Thursday, September 06, 2012

Romney Neocon Foreign Policy Advisers Push Romney to the Extreme Right

The job of president of the United States is sometimes said to be three-quarters foreign policy. Despite this, presidential elections are often decided on domestic issues. In 2008 many questioned President Obama’s foreign and national security policy chops, having never served in uniform and serving only one term in the Senate. However, after four years in the chair and many successes under his belt, these arguments don’t carry much weight in 2012. Mitt Romney doesn’t possess a resume long on these areas either. His overseas campaign tour was unimpressive at best, and he said virtually nothing about the military, national security, or foreign policy in his convention speech in Tampa. With so little to go on, it is hard to imagine what policies a Romney administration would implement.

One would be forgiven for mistaking a list of Romney’s foreign policy and security advisers for a list of officials from the Bush era. Simply change the heading. Condoleezza Rice, John Bolton, Cofer Black, Dan Senor, Robert Zoellick, and Michael Hayden were all appointees of George W. Bush and are all advisers to Mitt Romney. It is important to have experienced folks to advise you, but it is more important that they have the right kind of experience. If one sets aside the partisan will to defend the record of George W. Bush, it is clear to see that these advisers were the architects of policy that the majority of Americans came to roundly reject. The wide victory margin of President Obama in 2008 is proof as he ran partially on a platform opposed to their policies.

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