Romney's foreign policy is equal parts naïve and cavalier
DickMcManus
Romney's foreign policy is equal parts naïve and cavalier
Responding to Romney's the comments that Russia was America's number one geopolitical foe, former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell said, "c'mon Mitt, think. It isn't the case...There is no pure competitor to the United States of America." And Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations notes, "He ain't going to Afghanistan because he doesn't want to say that he'll slow down the troop withdrawal process." Slate columnist Fred Kaplan writes in a recent column, "in this election in particular, Mitt Romney's statements on foreign policy range from vague to ill-informed to downright dangerous. Does Romney believe the things that he's said about arms control, Russia, the Middle East, the defense budget, and the rest? Who can say? He has no experience on any of these issues... While not all presidents wind up following their advisers, Romney has placed his byline atop some of his coterie's most egregious arguments-not least, several op-ed pieces against President Obama's New START with Russia, pieces that rank as the most ignorant I've read in nearly 40 years of following the nuclear debate." [Eli Lake, 7/2/12. Colin Powell, 5/24/12. Leslie Gelb via NY Times, 7/21/12. Politico, 7/8/12. Fred Kaplan, 6/29/12]
The Associated Press previews Romney's
trip by saying he "has defined his foreign policy largely in terms of his
opponent," telling an evangelical Christian group in June, "I think,
by and large, you can just look at the things the president has done and do the
opposite." But Romney has not thus far specified what the opposite would
look like, as the AP further notes: "Israel is just one of the areas where
Romney has drawn sharp contrasts with Obama without always outlining a clear
alternative. He's done that with a series of international events, including a
crisis over Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng and a hot-mic comment Obama made
to then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev."
"Mitt Romney took time... to criticize the President's policy toward the regime of Bashar Assad but, in the end, he doesn't offer a coherent alternative... the reality of the situation seems to suggest that there's very little that Romney would be doing differently if he were in the Oval Office right now, at least not if he wanted to act responsibly... It's not surprising that Romney would bash the President over his response to Syria, but voters should recognize that the former Massachusetts Governor is not offering a viable alternative to current policy." [AP, 7/20/12. OTB, 5/30/12]
A return to failed Cheney-Bush policies.
Charles Kupchan of the Council on Foreign Relations describes Romney's foreign policy as "a little bit George W. Bush 2.0... The brand of foreign policy that he has been articulating is not a brand that's welcome in Europe." Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, further explains in Foreign Policy that Governor Mitt Romney's foreign policy proposals, "promise to return us to the discredited doctrines and reckless policies of the George W. Bush administration... the policies that Romney has advocated -- like indefinitely leaving our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example -- are continuations of the Bush-Cheney doctrine, version 2.0." He adds, "Out of Romney's 24 special advisors on foreign policy, 17 served in the Bush-Cheney administration. If Romney were to win, it's likely that many of these people would serve in his administration in some capacity -- a frightening prospect given the legacy of this particular group. The last time they were in government, it was disastrous. For example, one of Romney's top surrogates on the campaign trail is John Bolton, who served as President George W. Bush's ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton embodies the reckless neoconservative thinking that was largely responsible for getting us into Iraq under false pretenses. Today, he openly roots for diplomacy with Iran to fail and is all-too-eager to send our men and women in uniform into war... A Romney presidency promises to take us back to something all too familiar: a Bush-Cheney doctrine -- equal parts naïve and cavalier -- which eagerly embraces military force without fully considering the consequences. That 'attack now and figure it out later' mindset had disastrous consequences for our country." [Charles Kupchan via Bloomberg, 7/21/12. Adam Smith, 7/12/12]
Source: National Security Network