Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has removed two influential neo-conservative advisers from her inner circle and replaced them with people who have a more pragmatic view towards American foreign policy.
The advisers, Orion Strategies Randy Scheunemann, the former executive director of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, and Michael Goldfarb, a former reporter and protege of Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, have been shaping Palins conconservative foreign policy stance since she ran as John McCains running mate in 2008, reports Politco.com. The two left her PAC on good terms, Palin aide Tim Crawford told the online paper.
Replacing Scheunemann and Goldfarb is Peter Schweizer, a writer and fellow at Stanford Universitys Hoover Institution who blogs regularly at Andrew Breitbarts Big Peace. Schweizer has articulated a more skeptical view of the use of American force and promotion of democracy abroad, Politico noted.
In a piece critical of US President Barack Obamas handling of populist uprisings in the Middle East, Schweizer wrote that Egypt has done a lot of things wrong, but they have also been pro-American on a lot of levels, and noted hypocrisy in Obamas policy when it came to handling his support for protestors in Iran.
Schweizer has also been skeptical of American involvement in Libya, which he compared to Vietnam, speculated that France is on the brink of a violent civil war between radical Muslims and its resurgent right, Politico wrote.
Palin made her new foreign policy outlook known during speech at Colorado Christian Univerisity on Wednesday, when she said the US should only commit our forces when clear and vital American interests are at stake. Period. Palin then dissmissed nation-building as a nice idea in theory, but not the main purpose guiding American foreign policy.
In her opening, Palin praised the American veteran whose sacrifice allows for, among other things, the burning of the American flag.