran is a “rational actor” and mocked the ongoing negotiations on the nuclear issue. He now recites the standard talking points about the need for more sanctions. He is opposed to any sanctions relief, and he believes that the U.S. should “encourage” uprisings against the Iranian government. Like many Iran hawks, Huckabee misrepresents the Green movement as an “uprising” aimed at toppling the regime, and laments that the U.S. did not support the “uprising.” Besides being badly informed about Iran, Huckabee seems to think that stoking yet another conflict in the region with the goal of regime change is an appropriate thing for the U.S. to be doing.

His views on Russia policy are similarly predictable and ridiculous. Huckabee’s reaction to news that the U.S. will be restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba was just as misguided, and he seems to have been under the mistaken impression that the administration had somehow lifted the embargo as well. His position on Cuba isn’t a surprise. He had already adopted a pro-embargo view during his last presidential campaign after originally being a supporter of lifting the embargo when he was governor. While most Americans have become increasingly supportive of restoring relations with Cuba and ending the embargo, Huckabee has been moving steadily in the opposite direction over the last decade. The former governor’s foreign policy views were never very good, but he has spent the last several years choosing to make them even worse than they were the first time he ran for president.