Is this man ready to be president?

According to Herman Cain, Uzbekistan is a small, insignificant country that is not vital to American security interests.

Now, it’s OK not to know immediately that the president of Uzbekistan is Islam Karimov. Still, it’s best not to dismiss a country’s importance simply because you haven’t read up on it. Uzbekistan, as it turns out, is an important supply route to troops in Afghanistan. It is also the original home of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which is currently part of the insurgency in Afghanistan. Getting intelligence from the Uzbekistani government on the IMU would be useful, although I’m not sure President Karimov would like to help a future President Cain as much. And that means more help to Russia and China.

The GOP’s anti-intellectualism used to be confined to domestic affairs, but it’s begun to seep into critical areas of foreign relations. This willful ignorance has consequences, but I’m sure Herman Cain is too busy to be thinking about those.