Gingrich recently admitted that the GOP should reexamine its foreign policy:
I am a neoconservative. But at some point, even if you are a neoconservative, you need to take a deep breath to ask if our strategies in the Middle East have succeeded. … It may be that our capacity to export democracy is a lot more limited than we thought.
Jacob Heilbrunn sees Newt’s reversal as “a further sign that the old consensus in the GOP is fraying”:
Gingrich has long had an astute sense for the pulse of the GOP. He may well believe—and his belief may be justified—that the party is at a turning point when it comes to examining its stands on foreign policy. The GOP has yet to undertake a real reckoning with the policies of the George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Larison doesn’t buy the change of heart:
It’s interesting that Gingrich is saying these things at a time when most hard-liners and hawks in the party are reaffirming their support for the ideas behind failed Bush-era policies, but I’m doubtful that Gingrich’s “change of heart” is all that significant. As a sign that hard-liners continue to lose ground in the party, it could be a welcome development, but it is just as easy to see Gingrich’s remarks as an effort at damage control. It seems to me that Gingrich isn’t saying these things because he wants to abandon neoconservatives, since he still claims to be one, but because he recognizes that their dead-ender defenses of extremely unpopular wars and attacks on Rand Paul are not having the desired effect.
The Dish 