This week, Mitt Romney moved one step closer to gaining the Republican nomination with the departure of Rick Santorum from the Republican primary. While the economy will take center stage in a potential Romney-Obama showdown for the presidential race in 2012, foreign policy will offer an opportunity for what we assume will be two distinct visions for America's role in the world.
The Romney campaign has continually criticized Obama for a soft approach to foreign policy, and one that "leads from behind" particularly in the Arab Spring and over Iran's nuclear ambitions. Obama's record on foreign policy, on the other hand, has received higher praise in opinion polling than has Romney's, particularly coming off of the assassination of Osama bin Laden last year. Romney and his campaign have continually referred to Obama's foreign policy as weak and lacking in a leadership approach that puts American values out front.
While it is fairly clear that the biggest difference between the two campaigns is over Iran and how to impose sanctions and avoid military intervention, what is less clear is the type of vision that each candidate has for engaging not only Iran but the larger Muslim world. With the Arab Spring in flux, Syria's ongoing human rights disaster, and the upcoming elections in Egypt that most likely will bring the Muslim Brotherhood into power, America needs a clear vision and strategy for engagement in the wider Middle East and Muslim world.
On Sunday, April 15, top advisers in foreign policy to both campaigns will square off at George Washington University in the first foreign policy debate between the two candidates. Kerry Healey, Special Adviser to Romney for President and former Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor, will debate Michèle Flournoy, adviser to Obama for America Campaign on National Security and former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. The moderator, John Milewski, host of the Woodrow Wilson International Center's "Dialogue" program and formerly with C-SPAN, will start by probing precisely what the candidates' views of the world are at this time. What are the underlying organizing principles that will influence the candidate's choices on U.S. global engagement? From these big picture perspectives, the advisers will jump into more focused questions from young people aged 18-27, touching on the rise of China as a superpower, Iran and sanctions, the Arab Spring, climate change, and then the floor will be open to the youth attendees.
The debate is hosted by Americans for Informed Democracy, a national group founded by grad students studying abroad during 9/11 who were touched by the empathy and solidarity expressed by foreigners for America's horrible trauma. These grad students were the first movers to help the 9/11 generation define what the U.S. role in the world, and their role as individuals, should be.
Americans for Informed Democracy has started an impressive network across college campuses that seeks to educate and mobilize students to care about positive U.S. global engagement, for the good of both the U.S. and the rest of the world. They have a network of 40,000+ young people aged 16-27 taking action on global issues they care about: security, environment, jobs, hunger, and health.
The debate promises to offer an important first step in defining the key differences between the two campaigns on foreign policy.
For more information and to attend the debate and larger "2012: Challenge Accepted" conference on April 14-15, visit www.acceptthechallenge2012.org.
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 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
Additionally, we seem to have analytical problems and a clear lack of foresight. We have jumped on bandwagons without the slightest clue as to what comes next. All this is leading to far more dangerous and unstable world, particularly in the middle east.
The best example of this is Libya. It is now devolving into well armed Islamist camps involved in the beginnings of civil war and ethnic cleansing. We have no clear idea of who is in charge, mostly because no one really is. We had no idea of the level of radical islamist infiltration, yet we became involved anyway. And---we have no idea where a lot of very lethal weaponry has vanished. Some of that weaponry is now showing up in Mali in the hands of the jihadists.
The point being, that foreign policy must be thought of like chess. If you don't think three steps ahead, you are going to lose.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/us/politics/mitt-romney-and-benjamin-netanyahu-are-old-friends.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all#
"A Friendship Dating to 1976 Resonates in 2012"
EXCERPT:
"[I]n 1976, the lives of Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu intersected, briefly but indelibly, in the 16th-floor offices of the Boston Consulting Group, where both had been recruited as corporate advisers. At the most formative time of their careers, they sized each other up during the firm’s weekly brainstorming sessions, absorbing the same profoundly analytical view of the world.
"That shared experience decades ago led to a warm friendship, little known to outsiders, that is now rich with political intrigue. Mr. Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, is making the case for military action against Iran as Mr. Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, is attacking the Obama administration for not supporting Mr. Netanyahu more robustly."
As any thinking person understands, America can no longer afford to have its Middle East policy dictated by Israel, a belligerent/illegal/brutal occupier and a serial violator of hard-won human rights law.
Yeah, anything that feels or looks like it could be a pun in the above was unintended by who can pass a good intended pun by anyway? Not me.