The standard interpretation of the 2012 Republican primaries is that they constitute a race between Mitt Romney and the alternatives – a race between the Mitts and the non-Mitts, as it were. This is true as far as it goes, and with his win in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich appears to be the leading non-Mitt for the moment. But when it comes to major foreign policy issues, these primaries are actually being fought along a very different axis, between Ron Paul’s foreign policy views on the one hand and those of his more hawkish Republican opponents or “non-Pauls” on the other. And when it comes to that basic and significant foreign policy division, which has received relatively little attention this year, the main thing to understand is that the non-Pauls have it.

Think of it this way. Whether in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, or national polls, the overwhelming majority of Republicans have regularly expressed their support for candidates who favor the following things: clear U.S. military primacy worldwide; enhanced national missile defenses; aggressive interrogation of suspected terrorists; an end to cuts in military spending; American persistence in Afghanistan; unequivocal support for Israel; preventive airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear weapons program; and strong U.S. leadership internationally. Romney, Gingrich, and Rick Santorum basically agree on the above points. So for that matter did Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann. To put it another way, they all agree that Obama has not been enough of a national security hawk. Paul, on the other hand, thinks Obama has been much too hawkish. That certainly leaves Paul with a distinct niche, but one which is very much a minority position within his own party.

Look inside the Tea Party for further evidence. One of the most common misconceptions regarding American politics over the last two years has been that most Tea Party supporters are “isolationist.” A Pew Research Center poll in October 2011 revealed nothing of the kind. Tea Party supporters within the GOP, for example, are actually less likely than non-Tea Party Republicans to say that the United States should reduce its military commitments overseas. The party grouping that most favors a reduction of U.S. military commitments abroad is in fact Democrats - by a margin of 74% to 23%. This is entirely consistent with broad partisan trends over the past forty years. Foreign policy doves tend to vote Democrat. Foreign policy hawks tend to vote Republican. Tea Party supporters are mostly GOP conservatives. Ron Paul therefore carves out a distinct position as a candidate far more dovish than the current Democratic president. The only problem is that Paul is running as a Republican.

To his credit, Paul is a consistent man who represents a distinct tradition in American political life - one that is strictly anti-interventionist abroad, and libertarian at home. The Republican Party has moved in a more libertarian direction on economic issues in opposition to Obama, and this is mostly salutary. Libertarian or classical liberal principles of individual freedom, limited government, free exchange, and constitutionalism are not only one pillar of the modern conservative movement but of the American founding. So Paul’s libertarianism on domestic economic issues is not really the problem, either politically or philosophically. His foreign policy is. To be sure, many GOP voters, like the American public generally, are currently tired of international expenditures and nation-building exercises overseas. Paul taps into this fatigue, but he also takes it to an extent that few Republicans actually favor. This is an internal dynamic among GOP conservatives that outside commentators rarely understand. Ron Paul’s thoroughgoing anti-interventionism on foreign policy issues is not a political asset within a Republican presidential primary. It is a liability.

We saw this dynamic at work, for example, in the Iowa caucus. Certainly, Ron Paul’s call for U.S. disengagement from the war in Afghanistan won him some applause in TV debates and on the campaign trail. But once Iowa Republicans began to focus on Paul’s overall national security positioning, most did not like what they saw. Paul was and is on record saying the following: