In a major foreign policy speech delivered in Lexington, Virginia, Romney criticized the Obama Administration for what Romney called passivity on the global scene. Over and over again, he faulted Obama for a lack of leadership and promised to restore American leadership.
“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. Unfortunately, that is exactly where we find ourselves in the Middle East under President Obama,” Romney asserted.
He criticized Obama’s approach to Iran. “Iran today has never been closer to a nuclear weapons capability,” he said. “It has never posed a greater danger to our friends, or allies and to us. And it has never acted less deterred by America, as was made clear last year when Iranian agents plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in our nation’s capital,” Romney said.
Romney then offered a few sentences describing in concrete terms what his policy toward Iran would be.
“I will put the leaders of Iran on notice that the United Stats and our friends and allies will prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons capability,” Romney said. The president has long ago said he would not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons. Romney’s new point was to say he wouldn’t even allow Iran to have the “capability” to build a nuclear weapon, a point some critics say is a distinction without a real difference.
Romney went on: “I will not hesitate to impose new sanctions on Iran, and will tighten the sanctions we currently have.” Under Obama, the scale of sanctions has been vastly increased and tightened so it wasn’t clear what Romney thought he was adding to the equation. Romney also said nothing about working with allies to increase the economic pinch on Iran. That multilateral approach has been at the center of Obama’s efforts. But Romney spoke only of US unilateral actions.
Next, Romney said, “I will restore the permanent presence of aircraft carrier task forces in both the Eastern Mediterranean and the [Persian] Gulf region.” Romney has been saying this for a year. But one aircraft carrier has been permanently stationed near the Persian Gulf since the 1990s and Obama earlier this year doubled that presence to two carriers, a development Romney has ignored. The permanent assignment of a carrier in the Mediterranean was stopped in the 1990s after the Cold War in part to free up a carrier for assignment near the Persian Gulf. A carrier in the Mediterranean has little meaning for military operations off Iran.
And Romney said, “I will deepen our critical cooperation with our partners in the [Persian] Gulf.” US relations with the Persian Gulf Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, suffered under Obama when the president was openly critical of the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Bahrain. In another part of his speech, Romney said he would do more to support democracy advocates in the Middle East. He didn’t explain how he would reconcile his pledge to deepen cooperation with Arab leaders who are not for democracy with his pledge to openly support democracy advocates. However, on February 1, 2011, Romney did explicitly call for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to “step out of the way” and open the door to a transition to democracy.
Romney also addressed the issue of democracy in Iran. “When millions of Iranians took to the streets in June of 2009, when they demanded freedom from a cruel regime that threatens the world, when they cried out, ‘Are you with us or are you with them?’—the American president was silent.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explained long ago that US diplomats asked leaders of the protests in Iran what words they wanted from Obama, and the Iranians said they wanted American silence for fear they would be tabbed by the regime as Yankee lackeys if Obama publicly endorsed them. Romney did not address that point.
As is the norm in political speeches from figures in all parties, Romney avoided nuance while firmly advocating American support for democracy advocates, standard American political rhetoric since the 18th Century. But he did not tackle such issues as the anti-monarchy forces in Bahrain that have legitimate grievances but may also support Iran and close the US naval base if they gained power. Such issues have rattled the American political debate since the 1790s when some Americans backed French revolutionaries who toppled the monarchy while others opposed them for their violence and bloodshed.
A major portion of Rom-ney’s speech was linked to the current outbreak of ant-American protests that have been seen in many Muslim countries. Romney said flatly: ”This latest assault cannot be blamed on a reprehensible video insulting Islam, despite the Administration’s attempts to convince us of that.”
He said Obama had actually increased the chances of war in the Middle East. “With Iran closer than ever to nuclear weapons capability, with the conflict in Syria threatening to destabilize the region, with violent extremists on the march, and with an American ambassador and three others dead, likely at the hands of Al-Qaeda affiliates, it is clear that the risk of conflict in the region is higher now then when the president took office.”