It was fascinating to watch the Democratic Party try to seize the upper hand on national security last night, a predictable strategy that the Romney campaign brought on itself. By mainly treating foreign policy as an afterthought, Mitt Romney is ceding this ground.
For many Republicans, the most surreal moment of the night had to be when Obama chided his opponents as “new…[pause for audience laughter]…to foreign policy.” If that rankled conservatives — who probably recalled that just the other day Obama was a freshman Senator running for president with almost zero foreign policy experience under his belt — that was the entire point. The Democratic base could probably care less how many terrorists the Obama administration has killed, but the Obama campaign is looking to knock the GOP off its game, forcing it to compete on territory it usually commands.
Conservatives should check the urge to sputter about Obama’s own lack of experience when taking office, and just focus on the false premise that he’s actually any good at foreign policy. It’s true that Obama had about as much familiarity with these issues in 2008 as Romney and Ryan do now. But Obama could have spent a decade on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and he still wouldn’t have a clue; look at Biden. His foreign policy failures aren’t a result of greenness, they’re a result of incompetence and a defective worldview.
Just look at the national security accomplishments that Obama touts most often: killing bin Laden and ending the war in Iraq. Neither denote any remarkable foreign policy prowess on Obama’s part, and the premature withdrawal from Iraq is hardly something to celebrate. (Both were also made possible by Bush administration policies — the former due to intelligence collected through interrogation methods Obama opposed, and the latter due to the withdrawal timeline in Bush’s Status of Forces Agreement).
As for the rest of Obama’s foreign policy record: Afghanistan is a disaster; the Russia reset is a joke; Guantanamo Bay, which Obama insisted was a major national security hazard during his 2008 campaign, is (fortunately) still open; Obama’s efforts at detente with enemies fell flat; Iran has made significant inroads in its quest for nuclear weapons; the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is as stalled as ever; and Syria’s Assad’s slaughters continues. The list goes on.
Romney has so many opportunities to dominate the argument on foreign policy. But if he continues to view it as a secondary issue, he deserves to lose it.
The Romney campaign has demonstrated a strategy of letting Obama take the first shot on issues then effectively countering them. This has been pretty effective so far – witness the deft handling of Bain and the skinflint issues. I believe it is called an ambush?
Obama is clearly expecting an affirmative action weighted pass on foreign policy. n nHe can, after all, pronounce Pahk-EEE-stun very authentically. n nAlso, he grew up partially in the muslim world, and knows the evening call to prayer is the most beautiful sound in the world. That's gotta count for something.
Also, Joe Biden, who knows more than a thing or two about foreign policy, says Obama 'literally' has a spine of steel. He also said Obama killed Bin Laden. This last surprised me, because Obama never talks about having killed Bin Laden. Must be his naturally modesty.
With regard to the “Israeli Palestinian peace process being as stalled as ever..”, beg to differ.
The political process you mention, which was never going to amount to peace between Israel and the arab residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza is not stalled at all, it is simply put, DEAD. We will never see a “Palestinian State” living alongside Israel in peace. Please do not lose recognition of the fact that the process began as a result of The Israel Egypt Peace Treaty, which resulted directly from The Camp David Accords, negotiated by PM Begin, President Sadat and Pwesident Carter.
PM Begin agreed to the concept of “autonomy”, but not in agreement with the terrorist PLO. PM Shamir respected the distinction, PM Rabin did not, recognized the PLO, negotiated and signed The Oslo Accords and died as a result of his error, because one can not ALWAYS be protected by the enormity of ones own stupidity.
Isrsel has been paying for Rabin’s Error ever since.Thanks to insane ridiculous organizations like “Peace Now”, the world was led to believe that Israel could afford to make endless one sided concessions and absorb acts of ritual murder terrorism. These groups should have been charged with incitement to genocide, but the Israeli Supreme Court is controlled by quislings and would fight it tooth and nail.
Anyway, since Egypt is only keeping it’s agreement with Israel in order to blackmail The US for billions of dollars whenever it wants, that treaty is for all intents and purposes DEAD. It has been converted to a temporary cessation of hostilities.
Since Oslo was predicated on the permanace of The Israeli Egypt Peace Treaty, which is DEAD, so too is the establishment of a state called Palestine, DEAD.
Can Romney actually play offense against Obama? n nA lot of people are wondering…
Can Romney be enough of a team player to bring in folk like Alan West who could really help him in this area. That is a very real question – and the larger one is that he is either going to have to invite the TEA Party back into the GOP or there likely will be a third party four years from now.
The writer appears to be a neoconservative Iraq war dead-ender, not a Conservative who understands how the Republican Party squandered the advantage it had over Democrats in foreign affairs.
Ha ha ha ha ! Good find. Insipid kvetching from the bitter paleocon corner. A peek at the comments section of that silly article tells us just what kind of nasty gorks the Paulbots are.
Good luck with that. n nMitt's little diplomatic fiasco earlier this summer, his declaration regarding Russia being our nation's primary geopolitical foe, and his complete omission of international relations and foreign policy during his RNC speech are symptomatic of one of his glaring weaknesses — foreign affairs is out of Romney's comfort zone.
You mean the faux "diplomatic fiasco" over the Olympics manufactured by the MSM? And Russia is West's primary geopolitical foe which has been getting rather uppitty under a bowing and scraping Obama admin. Romney's willingness to face this most crucial reality already puts him miles ahead of the incumbent.
Romney needs to drop anyone who was on the team for Bush43's Iraq fiasco. nHe'll never get past the "return to failed policies" attack from the O.
Suggest to Romney/Ryan on foreigh policy:__When OBL killing is brought up, say we give O credit, however remind voters that O wanted to try OBL's partner Kahleed Sheek Mohammad in civilian court in NYC rather than in Military Tribunal, thus projecting weakness to our enemies. Make team O defend that idiotic policy. Scott Brown used this issue with success in his last Senate race. Let's get creative here.
I don't think Mr. Larison is "mocking" Ms. Goodman so much as pointing out the obvious (and hilarious) flaws of her argument. And categorizing Goodman's post as such is rather generous; it's really just a bunch of tribal platitudes copied and pasted together and presented as another installment of how to sound ridiculous telling the world why Barack Obama sucks. There's numerous reasons why Mr. Obama doesn't deserve a second term (and Larison has given plenty); but none are presented here.