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Some reassurance on Cameron

David Cameron, elected last month in Britain to head the Tory party, has been seen to this point as pretty much of a blank slate. Here's some reassuring news about his views on Foreign Policy, from Brendan Simms, writing in The New Republic:

Cameron has long supported the British deployment in Iraq; at first this did not distinguish him from the reflexive "back our troops" rhetoric of the Conservative mainstream. But in fact, Cameron, a committed hawk and idealist, has clear and controversial views on the removal of Saddam Hussein and the war on terror....

In short, Cameron is much more a neoconservative or liberal interventionist than a traditional Tory guardian of the national interest. Cameron himself has acknowledged this distinction, saying that "As a Conservative, whose natural instincts are to be wary of grand schemes and ambitious projects for the remaking of society, I had my concerns about the scale of what is being attempted [in Iraq]." But he appears to have put such doubts aside. Some of those closest to Cameron in the parliamentary party, such as Michael Gove, Ed Vaizey, and George Osborne, are neoconservatives...Cameron recalled the former conservative leader William Hague, a staunch and unrepentant supporter of Saddam's removal, to the front bench as shadow foreign secretary.

All of this sounds much more hopeful than the hollow opportunism of Michael Howard, the previous Tory leader.

UPDATE: Stephen Pollard has an interesting tidbit on the question who is Blair's real air, Cameron or Gordon Brown.

posted by Alcibiades @ 1:25 AM