The same day that news broke that — likey because of Iraq’s refusal to grant immunity to American forces and contractors — the U.S. scrapped plans to keep any troops in Iraq beyond the end of the year, Herman Cain once again put his foreign policy ignorance on full display.

In an exclusive interview with the Weekly Standard, ironically headlined “Cain Rips Obama’s ‘Dumb’ Foreign Policy,” the GOP presidential hopeful blamed President Obama for an Iraq policy resulting directly from decision made by by the George W. Bush administration. Cain first complained that Obama was telegraphing U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, then said he was “doing the same thing in Iraq“:

We’ve got 43,000 people still left over there. The Iraqis are making good progress with the help of those 43,000. So what does he do? He goes off and says we’re going to by the end of the year pull out 40,000 troops. I’m sorry if this is not politically correct, but that is a dumb thing to do.

Cain’s analysis here leaves out two crucial factors: that the deal to withdraw American troops from Iraq by the end of 2011 was made by the Bush administration in 2008, and that any change in that agreement would need to be acceded to by the government of Iraq.

The 2008 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) (PDF) signed by the Bush administration and approved by Iraqi Prime Minsiter Nouri al-Maliki’s government says explicitly:

All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011.

When the framework was signed, in fact, many critics wondered if Bush, in his last year in office, was tying the hands of a future administration to decide the course of the Iraq war on its own. But for all the American objections, the 2008 Bush-Maliki agreement did have something going for it that Cain also seems to ignore: that the Iraqi parliament agreed to it.

The sticking point in the decision to keep American troops in Iraq beyond 2012 or not was, again, something that a sovereign Iraq had a say in. Indeed, the New York Times reported this morning (as early hints had indicated) that the Obama administration’s decision to abandon plans to keep thousands of troops in Iraq was a result of the Iraqi government’s refusal to grant those troops immunity from Iraqi law — a operational condition the Pentagon said was unacceptable.

With the common GOP refrain that Obama needs to listen to his generals — Cain told the Standard he “would have asked the commanders on the ground” about Afghanistan — one wonders why, in the case of Iraq, Obama’s critics don’t recognize that he listened to the Pentagon about the necessity of immunity. Instead, they’re pinning Obama’s complete acquiescence to the Pentagon’s views, and restraints imposed by Bush’s SOFA and al-Maliki’s government, on the White House.

Herman Cain has stumbled into a number of foreign policy gaffes. But in a Meet The Press interview with David Gregory, Cain found himself revealing that his foreign policy vision is largely formed by neoconservatives while claiming that he was “not familiar” with the neoconservative movement. The exchange read:

DAVID GREGORY: What about foreign policy advisers? Who has shaped your view on the U.S. in the world and foreign policy?

HERMAN CAIN: I’ve looked at the writings of people like Ambassador John Bolton. I’ve looked at the writings of Dr. Henry Kissinger, “KT” McFarland, someone who I respect.

GREGORY: Would you describe yourself as a neoconservative then?

CAIN: I’m not sure what you mean by neoconservative. I’m a conservative, yes. Neoconservative, labels sometimes put you in a box. I’m very conservative.

GREGORY: But you’re familiar with the neoconservative movement?

CAIN: I’m not familiar with the neoconservative movement. I’m familiar with the conservative movement and let me define what I mean by the conservative movement. Less government. Less taxes. More individual responsibility.

Watch it:

While Cain may choose not to identify with neoconservativism, two out of the three individuals listed by Cain as shaping his foreign policy views are closely tied to the neoconservative movement.

One was John Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who briefly served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under the George W. Bush administration. Bolton promotes many neoconservative policy positions, and served on the board of directors for Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative pressure group which openly pushed for war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq since 1998.

Another foreign affairs inspiration was Kathleen Troia ‘KT’ McFarland, who worked in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations and now serves on the advisory board of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies. She writes a weekly column for Family Security Matters, a project launched by Islamophobe Frank Gaffney’s think tank.

Both Bolton and McFarland have embedded themselves within neoconservative institutions in D.C. In John Bolton’s case, this included advocating for an aggressively hawkish foreign policy at every turn. The lack of familiarity with neoconservatism could stem from Cain’s ignorance of foreign policy or perhaps it’s a savvy move to distance himself from the movement that spearheaded the campaign to start the unpopular Iraq war. But looking at those who inspire his worldview, Cain’s foreign policy seems to clearly lean into the neoconservative camp — whether or not he understands or admits it.