Politico reports the Romney campaign is about to pivot to foreign policy. There are many good reasons to do so, but those reasons do not include reacting to a series of leaks from foreign policy advisers trying to nudge Romney to pay more attention to the issue (what are they, Supreme Court justices?). Romney has to feel comfortable with his own outlook and ready to deliver a clear foreign policy message and be prepared for the various critiques that will come his way.
And while Obama has constructed a tough image on the world stage by blowing up anyone in the near vicinity of suspected terrorists and shipping prisoners to a Somali hell on earth instead of three-squares-a-day Guantanamo, Obama does have one glaring foreign policy weakness for Romney to exploit: the president’s comprehensive failure on diplomacy.
Romney can simply take a glance around the world and find a wealth of material to work with:
Asia. The president came into office with a ready-made free trade agreement with South Korea. George W. Bush got the deal done, but back then the Democratic Congress refused to pass pretty much anything with Bush’s name or fingerprints on it. (This was way back when the establishment media were less concerned about “civility” and congressional obstruction.) A huge benefit for Obama (especially for work he hadn’t done), the deal was a no-brainer. But the unions complained, as they do when someone threatens to practice capitalism, and Obama waited until the unions gave him permission to sign the bill, reopening negotiations along the way and forcing the South Koreans to wait.
Obama snubbed India–perhaps the most significant of George W. Bush’s diplomatic successes, endangering our relationship with an important ally. Obama’s initial attempt at diplomacy with the Burmese junta was a humiliating failure, and he began his term by telling China that human rights would now be placed firmly on the back burner, much to Beijing’s delight.
Europe. Obama’s every interaction with the British–from his shabby treatment of Gordon Brown, to his cringe worthy meetings with Queen Elizabeth, to his dismissal of the Churchill bust—has been brutal to watch, but none of those compares to the Obama administration’s refusal to support British sovereignty of the Falkland Islands (which Obama called “the Maldives,” attempting to use the Argentine name for the islands, which he got wrong anyway).
And it’s not just that he capitulated to Russia by scrapping the missile shield plans for Poland and the Czech Republic, but he did so on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. Then, nursing a grudge with Polish democracy hero Lech Walesa, he denied Poland’s request that Walesa come to the White House to accept Jan Karski’s posthumous Medal of Freedom on Karski’s behalf while talking about “Polish death camps.” Which brings us to…
Russia. Obama may argue that U.S.-Russia relations are better than they were during the last years of the Bush administration. Romney should let him. Bush and Putin fell out over Russia’s invasion of Georgia and the post-war, meticulously documented campaign of ethnic cleansing carried out by the Russian side on sovereign Georgian territory. Obama improved relations with Russia by dropping America’s demand that Russia comply with the ceasefire agreement and by strong-arming Georgia to drop its hold on Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization (the latter of which the administration admitted in May). The administration says Syria is in the midst of a bloody civil war in which Bashar al-Assad’s forces are massacring the opposition, and it continues to ask that Russia do something about it. Russia has not–but of course neither have we. Which brings us to…
The Middle East. Aside from the bloodshed in Syria, diplomacy with Iran hasn’t gone too well either. Obama proved to be an opponent of tougher sanctions, first by repeatedly trying to stall and prevent them from taking effect, and then watering them down when they get to his desk. Iran’s fist, needless to say, remains clenched.
Obama has quite obviously made a hash of things with Israel, though that was no surprise to those who followed the 2008 election. He hasn’t visited Israel, though he is sending his secretary of state–who famously berated Benjamin Netanyahu for 45 minutes when a housing committee announced that more Jewish homes would be built in a Jewish neighborhood of the Jewish state’s capital. Netanyahu, of course, had nothing to do with the announcement (it was aimed at embarrassing Netanyahu, not the U.S.) but hey, who has time for details when you’re conducting “smart diplomacy”?
I could go on, by talking about the administration’s buckling to environmentalists’ pressure over the Keystone pipeline deal with Canada, or Obama’s delaying tactics with regard to the free trade agreement with Colombia (another accomplishment gift-wrapped by Bush). But the point is that Obama has amassed quite a list of diplomatic failures—a list Romney is likely to carry with him on his foreign policy tour.
Governor Romney has been desperately trying to avoid talking about Bain Capital and other investments of his that have consolidated and shut down jobs galore in the US, and shipped so many other jobs over seas. n nSuddenly he wants to talk about jobs? Good, I have some questions to ask him.
You do know that even the Washington Post gave Obama 4 Pinocchio's on what you just repeated — right?
Hi Kieth.. what you said makes absolutely no sense.. n nWhy would the Wa Po give Pinocchio's to me wanting to ask Romney some questons?
Don't forget Honduras. The policy there has been revealed to be specifically Obama's from when in the early days of his administration he was writing papers on specific foreign policy issues for the State Department to enact. The policy? Support the Chavez ally who wanted to make himself dictator by simply violating the law. The Honduran courts ordered the would-be-dictator's arrest. Obama called that a coup and punished Honduras. No law for you in South America!
Excellent thinking! When running against an incumbent it's sometimes thought to be a good idea to get people to regard the incumbent as having failed. n nNow the things suggested about Europe, Russia and the Middle east…are of course insubstantial where not simply dishonest….but as long as Romney's campaign can get the centrists to buy the curdled carp on offer, that doesn't matter so much. n nSling it, Seth, see if anyone 's likely to swallow.
The administration has perpetrated huge and crucial foreign policy failures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both must be brandished. They can beat the president's reelection effort to a pulp. n nAs a candidate in 2008 Obama claimed Iraq was not militarily winnable and that the surge would only make the debacle worse. He came close to losing the election when those false predictions exposed his bad judgment and put egg on his face. n nBut with Lehman's collapse Obama won the White House and inherited our victory in Iraqi, complete with Bush's negotiated withdrawal timetable. All that remained was a deal for a residual force of 20,000 US combat troops to support the Iraqis with intelligence and punch in an emergency. ( 35,000 men have for sixty years allowed South Korea to become a brilliant success.) Instead, when the Iraqis began haggling, the administration agreed to abandon our hard won achievement without any mechanism to assure it lasts. Now we see Iraq returning to anarchy and falling under Iran's sway. Obama has managed to make his prediction, that Iraq was unwinnable come true. He has wrested defeat from the jaws of victory and a second term will make sure that nothing interferes with that denouement.. n nIn Afghanistan, when his Iraq misjudgment threatened to cost him the 2008 election, Senator Obama charged the Republicans with neglecting Afghanistan. If elected, he would keep the Taliban from returning. He would make that theater the central front in the war on terror, give it all the combat battalions necessary, and win that fight. That was his vow and how that instinctual dove won over the hawkish vote. n nAs president he kept his word. He blew the embers of Bush's sideshow into a blazing war. He stepped on the gas and has had our wheels spinning in that new quagmire. He has called it a necessary war though the US has no vital national interests there, and he is now ready to leave with nothing achieve. Only his political career interest were at stake. Al Qaeda can operate securely from plenty of safe havens (Yemen, Mauritania, Pakistan, Somalia, etc.) outside Afghanistan. Never has the US fought a war that served no one and nothing except a politician to gain office. n nThe instinctual hawkishness of conservatives has give the president cover. That he does not deserve this boon is the least of it. What matters is that Afghanistan has needlessly bleed the nation of lives and money. Romney has every reason to point with indignation at that entirely unnecessary debacle, as well as the betrayal of our Iraqi victory.
what was the administration's failure in Iraq? the last admin agreed to withdraw ALL the troops and Iraq refused to rescind that signed agreement……… n nwould you have had Obama breach that deal and leave 20,000 soldiers against the will of the Iraqi government?
***** NOTE ***** nthe email to which this is a reply has a link that doesn't work (due to parentheses, I think); however it can be found below in my reply to foxtrot letting me know the links don't work. n n n n nCharles Krauthammer: n n"Our friends did not have to be left out in the cold to seek Iranian protection. Three years and a won war had given Obama the opportunity to establish a lasting strategic alliance with the Arab world's second most important power. He failed …. The excuse is Iraqi refusal to grant legal immunity to U.S. forces. But the Bush administration encountered the same problem, and overcame it." n nfound at: see reply to foxtrot below
Keith, thank you. most kind of you to gi back and dig it all out. n nI've read Morrisey and his take on the NYT article and the original NYT piece. n nhis assertion " … the collapse in negotiations came as a result of bungling by the White House:" is unsupported by a single thing in the NYT piece and the only thing that could be said to have been a "bungle" that prevented us leaving troops was the action of the occupant of the WWhite House prior to Obama, as signing a formal commitment to remove all the troops by a date certain seems like something likely to cause a withdrawal of all the troops. n nas you can plainly see, the Times says that Maliki refused to reopen the hard deadline and blamed his refusal on no support in Iraq for such a move. n nNothing that we could do about that. we have no votes in Iraq and had no leverage. … due to circumstances you might remember. n n nagain thanks, and if I can get to it, I'll try to read Krauthammer's thing.