Bush takes risk with brother's worldview

WASHINGTON - If Jeb Bush is elected president, the United States won't be on speaking terms with Cuba and will partner more closely with Israel. He'll tighten sanctions on Iran and urge NATO to deploy more troops in Eastern Europe to counter Vladimir Putin. And he'll order the U.S. military to root out "barbarians" and "evil doers" around the globe.

Far from running from or downplaying the views once expressed by his brother, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush is embracing them - and emphasizing them.

It's clear when he calls for closer engagement with Arab leaders to combat the growing threat of the Islamic State. Or when he criticizes President Obama for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq. It's most apparent when he refers to "evil doers" - a formulation used widely by his brother - and argues that the United States needs to engage but doesn't have to be "the world's policeman," a view voiced by his brother that was also embraced by their father, George H.W. Bush.

"We now have a president - the first one, I believe - in the post-World War II era that believes that America's power is not appropriate and America's presence is not a force for good. He's wrong. With all due respect, he is just plain wrong," Bush told a crowd of business leaders in Columbus, Ohio, this week.

"America needs to lead; America needs to stay engaged," he added. "America's friends need to know that we have their back over the long haul, and our enemies need to fear us a little bit."

Jeb Bush's views put him squarely in the middle of GOP consensus on foreign affairs - a consensus that formed as his brother reshaped U.S. engagement with the world. But by endorsing some of his brother's views, he puts himself at odds with most Americans, who remain wary of the two wars launched during the last Bush presidency.

Even George W. Bush admits he's a political liability. Speaking at a health conference in Chicago on Wednesday night, he told the crowd, "That's why you won't see me out there, and he doesn't need to defend me" before adding that he loves and supports his brother, according to reports of the speech.

In recent years, nearly six in 10 Americans have believed that the Iraq war was not worth fighting, though Republicans have been slightly more supportive, according to polling by the Washington Post and other organizations. In more recent years, public opinion has similarly turned against the war in Afghanistan.

He isn't officially a candidate, but Jeb Bush has gone far beyond perfunctory criticism of Obama, thanks to his frequent engagement with voters, the press and a brain trust of nearly two dozen experts.

"Bush's criticisms of Obama's policies are pretty much what you would expect. 'Not' - as Jerry Seinfeld might have said - 'that there is anything wrong with that,' " said Gary Schmitt, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

But Peter Feaver, a Duke University political science professor who once advised George W. Bush on Iraq, noted that, so far, Jeb Bush "doesn't feel that he has to emphasize differences with the previous presidents Bush. But he's not insecure about it or defensive about it - he doesn't list 20 things that he would do differently."

As Bush prepares to launch a presidential campaign, he's calling upon his personal experiences abroad and a growing cast of advisers well-versed in global conflicts.

He likes to remind crowds that he lived in Caracas, Venezuela, in the late 1970s when he was a vice president for Texas Commerce Bank. He lived in the city's Santa Rose de Lima neighborhood with his wife, Columba; son, George; and daughter, Noelle. (Their third child, Jeb Bush Jr., was born later.)

Early in his exploratory phase, Bush unveiled a foreign policy advisory team that reflects the disparate views of GOP thinking on the world. The group includes two former secretaries of state, George P. Shultz and James A. Baker 3d; two former CIA directors, Porter Goss and Michael Hayden; former Attorney General Michael Mukasey; and Paul Wolfowitz, a former deputy defense secretary and lead architect of the Iraq war.

In speeches, meetings with voters, and interviews across the country, Bush usually faults Obama for his "consistent policy of pullback and retrenchment."

"It's not that we necessarily have to be the world's policeman," he told a crowd in Denver last week. The country needs "a consistent policy where our friends know that we have their back and our enemies fear us a little bit - or our possible enemies believe that the United States will act in its own security interest."