There was a key foreign policy moment linked to a debate question on Tuesday. No, not Libya, although that moment did much to show how President Obama will defuse Mitt Romney’s most likely line of attack. The question I’m talking about didn’t exactly create a “moment” – that instance of villager consciousness less delicately referred to as “collective idiocy” – but such debate lines lost in the details can still give us important insight into embryonic narratives. Going to the transcript…
Q: Governor Romney, I am an undecided voter because I'm disappointed with the lack of progress I've seen in the last four years. However, I do attribute much of America's economic and international problems to the failings and missteps of the Bush administration. Since both you and President Bush are Republicans, I fear a return to the policies of those years should you win this election. What is the biggest difference between you and George W. Bush? And how do you differentiate yourself from George W. Bush?
…and the only alleged distinction Romney drew on foreign policy…
Number two, trade: I'll crack down on China. President Bush didn't. I'm also going to dramatically expand trade in Latin America. It's been growing about 12 percent per year over a long period of time. I want to add more free trade agreements so we'll have more trade.
Now, this line of discussion did generate the much-repeated line from Obama, “Governor, you’re the last person who is going to get tough on China,” and I certainly agree with that particular line of criticism. However, like Bush, Romney has a better case for suggesting he’ll
talk tough to China. When Bush wasn’t invading countries on false pretenses, tough talk was his primary foreign policy M.O.. Romney, with nothing to show of his own record and largely advised by Bush neocons, has nothing but tough talk to offer on the subject of foreign policy (well, that and a set of false pretenses designed to invade a country). My reaction to this question was that Romney had a chance to disavow the results and drastically negative results of G.W. Bush’s act overseas, and deferred. Capitalizing on that mistake is a key element of the next debate.
More after the fold…
The close links between the Bush foreign policy team and Romney’s closest advisers on the subject has been discussed repeatedly in this venue. In an article published in July in Foreign Policy magazine, Adam Smith pointed out…
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. Last year, for instance, Bolton said that, "It would be in our interest to overthrow this regime in Syria."
When Romney blustered his way into the Libya incident just over a month ago, many commentators were reminded of Smith’s observation and the long list of neoconservatives motivating the Republican candidate’s posture…
Chris Good and Shushannah Walshe, published at abc news:
Dan Senor is one of Romney’s closest advisers on foreign policy. Since Paul Ryan has been selected as the GOP’s vice presidential candidate, Senor has been traveling with Ryan–but today, he left the trail because of the “foreign policy developments” and is in Boston and NYC.
Senor is the former spokesman for the American government in Iraq (the Coalition Provisional Authority at the beginning of the Iraq war under George W. Bush) and is a particularly close adviser to Romney on the Middle East. (He has traveled with Romney to Israel three times, as well as written a book on Israel that Romney often cites). With Ryan, he consults on domestic and foreign policy issues.
Last month, the New York Times described Senor as an “advocate of neoconservative thinking that has sought to push presidents to the right for years on Middle East policy.”
…and
Meteor Blades in the hallowed halls of this dailykos:
Heading up the list of those advisers is John Bolton. Romney's public statements reflect his views more than any other. Even though he didn't sign the 1997 mission statement of the Project for a New American Century, Bolton has been lockstep with those who did. That was the first major organization to state neo-conservative imperialist objectives nakedly, though neo-conservatives were well on their way to getting their hands on the levers of U.S. foreign policy with the second incarnation of the Committee on the Present Danger in 1976.
Nine of Romney's advisers did sign that PNAC mission statement and/or one of its several public policy letters. They are Paula Dobriansky, Vin Weber, Daniel Senor, Eliot Cohen, Eric Edelman, John Lehman, Donald Kagan, Robert Kagan and Aaron Friedberg. These guys couch their philosophy in the boilerplate of democracy, but they have never shied away from the term "imperialism." These guys have Romney's ear. These guys whose advice has cost so many thousands of lives of Americans and others are telling the GOP candidate that Russia (which they sometimes call the "Soviet Union") is the most important geostrategic threat to the United States. These guys tell us Iran should have been bombed yesterday.
In the debate, Romney has clearly telegraphed the attack line that will be used with respect to Libya:
“ The President's policies throughout the Middle East began with an apology tour, and pursue a strategy of leading from behind. And this strategy is unraveling before our very eyes.” Allegedly, it is a perception abroad of weakness on the part of this administration that threatens American lives overseas, and a bold bit of saber-rattling would fix us right up. It’s difficult to litigate the widely-debunked “apologize” line in front of a television audience, and it will be difficult to address (much as it is difficult to know) whether anything could have been done concerning the Libya attack.
BUT, we do know exactly where Romney’s line of attack is coming from, and we know exactly what happened when they were last given free rein. President Obama’s goal in Florida should be to inextricably couple Romney with the pose of “strength” adopted by the Bush administration. He can’t divorce himself from that record, because of the people clearly tied to his candidacy and behaving as foreign policy surrogates on the trail. He’s had ample opportunity to differentiate himself from W on the subject, and chose not to do so. In front of an audience exhausted by war, the script writes itself…
The pretense of strength does not bring us security. The neocon fantasy of strength drew us into the war on false allegations, at the cost of American, coalition, and Iraqi lives while pulling attention away from an unstable situation in Afghanistan. The masquerade of strength diminished America’s standing with nation states across the world and reduced any ability we might have to combat Al Qaeda (along with significantly supporting their allegations of American imperialism). It is not talking about strength that enhances security, but rather the clear act of bringing to justice those who have or would attacked American civilians… and I believe that if Obama makes that point its implications will be fairly clear to the public.
On this issue, it will again be Bush vs. Obama, and we will win that fight.
