My friend Jennifer Rubin has been working valiantly to light a fire under the Romney campaign on foreign policy, to little evident result as yet. In Washington’s lemming-like spirit of piling on, let me add another voice to the calls for a more lively debate on the issues:
• Really, Mitt Romney? All you can muster to the accusation that you wouldn’t have had the manhood to take out Osama bin Laden is “Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order”?
Here’s what you might have said: This isn’t college, and I’m not in Barack Obama’s fraternity. Notches on the belt are not what makes a great American leader. What the American people should understand is that a serious leader will do anything and everything to protect the American people without polling, hiding behind the United Nations, or standing on a deck with a sign behind him every time he does the right thing. I won’t make commercials about what a man I was when I ordered troops to take out our enemies, and I sure as hell won’t offload Guantanamo prisoners to domestic courts, sympathetic foreign governments, or avoid taking in high value targets for fear the CIA might violate their human rights.
• Really, Romney campaign? You had nothing to say about the fact that the Obama administration wants to strike an “appropriate balance” between human rights and U.S. interests in China?
Here’s what you might have said: The equation with China is pretty simple: either you believe, as Mr. Obama does, that China is a rising power to our failing one, or you believe we cannot afford to subjugate our economy and our morals to a dictatorship that seeks to dominate the Pacific and global business. Either you believe there’s an “appropriate balance” between U.S. interests and human rights, or you believe U.S. interests are embodied by a commitment to human rights.
I realize that for Team Romney, the election is going to be about staggering unemployment and Obama’s economic incompetence. But there are some hot foreign policy potatoes out there including Iran, al Qaeda, and Syria. And there are some easy issues on which to draw a contrast with the current White House management, including aid to the Palestinians (really, it’s in our national security interest to fork over millions?), indifference to the Islamist take-over of the Arab Spring (apparently we can’t affect anyone, anywhere, anytime), and more. There’s no need to be defensive; the president made a good call on bin Laden, but his courage in that instance pales next to a record that includes his embrace of American decline, his fear of American leadership, his degradation of the military (and not just the Navy, as the Romney campaign appears to think).
I said it last week and I’ll keep saying it: Give the American people a choice between President “Cool” and President Grown-up. Then let us make the call.
Danielle,
I’m familiar with your work and have heard you on NPR.
Full disclosure – I’m not a fan of the GOP or Romney and very much approve of the President and his foreign policy agenda. There are many things that I can be proud of. But I won’t talk about that. I want to address some of these ‘hot potato’ issues…
Syria: The complicated ethnic mosaic of Syrian society is now well-documented in the press and the nightly cable TV shows. Military intervention (i.e. the unilateral approach by the US without UN approval) will be rejected by the American people. There is no stomach on the democratic side of the aisle to enter into a new war theatre, especially without UN approval or assistance from allies (or as you refer to it – hiding behind the UN). Equally, the republicans in congress are unlikely to support any military intervention in Syria either with the UN or in a unilateral manner, regardless of the squawking by McCain and Graham. Think about it. The well has already been poisoned by your own team. Just read the National Review blog and other right-leaning blogs/news articles and you can see for yourself that the Right would view intervention in Syria as support for the Muslim Brotherhood, AQ and other evil doers. The president stands much to lose politically by entering into Syria and nothing to gain. The republican leadership folks realize this, as do you. So do others. I challenge the Romney campaign, congressional republicans and spinsters like you to make a good justification for US involvement in Syria. You’ll find that you will have few allies in your own ranks. The Syria issue will not be a good wedge in this election cycle.
IRAN: Sanctions and isolation in concert with our allies. That is the Obama administration approach. Americans like it. Well…. enough Americans like it so that it is not a policy liability. I don’t know how the Romney campaign can possibly turn this up, especially when it appears that the Netanyahu government may be forced to enter into early elections and be defeated/replaced by Israelis that are not happy with his government’s position in regards to this matter. Let’s see what Romney has. I suspect it is only a notch and degree of variance beyond what Obama has already done.
Al Quaeda: We’re fighting AQ with drones and intelligence work. Americans are content with this approach.
IRAQ: US forces are out of Iraq. Big plus for the Administration. I challenge Romney and you to articulate the need for re-entry into this nation or to somehow use this particular issue to the detriment of the president. I would really like to see that.
lamist take-over of the Arab Spring: This is Democracy in action and is part of the principles of self-determination. What you need to do to properly assist Romney is to compose a narrative of how the US could have affected events to prevent the influence of Islam in the politics of this region. Do your best, but I don’t think that Americans will be receptive to silly spin with proposed outcomes that don’t truly seem realizable.
LIBYA: What a beautiful affair of combined military action with US allies with complicity of UN Security Council. No casualties and only loss of two pieces of capital equipment (one F15E and one drone). You can try the War Powers Resolution argument thing or how much it costed the taxpayer, but I don’t know how far that will get you. Gadhafi was one bad fellow in the minds of Americans. His demise was welcomed. And… If Obama had not intervened, we know that the republicans would have used this against him with strange narratives about betraying freedom, turning back on the Arab Spring, giving green-light to Assad, etc… The spin from the GOP and allies is predictable.
Don’t get me wrong. I like and respect your work. We just won’t agree on things. I’m a student of history and we won’t see eye to eye. For my part, I long for the Romney campaign to bring it on. My true hope is that he will come out publicly and proclaim that the US should have sided with Mubarak. Then the images of those clashes in Cairo (camels riding through crowds, molotov cocktails being hurled at protesters) can be played over and over again to really hammer home that the GOP is more concerned with preserving traditional geopolitical arrangements in the region rather than the true promotion of democracy.
I’ll just conclude by saying that I mean no offense. We disagree and disagree strongly. Other than that, I wish you the best.
Anthony R. Seta