Mitt Romney put foreign policy squarely back in the spotlight with his speech at the Virginia Military Institute today.
Romney
launched a rhetorical attack on the Obama administration’s foreign
policy, focusing on the September 11, 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya
that killed American ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others.
“The
attacks on America last month should not be seen as random acts. They
are expressions of a larger struggle that is playing out across the
broader Middle East,” said Romney, noting that it was likely an Al Qaeda
affiliate who attacked the U.S. embassy.
The GOP candidate added
that “the blame for the murder of our people in Libya, and the attacks
on our embassies in so many other countries, lies solely with those who
carried them out—no one else. But it is the responsibility of our
President to use America’s great power to shape history—not to lead from
behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events.”
He also
laid out a broad foreign policy vision that called for the U.S. to “lead
the course of human events” with “more American leadership.”
In
other words, it was a boilerplate speech with nods to the
neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, a wing that leads his
foreign policy team as well. But as
Wired’s Spencer Ackerman notes,
“the policies Romney outlines in his speech differ, at most,
superficially from Obama’s.” Obama’s record on foreign policy is an
aggressive one, with escalated drone strikes that have killed scores of
civilians in Pakistan and Yemen and the continuation of the war in
Afghanistan. Romney didn’t offer anything specific that was more
aggressive than Obama, though his rhetoric was ratcheted up.
But
if Romney’s speech didn’t contain new ideas, that doesn’t mean they were
necessarily good ones. In fact, the prescriptions he offers for U.S.
foreign policy will deepen the commitment to U.S. empire and hegemony.
Here are 5 bad ideas Romney offered in his foreign policy speech.
1. More American Meddling Around the WorldWhen
Romney says “the 21st century can and must be an American century” and
that is the U.S.’s responsibility to steer the world towards “the path
of freedom, peace, and prosperity,” that’s code for the maintenance of
U.S. hegemony. Romney still believes that the U.S. should be able to
shape the world as we see fit--the rest of the world who refuses to go
along with it be damned. These ideas are particularly galling given that
Romney was partly addressing the Arab Spring--a series of revolts that
were decidedly against U.S. support for repressive dictatorships.
Romney
also believes that in the case of Iran, “American support”--read
meddling-- for the opposition in that country would be helpful. But that
ignores the fact that the Green movement in Iran
did not want U.S. support and intervention.The
Republican candidate also lamented the fact that “America’s ability to
influence events for the better in Iraq has been undermined by the
abrupt withdrawal of our entire troop presence.”
Lastly, he
hinted that U.S. involvement in Afghanistan could continue for years to
come if he was president. “The route to more war – and to potential
attacks here at home – is a politically timed retreat that abandons the
Afghan people to the same extremists who ravaged their country and used
it to launch the attacks of 9/11,” the candidate said. “I will evaluate
conditions on the ground and weigh the best advice of our military
commanders.”
2. Belligerence Towards IranThe
Obama administration, with the pushing of an eager U.S. Congress, has
implemented extremely tough sanctions on Iran already--so much so that
the Iranian rial’s value has been in freefall recently, with reports
that the sanctions are causing
food insecurity and medicine shortages. But Romney wants more belligerence towards Iran.
“I
will not hesitate to impose new sanctions on Iran, and will tighten the
sanctions we currently have. I will restore the permanent presence of
aircraft carrier task forces in both the Eastern Mediterranean and the
Gulf region,” said Romney.
An approach like this will put the U.S. on a clearer path to a catostrophic military conflict with Iran.
3. Increased Military Spending The
world Romney wants to see is one where militarization increases and
armament makers profit more. Referring to the U.S., Romney “complained
that our defense spending is being arbitrarily and deeply cut...I will
make the critical defense investments that we need to remain secure.”
As
for the rest of the world, Romney wants the same: an increase in
spending on militaries at a time of austerity and budget cutting that is
wreaking havoc on the lives of Europeans. “I will call on our NATO
allies to keep the greatest military alliance in history strong by
honoring their commitment to each devote 2 percent of their GDP to
security spending. Today, only 3 of the 28 NATO nations meet this
benchmark,” Romney vowed.
4. Neoliberal Trade AgreementsRomney wants more so-called free trade agreements, which in reality are agreements that often hurt workers around the globe.
“I
will champion free trade and restore it as a critical element of our
strategy, both in the Middle East and across the world,” said the former
Massachusetts governor.
He also made a misleading remark when he
claimed that “the President has not signed one new free trade agreement
in the past four years.” While it is true that negotiations over the
trade agreements Obama has signed began before he took office, it is a
distortion to imply that Obama didn’t sign free trade agreements.
Agreements with Panama, Colombia, and South Korea have been signed by
Obama--and as
Politico notes, they were implemented “in defiance of what labor groups, a major Democratic constitutency, wanted.”
5. More Military Assistance to IsraelPresident
Obama has already increased the amount of military aid the U.S. gives
to Israel to unprecedented levels. But Romney wants Israel, a state that
is occupying Palestinian land and threatening Iran with war, to receive
more.
Romney said that he would “work with Israel to increase
our military assistance and coordination.” Israel already receives 3.1
billion in military aid from the U.S.--aid that directly bolsters the
occupation and the building of illegal settlements in the occupied
territories, since the Israeli military solely protects settlers in the
West Bank.
This military aid would be sent with a blank check.
Romney vowed that under his presidency, “the world must never see any
daylight between our two nations.” In practice, this would mean that no
matter what Israel did with U.S. weaponry, a Romney administration would
never criticize the state publically. This has largely been the stance
the U.S. has taken in recent history, and it has been catastrophic for
the people of Palestine and Lebanon.
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