Romney’s Book, ‘No Apology’, Outlines Foreign Policy for Fantasy World

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from Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent: http://washingtonindependent.com/78105/romneys-no-apology-outlines-foreign-policy-for-fantasy-world


Mitt Romney’s just-published book, “No Apology: The Case For American Greatness,” is a bid to bolster the former Massachusetts governor’s nonexistent national-security and foreign policy portfolio ahead of a possible 2012 presidential run. But a glance through the remarkable conflation of conservative shibboleths, paranoid global fantasies and deterministic myopia in “No Apology” makes it difficult to avoid the conclusion that the perennial GOP candidate might have been better off saying nothing at all.

. . . So many things are wrong with Romney’s view of an imperiled America that it is difficult to know where to begin . . .

. . . Romney himself never served, and his unfamiliarity with military issues is evident in “No Apology.” He proposes adding “at least 100,000 soldiers to the army and the marines” (Marines are not soldiers) and spending “at least 4 percent” of GDP on the military without explaining why. Why not 5, 10, 15 percent? Not only does Romney not discuss what to do in the actual conflict America fights, he can’t articulate why his proposals adequately resource the strategies he advocates. Most likely, he has been given a set of position papers from conservative think tanks and allowed a ghostwriter to weave them into something approaching a narrative. (Romney credits the conservative foreign-policy analysts Dan Senor, Pete Wehner, Mitchell Reiss and the Kagan family for some of the ideas that he presents.)

What he also barely articulates is his contempt for President Obama. Somehow Obama’s hypothetical out-year defense budget cuts to 3 percent of GDP — hypothetical because they are projections — leave the nation vulnerable to attack, but ticking that spending up to 4 percent of GDP (it’s at 3.7 percent now) means everything will be copacetic. That might be the most reality-based that Romney’s description of Obama’s approach of foreign affairs actually is. He imagines Obama taking an “American Apology Tour,” a staple talking point on the right to describe Obama’s 2009 trips abroad in which the president showed a conciliatory face to foreign leaders and publics. It is telling that Romney produces not a single quote from Obama deriding America, protecting himself from the inevitable charge of caricaturing Obama by saying the president, “always the skillful politician, will throw in compliments about America here and there.” The dishonesty of that statement is demonstrated by the most cursory glance at Obama’s major foreign speeches, from Prague (”Just as we stood for freedom in the 20th century, we must stand together for the right of people everywhere to live free from fear in the 21st century”) to Cairo (”America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations — to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God”) to Oslo (”Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms”). Romney is offended by Obama’s U.N. speech that “power is no longer a zero-sum game,” writing, “that by necessity means America does not have the ability to maintain a dominant position in the world.” Any first-year logic student can correct Romney on that.

Romney has little choice but to caricature Obama. The president’s foreign-policy record so far is one of increased relations with Pakistan that have finally yielded Pakistani arrests of Afghan Taliban leaders; a commitment to resourcing and waging the Afghanistan war capably; the effective international isolation of Iran over its nuclear program (thanks in part to improved relations with Romney’s Chinese and Russian bogeymen); and a so-far cautious drawdown of military forces in Iraq. If Romney has a problem with any of this, he does not say — but because he cannot credibly gain purchase with a suspicious Republican Party that repudiated him in the 2008 primaries without bashing Obama, he must attack the version of Obama that exists in his mind. It’s telling that Romney’s actual proposals to expand counterinsurgency efforts in the military, strengthen cybersecurity initiatives and build a more effective missile-defense system are all initiatives that the current administration has pursued. For all of Romney’s imagination, paranoia, ignorance and invective, he has managed to build a foreign-policy doctrine in “No Apology” that, at its most substantive, can be charitably called Obama Lite. If he ultimately runs for president, he may find himself before GOP audiences apologizing for it.


read more: http://washingtonindependent.com/78105/romneys-no-apology-outlines-foreign-policy-for-fantasy-world

[OHdem10]

1. It is his turn. This is important in GOP circles. So far he is the

GOP candidate who can attract Independents and wayward Democrats.

Not promoting him just telling what GOP see.

[bluestateguy]

2. Excuse me, is he criticizing the president's foreign policy in a time of war?

THAT is unacceptable, not now, not when we have troops in the field--IN THE FIELD--to have our commander in chief second guessed. That gives direct aid and comfort to the enemy.

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3. .