A few days ago Mitt Romney opined that we pulled out of Iraq prematurely. In consequence, (in his view) this country is not as stable as it should be, and its government’s policies now run contrary to our own in many important respects. Just yesterday on CNN he said he would use Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s way of evaluating when to go after Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program. He has also recently suggested he would be more aggressive in supporting rebels fighting Assad in Syria.
These are just some of the signs of the more muscular foreign policy Mitt Romney hopes to institute if he is elected President of the United States. Policies crafted, it should be noted, by some of the same folks who gave us our war in Iraq and our response to Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 — Bush-era, right-wing, think tank mavens.
Romney’s thinking about foreign affairs, the thinking of his advisers in this realm, seem tied to the notion of a United States that is the world’s one remaining super power, and in this position we can, and should, largely call the shorts anywhere we want, preferably with allies but if necessary alone. The policies of President Obama are much more cautious, nuanced, based more on cooperation, closely linked to a fundamental view that our abilities to control events are increasingly limited not only by economic realities but changing power and ideological relationships around the world.
Romney’s economic views and Obama’s are really not all that different. They are basically two moderate conservatives economically, one pulled from the left more, one pulled more from the right, but pretty much the same at core. Not so in foreign affairs.
The “speak loudly and employ a big stick, too” policies employed by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld didn’t work well a decade back. Now, they are a prescription for absolute and utter national disaster. Even the muscular should understand it’s sometimes wise to practice prudence and self-restraint — and tone down the boffo.