Joe Klein noticed that Huntsman’s comments on Iran yesterday were awful (via Andrew):

Huntsman’s response was one of his few foolish moments. It was also craven. He didn’t say, “Wait a minute, Newt, why would the Iranians bring on the utter destruction of their own country? What evidence do you have that they would use nukes? What examples can you give of the regime behaving–rather than just talking–recklessly in the international sphere since the end of the Iran-Iraq war?”

This isn’t an isolated episode. Huntsman’s position on Iran is virtually indistinguishable from the position that Romney and Gingrich take. Presumably, he doesn’t think the survival of the United States is at stake, but otherwise he has no interest in challenging such alarmist claims.

Klein continued:

Huntsman did say that we had missed an opportunity to take advantage of the “Persian Spring” after the stolen election of 2009, but this was silly, too. It presumed that the Green movement would have sided with the U.S. against its own government. And it ignored the hard lessons we are learning now about the vagaries of people-power movements in that part of the world. (And it ignores the fact that the leaders of the Green Movement are very much in favor of the Iranian nuclear program.)

In fact, as Huntsman well knows, if Barack Obama had encouraged a revolution in Iran in 2009, he would have had the effect of (a) destroying the credibility of the Green movement and (b) getting a lot more people killed.

Why does Klein assume that Huntsman knows this? It seems to me that he wants to believe that Huntsman knows this, because this is the correct way to understand the issue. After all, Huntsman isn’t supposed to regurgitate demagogic talking points! Klein takes for granted that Huntsman is too knowledgeable to believe the nonsense he has been repeatedly saying, but knowledge doesn’t preclude opportunism or ideological bias. Since Gingrich’s knowledge was, in Klein’s phrase, “kiddie-pool deep,” it would have been a perfect opportunity for Huntsman to demonstrate superior understanding, and it would have provided an occasion for Huntsman to disagree more sharply with Gingrich on a major issue. As usual, Huntsman declined to exploit his natural advantages on foreign policy, and he failed to present a serious challenge to one of his rivals.

P.S. Towards the end of the exchange (1:03:00), Huntsman repeated his annoying, misleading Kennan reference in connection with overseas bases.