Huntsman Isn’t an “Anti-Internationalist”

Jennifer Rubin needs to consult a dictionary:

But in another sense it’s a peculiar choice. Brookings features some of the more highly regarded national security gurus and anti-isolationists from the center of the political spectrum including Ken Pollack, Robert Kagan and Ben Wittes. How is Huntsman, who has taken a knee-jerk anti-internationalist position more akin to the left-wing Center for American Progress [bold mine-DL], going to fit in?

Her analysis is nothing but a series of risible errors. What can it possibly mean to say that Jon “Invade Iran” Huntsman is an “anti-internationalist” in foreign policy, much less a “knee-jerk” one? Huntsman practically embodies center-right Republican internationalism. Huntsman has more in common with Richard Haass than he does with Robert Kagan, but Haass is obviously an internationalist. Except for Afghanistan, Huntsman’s foreign policy positions as a candidate were identical with or slightly more hawkish than Romney’s. For that matter, CAP is almost entirely filled with people in the liberal internationalist tradition, and it’s preposterous to suggest otherwise. Along the same lines, calling someone an “anti-isolationist” doesn’t mean anything, since there are no isolationists for these “anti-isolationists” to oppose, and everyone debating foreign policy today rejects the isolationist label.