Scott Walker Joins The 'Tough On Iran Like Reagan Was' Club

Scott Walker is a man who knows what he believes in, even if some of it is kind of weird, like how he can beat ISIS because he told public employee unions to go get bent. And his foreign policy hero is the great Ronald Reagan, who didn't let foreign enemies like air traffic controller unions boss him around. So it shouldn't be too surprising that in his announcement speech, Scott Walker explained we can never have a nuclear deal with Iran, because under Jimmy Carter, Iran took 52 Americans hostages, and only freed them on Ronald Reagan's first day in office.

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Walker remembered how when he was a young'un, he and his brother "used to tie ribbons around the tree in front of our house during the 444 days that Iran held 52 Americans hostage," and therefore because of what happened in 1979-80, on President Walker's (hah!) first day in office, he'd "terminate the bad deal with Iran" and impose "crippling economic sanctions" until Iran ... well, he doesn't say what would end the sanctions, but it would be a lot better than a deal that merely makes Iran give up its ability to build a nuclear weapon for 10 years. Maybe Iranians would have to agree to stop being evil forever, or at the very least have their nuclear scientists' brains erased so they'd never know how to build a weapon whose essential principles were figured out in the 1940s. Or maybe the sanctions would go into place and there'd be no real restrictions on Iran's nuclear program at all, which was the situation up until now. But it would sure be a tough approach, especially since the only remaining option to stop an Iranian nuclear weapons program would be a nice new war in the Middle East.

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Walker also didn't mention that his hero, Ronald Reagan, was so tough on Iran that he sold them a bunch of missiles and other manned military equipment in the hopes of getting some other hostages released. Most people have heard of that one, but Republicans tend to have a pretty selective memory of it. At least he didn't travel quite as far down the Fail Trail as Rand Paul, who announced in April, "I believe in applying Reagan’s approach to foreign policy to the Iran issue." So score one (by omission) for Scotty!

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Walker's other great foreign policy promise was that there should never be any difference between American policy and Israeli policy. In fact, when he visited Israel, he said he didn't just make that promise to Bibi Netanyahu, he also "met with the opposition leader to let them know that if I were president, there would be no daylight between the United States and Israel going forward." We'd like someone to explain that to us:  Is he saying that if a less hawkish party wins a future Israeli election, the Walker administration would be right on board with it, or that he'd make darn sure that a Labour government in Israel wouldn't dare depart from the policies of Likkud? Details, details.

Still, for Walker, it was a real humdinger of a foreign policy prescription. He somehow managed to get through the whole thing without telling Israel that it needs to eliminate its real enemies, the trade unions.

[ Daily Kos / Scott Walker on YouTube]