Carson trips up on NATO knowledge, Islamic history

Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon poised to seek the Republican presidential nomination, appeared not to realize Wednesday that the Baltic states are members of the NATO alliance. He also claimed that the rage being expressed by radical Islamist groups dates back to Old Testament days.

Those were among several odd answers from the first-time candidate as he defended his lack of foreign policy chops during a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt, the conservative commentator who will moderate a GOP presidential debate later this year.


Like several other Republican presidential prospects, including a few of the governors in the field, Carson showed the limits of his knowledge about the world, even as national security has come to dominate a larger share of the debate.

Hewitt asked if NATO should be willing to go to war if Russian leader Vladimir Putin attempts to do in the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania) what he’s already done in Ukraine.

“I think they would be willing to go to war if they knew that they were backed up by us,” Carson said. “We need to convince them to get involved in NATO and strengthen NATO.”

“Well, the Baltics, they are in NATO,” Hewitt responded. [In fact, they’ve been member states since 2004.]

After a commercial break, Carson explained that he was confused. “Well, when you were saying Baltic state, I thought you were continuing our conversation about the former components of the Soviet Union,” he said.

Much of the interview focused on the current turmoil in the Middle East. Carson said he’s been reading a lot about Al Qaeda and “the radical Islamic movement in general.”

The 63-year-old argued that “the origin of their rage” dates all the way back to the book of Genesis in the Old Testament and that the groups are mainly focused on claiming land.

“First of all, you have to recognize they go back thousands and thousands of years, really back to the battle between Jacob and Esau,” Carson said.

Hewitt interjected that Islam’s Prophet Muhammad was not born until nearly 600 years after the death of Jesus, and that Islam is really only a 1,400-year-old religion: “How do you go back to Jacob and Esau, which are B.C?”

“I’m just saying that the conflict has been ongoing for thousands of years,” Carson said. “This is not anything new, is what I’m saying.”

Carson doubled down by asserting that “the Islamic faith emanated from Esau.”

“It has been a land issue for a very long period of time,” he said. “Possession is very important to them. And one of the things that we’re doing incorrectly right now is not recognizing that they are expanding their territory. Not only the land that they’ve taken in Iraq, but what they’ve taken in Syria, they’re creating an Islamic state. And we can bomb it all we want. But unless we actually can take the land back, we’re really not doing them any damage.”

Carson also said that Shiite and Sunni Muslims – whose bitter differences have often led to violence between them – might somehow team up against the West.

“Right now, they’re fighting each other in Iraq, admittedly,” he said. “But in the long run, I think they would gladly unite against us in their attempt to destroy the United States, our way of life, and Israel. And we have to be extraordinarily careful about any alliances with them.”

Carson said he is okay with the United States negotiating with Iran, as long as the government there makes concessions and allows inspections of its nuclear facilities. He also described Putin as “a very rational actor” who is responding to signs of U.S. weakness.

Hewitt fretted aloud about Carson’s ability to respond to the same “gotcha” questions that tripped up then-GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in 2008.

“I‘ve read a lot in the last six months, no question about that,” Carson said. “There’s a lot of material to learn. There’s no question about that. But … we spend too much time trying to get into these little details that are easily within the purview of the experts that you have available to you. And I think where we get lost is not being able to define what our real mission is, and not being able to strategize in terms of how do we defeat our enemies.”

“I could spend the next six years learning all the details of all the SALT treaties and every other treaty that’s ever been done and completely miss the boat,” he added.