Story highlights
Bush doesn't want to "re-litigate" old rows over brother's wars
Democrats already planning Iraq war offensive
But Obama missteps could help GOP
(CNN) —
Another Bush is confronting the seemingly endless challenges of Iraq.
Nearly 25 years after his father launched the first Gulf War and almost 12 years after his brother began a much more contentious sequel, it’s Jeb Bush’s turn to articulate his vision of America’s approach to the Middle East – and Iraq in particular. How he responds will have big implications for his White House ambitions.
On Wednesday, he delivered his first foreign policy speech since signaling his serious interest in running for president next year, laying out “how America can regain its leadership in the world.”
The remarks come as the United States is again being drawn back into the Middle East, including Iraq, to combat the brutality of the Islamic State. The speech offered Bush a chance to show whether his national security views align more with the swaggering interventionism of his brother or the cautious internationalism of his father.
Democrats are vowing to tether him to the controversial decisions of his brother, President George W. Bush, who they blame for starting a war in Iraq on false pretenses and for presiding over a disastrous occupation that cost trillions of dollars, thousands of U.S. and Iraqi lives and destabilized the region.
The challenges of addressing his family’s foreign policy legacy are clear to Bush, who is already trying to defuse them.
“I love my father and my brother. I admire their service to the nation and the difficult decisions they had to make,” Bush said Wednesday. “But I am my own man – and my views are shaped by my own thinking and own experiences.”
But he also projected them as a strength, calling himself “lucky to have a father and a brother who have shaped America’s foreign policy from the Oval Office.”
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Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has said his decision to run for the Republican nomination will be based on two things: his family and whether he can lift America's spirit. His father and brother are former Presidents.
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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has created a political committee that will help him travel and raise money while he considers a 2016 bid. Additionally, billionaire businessman David Koch said in a private gathering in Manhattan this month that he wants Walker to be the next president, but he doesn't plan to back anyone in the primaries.
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Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is establishing a committee to formally explore a White House bid. "If I run, my candidacy will be based on the idea that the American people are ready to try a dramatically different direction," he said in a news release provided to CNN on Monday, May 18.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, has said the United States needs a "political revolution" of working-class Americans looking to take back control of the government from billionaires. He first announced the run in an email to supporters early on the morning of Thursday, April 30.
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On March 2, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson announced the launch of an exploratory committee. The move will allow him to raise money that could eventually be transferred to an official presidential campaign and indicates he is on track with stated plans to formally announce a bid in May.
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South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham has said he'll make a decision about a presidential run sometime soon. A potential bid could focus on Graham's foreign policy stance.
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Hillary Clinton launched her presidential bid Sunday, April 12, through a video message on social media. She continues to be considered the overwhelming front-runner among possible 2016 Democratic presidential candidates.
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Sen. Marco Rubio announced his bid for the 2016 presidency on Monday, April 13, a day after Hillary Clinton, with a rally in Florida. He's a Republican rising star from Florida who swept into office in 2010 on the back of tea party fervor. But his support of comprehensive immigration reform, which passed the Senate but has stalled in the House, has led some in his party to sour on his prospects.
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Lincoln Chafee, a Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat former governor and senator of Rhode Island, said he's running for president on Thursday, April 16, as a Democrat, but his spokeswoman said the campaign is still in the presidential exploratory committee stages.
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Jim Webb, the former Democratic senator from Virginia, is entertaining a 2016 presidential run. In January, he told NPR that his party has not focused on white, working-class voters in past elections.
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Vice President Joe Biden has twice before made unsuccessful bids for the Oval Office -- in 1988 and 2008. A former senator known for his foreign policy and national security expertise, Biden made the rounds on the morning shows recently and said he thinks he'd "make a good President."
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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has started a series of town halls in New Hampshire to test the presidential waters, becoming more comfortable talking about national issues and staking out positions on hot topic debates.
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Rep. Paul Ryan, a former 2012 vice presidential candidate and fiscally conservative budget hawk, says he's keeping his "options open" for a possible presidential run but is not focused on it.
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Sen. Rand Paul officially announced his presidential bid on Tuesday, April 7, at a rally in Louisville, Kentucky. The tea party favorite probably will have to address previous controversies that include comments on civil rights, a plagiarism allegation and his assertion that the top NSA official lied to Congress about surveillance.
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Texas Sen. Ted Cruz announced his 2016 presidential bid on Monday, March 23, in a speech at Liberty University. The first-term Republican and tea party darling is considered a gifted orator and smart politician. He is best known in the Senate for his marathon filibuster over defunding Obamacare.
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Democrat Martin O'Malley, the former Maryland governor, released a "buzzy" political video in November 2013 in tandem with visits to New Hampshire. He also headlined a Democratic Party event in South Carolina, which holds the first Southern primary.
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Republican Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, announced in 2013 that he would not be seeking re-election, leading to speculation that he might mount a second White House bid.
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Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a social conservative, gave Mitt Romney his toughest challenge in the nomination fight last time out and has made trips recently to early voting states, including Iowa and South Carolina.
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Political observers expect New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to yield to Hillary Clinton's run in 2016, fearing there wouldn't be room in the race for two Democrats from the Empire State.
Bush is wading into foreign policy at a crucial time, when it appears that public opinion on issues of war could be shifting.
A new CNN poll shows that Obama is beginning to pay a price for the lurid execution videos posted by ISIS and the group’s widening footprint through the Middle East and North Africa. Disapproval of Obama’s management of the ISIS crisis has climbed from 49% in late September to 57% now, potentially providing an opening for Republicans to push for tougher foreign policy.
And Bush will slam Obama’s foreign policy as “inconsistent and indecisive,” pointing out that Obama’s foreign policy has made the U.S. less influential despite Obama’s promise to engage leaders around the world, what Bush will dub “the great irony” of Obama’s presidency, according to excerpts.
But Bush is nevertheless likely to find himself pulled into a debate over conflicts initiated by George W. Bush that still vex U.S. policymakers and remain an open wound in American politics.
Democrats insist they won’t let Bush get away with his pledge to not re-litigate old wars.
“If you thought George Bush’s foreign policy made the world less safe, then you’re going to really hate Jeb Bush’s approach,” said Mo Elleithee, communications director of the Democratic National Committee. “Even with the benefit of hindsight, he’s one of the few people left who still stands by the decision to rush into a war in Iraq based on false information, even when it took resources away from the hunt for al Qaeda in Afghanistan. And he’s made it pretty clear that if he had his way, we’d still be in Iraq and staying there indefinitely. “
Democrats believe George W. Bush created a mess abroad and voters will not buy attacks on President Barack Obama by his brother.
“The bulk of what we know of Jeb’s foreign policy experience is his steadfast refusal to criticize his brother when his brother was in office,” said Ben Ray of the progressive PAC American Bridge. “On Friday, I think you saw him take an unsustainable position. That is not how presidential politics works.”
