WASHINGTON (JTA) — Former Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) will join former Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) in heading a foreign policy project at the American Enterprise Institute.

“There is an urgent need to rebuild a bipartisan — indeed non-political — consensus for American diplomatic, economic, and military leadership in the world,” Lieberman said in a statement issued Monday by AEI, a conservative think tank, announcing the “American Internationalism Project.”

Lieberman, the vice-presidential nominee on the 2000 Democratic ticket, left the Democrats in 2006 after he lost a primary in his bid for re-election as Connecticut senator, a defeat fueled mostly by grassroots fury with Lieberman for his strident backing of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq.

He was re-elected as an Independent and backed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the 2008 presidential elections, although he continued to caucus with Democrats.